Lucian Grainge and Universal Music's surprise acquisition of EMI Music big-footed the competition. Now Warner Music, desperate to stay alive after posting huge losses, is in talks with Sony for a distribution deal. The once prestigious super hip label is now an embarrassing shadow of its former self, the caretakers having sullied a legacy...
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Lucian Grainge has made a very smart move by bringing Don Ienner into the tent. What could it mean for the "new " EMI?
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Industry sources tell me that Sean Parker is working furiously behind the scenes with Ron Burkle’s Yucaipa Companies to put together a winning bid for EMI. According to insiders, Parker really wants this to happen. The main competition seems to be Junior Bronfman, who’s new duties at Warner Music seem to consist solely of trying...
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When Warner Music announced that Junior Bronfman was getting kicked upstairs and being replaced as CEO by sexagenarian Stephen Cooper, a turnaround specialist and long-time Blavatnik associate, could mark the beginning of the end for Junior as well as the entry of yet another non-music industry guy in a top position. The reports have...
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Lawyers for EMI are confident that they will prevail in their lawsuit against Michael Robertson’s MP3Tunes, according to well-informed sources. The label also believes that they will get a ruling on the case fairly soon, though Robertson has heard nothing indicating an imminent decision from the courts. A reason for this optimism on the...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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