If you’ll recall, in my post yesterday I made reference to Lyor Cohen’s platinum-lined golden parachute and his claim that Warner pays big bucks to attract and retain “the very finest, most seasoned, most creative, thoughtful, transformative” executives in the business, the same guys who have lost hundreds of millions of dollars for the company yet seem to keep personally profiting from their “creativity”....
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The game is on. Citi has started preparing the final papers for the auctioning of EMI. The bidding floor is expected to be $2.5 billion, according to a report last week in The Wrap by Johnnie L. Roberts, with at least half a dozen buyers readying offers. Of course Len Blavatnik’s name is the first that pops up when speculating about prospective bidders, but...
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I hate saying I told you so, but I told you so. Last week it was first reported here that the new free iCloud music locker service would focus on only tracks purchased at iTunes. A couple of months ago it was also first reported here that Apple would be charging about $25 a year for a locker service. Right on both accounts, but...
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A new rumor is circulating about the features, or lack of them, of Apple’s soon to be launched music cloud service. The word is that the service will only store tracks purchased from iTunes as opposed to a users entire music collection. With the caveat that this is just rumor at this point and not completely verified, it makes sense given the label’s paranoia...
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Over the last 8 or 9 months we’ve been inundated with hype about how “hot” Sony Music has been under the leadership of Rob Stringer and partner Steve Barnett. Notice that there’s no mention of the other partner, Rick Rubin, who has suddenly become invisible. Of course, as I’ve pointed out many times in the past, the Stringer/Barnett supposed success has come from product that...
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Now that Warner Music has been sold the next big event will be the imminent sale of EMI Music. Most observers assume that Access Industries, the new owner of Warner, and CEO Junior Bronfman will go after EMI. The conventional wisdom is that the savings resulting from a combined Warner-EMI would be substantial enough to significantly increase the value of the merged entity. The...
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There have been several analyses of last week’s purchase of Warner Music by Len Blavatnik’s Access Industries, the best of which is Ed Christman’s Billboard piece that ran on March 6. Christman says the deal was good for both sides. Junior most likely gets to keep his job since his close pal Len bought the company. They’ll probably go after EMI, which Junior has...
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Billboard Magazine reported last night that Google would be finally be launching its long anticipated music locker service today—without major label licenses. As you probably know, the news of Google’s intentions to follow Amazon’s lead and bypass the typical music industry tsuris was first reported here a few weeks ago. The Billboard story cites sources that say Sony and Universal were the problem children...
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A friend was strolling down Madison Avenue the other day when he noticed a chauffer-driven Maybach parked outside 555 Madison Ave, the building that houses Sony Music’s annex across the street from the mother ship. Soon to be formally crowned CEO Doug Morris has been given a temporary office at 555 until July 1 when he moves over to the corner office suite on...
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