Wayne's World » Michael Jackson

Numbers Belie Sony Music’s “Success”

Wayne Rosso — Fri, 27 May 2011 19:08:45 +0000

Separated at birth?

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 was originated by third parties, licensed product or deceased artists, most notably Glee, Susan Boyle, Jackie Evancho, Adele, and Michael Jackson.

Now we know it was BS.

Sony Music released its annual numbers the other day and showed a decline in revenues of 9.9% in the fiscal year ended March 31. Things got even worse in final quarter of the fiscal year. Sony Music’s fourth quarter revenue dropped 12.9% while its operating income was unchanged at $46 million. Sony blamed the problem on the “continued contraction of the physical music market”, but Billboard’s Glenn Peoples sees it more like the “Michael Jackson Factor”. According to Peoples, “One reason for Sony Music’s decline in annual revenue was the death of Michael Jackson in 2009. In the U.S. alone, Jackson’s catalog sold 8,285,000 albums in 2009, the year of his death, according to Nielsen SoundScan. In 2010, sales dropped to 2,118,000 units, 405,000 of which were the new “Michael” album released in December. That’s a drop of 6,167,000 albums.”

However there are some bright spots for Stringer, Barnett & company. Bob Dylan just turned 70 and really, how much longer has he got?

Fredo Goes Fishing

Wayne Rosso — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 15:09:18 +0000

Who's sitting behind you?

As you’re probably aware by now, Sony Music Label Group CEO Rob Stringer was awarded the Fredo Corleone Award for Moron of the Month last week based mainly on his interview with The Hollywood Reporter’s Shirley Halperin (my new favorite reporter–you go girl!). Unfortunately for Stringer, it looks as though the nickname may have stuck.

In today’s New York Daily News (average daily circulation of 573,051), columnist Frank DiGiacomo ran a story titled “Sony Music Label Group chairman Rob Stringer is dubbed ‘Fredo’ to brother Howard’s Sonny: insiders“. DiGiacomo cites Wayne’s World for awarding Stringer this month’s Fredo honors after learning that Sony staffers use the very same moniker when referring to him. It’s starting to look like Rob may also be turning into the Rodney Dangerfield of the music business.

Oy Vey!

The Daily News goes on to say that “a Sony insider defends Stringer, noting that ‘he’s got the No.1 album’ (Susan Boyle) ‘and the No. 1 single’ (from Glee) on the charts now”. As I have pointed out in a previous post here, “it has also been reported that had Michael Jackson not conveniently passed away, Stringer’s numbers would have been completely down the toilet. He has very little to brag about, unless you count Glee and Susan Boyle as the label’s future. Makes one think that Neil Diamond may meet an untimely demise leading to a career resurgence. It would certainly boost billing.”

[Truth be told, Stringer's fingerprints are nowhere to be found on either of these projects from a creative perspective. The Susan Boyle album is licensed from Simon Cowell's SYCO productions and Glee, of course, is a product of the hit Fox television show.]

Curiously this very same Sony insider probably conveniently planted the same item in yesterday’s Hits Magazine on the Monday following Stringer’s Friday win over Guy Hands and Junior as The Moron of the Month. The item reads:

HE’S GOT THE WORLD ON A STRINGER: Standing strong in the midst of a media hiccup, Sony Music Chairman Rob Stringer will have the two top albums on tomorrow’s HITS sales chart with Susan Boyle and Jackie Evancho, a fine return on his mega-deal with Simon Cowell. The latest Glee cast album will also debut in the Top 10, with 150k, testament to his TV savvy And don’t forget the new posthumous Michael Jackson collection, coming on Dec. 14, either. That’s keeping your eyes on the prize. (11/22p)

Pretty timely stuff, huh? Looks like Stringer has the Sony corporate PR department in full tilt damage control mode. Good luck with that, fellas.

The Show Must Go On

Wayne Rosso — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 07:30:07 +0000

In case you haven’t heard, Michael Jackson died recently, leaving behind a lot of debts, a custody battle over his kids, an estate that must look like a rubic cube and AEG Live holding the bag. I’ve know Brandon K (Randy) Phillips, president of AEG Live, for 30 years, when he was a piss ant manager representing the likes of Meadowlark Lemon. In 1992 The New York Daily News reported that Randy, when he was co-managing Rod Stewart (at the time Rod was a huge concert draw) had been skimming concert tickets from Rod’s shows and selling them to ticket brokers and pocketing the cash.

Well, its been reported that about 25% of the fans who bought tickets to the O2 shows in London are keeping their tickets as keepsakes instead of getting refunds. Go figure. And Randy recently publicly stated that in addition to the fabulous wealth of video they have from the rehearsals and other shit will be released to help make up for AEG losses. And there was talk of a tribute concert.

Well there turns out to be a little more to it. According to a friend of mine who is very close to Randy, all of this tacky shit will still leave a $30-$35 million shortfall for AEG that Randy has been ordered to fill. So the latest grand plan is to actually take this “tribute concert”, which is basically a clone of last week’s MJ memorial service, on tour! The funeral hits the road. My only question is will Randy schlep the corpse around with the show?

Tacky tacky tacky.