According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Disney's Buena Vista Music Group, which owns Hollywood Records and Lyric Street, is enjoying a boost having scored considerable recent chart success with the debuts from Rascal Flatts and Hilary Duff.
Rarely previously seen as a serious player - and generally bankrolled by Disney's music publishing operations (and, for some reason, the US rights to Queen's catalogue) - the Journal says the Group has just enjoyed one of its most financially successful years ever, and is keen to be seen as a proper label signing and developing new artists - with insiders pointing to Breaking Benjamin and Polyphonic Spree as a sign of that.
That said, it may be that Hollywood's real success is to come from transferring talent from television shows into the music sphere. Duff's music career was launched out of the Disney Channel show 'Lizzie McGuire', while insiders say the label's next big signing is Jesse McCartney, star of the WB show 'Summerland'.