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JOIN IN THE DISCUSSION: CAN FREE ONLINE MUSIC SURVIVE AND THRIVE? |
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ONLINE MARKETING MANAGER AT ROUGH TRADE RECORDS Overseeing & creating original content such as video and other bespoke assets to promote our music. Ensuring the Rough Trade website and our audience is kept up to date with all the latest news about signings, releases, tours, interesting goings on, music, videos, sales messages. CVs + covering letters should be sent to [email protected]. Please note this position is based in our London, UK office and the deadline for submissions is 15th July. -- HEAD OF DIGITAL AT COOKING VINYL The role requires a candidate with strong experience in all facets of digital including retail, marketing, mobile, advertising and promotion. Taking the leading role in developing and expanding the department, the candidate is expected to deliver exciting and targeted campaigns for the labels growing roster of artists as well as pushing the company forward as a whole with new digital initiatives. |
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![]() ALL CHANGE AT THE TOP OF PRS Confirming that Steve Porter would stand down as CEO with immediate effect, after two years in the job and ten years with the society, an official statement said, simply: "The boards feel that as the business faces new challenges, a new set of skills is required to take PRS For Music forward". Hmm, "a new set of skills". Ouch. It doesn't seem that Porter has a new job to go to, and PRS certainly don't have an immediate replacement for him, the top man's departure seemingly very sudden, and a surprise even for many PRS staffers. Still, the society did say a few nice things about their former chief exec, telling CMU: "Steve has made an invaluable contribution over his ten years of loyal service to PRS For Music. Steve joined in 1999 as Director of Finance, moving on to Executive Director of Finance, then Managing Director. Steve was appointed Chief Executive in April 2007, where his vision and drive has made a significant impact in improving many areas of the business". The MD of PRS's MCPS division, Jeremy Fabinyi, will fill in as CEO until a new boss man (or woman) can be recruited. Porter's sudden departure follows an eventful six months for the collecting society, which began with a rebrand - from the slightly tedious MCPS/PRS Alliance to the more snappy PRS For Music - and a concerted effort to gain a higher public profile. That aim was achieved almost immediately, though possibly not in the best of circumstances, when YouTube announced the collecting society's online streaming royalty rates were totally unrealistic and promptly pulled all premium music videos off its UK service. The squabble between the collecting society and the Google-owned video website continues, with most major artist videos still blocked to UK YouTube users. Elsewhere, Porter got to announce the society would make a record royalty payout to its members - the songwriters and publishers it represents - though he was forced to admit at a recent AGM that the slump in interest rates would hit the society's finances. There was also an albeit quiet fallout behind the scenes when PRS announced it was slashing some of its online royalty rates - possibly in a bid to placate the aforementioned YouTube - but EMI Publishing, one of the world's biggest owners of song copyrights, said it wasn't happy with the new rates, and announced PRS would no longer represent its catalogue in the streaming domain. With reports that execs from at least two other major music publishers had expressed concerns at the new streaming royalty rates, some wonder if that quiet squabble might have had a role in Porter's sudden departure - you do have to wonder how PRS could announce such radical (if sensible) royalty rate changes without three of the four publishing majors being on side. Anyway, whatever, it's certainly true that the licensing of performing rights is an increasingly important part of the music industry, and that increases the power and influence of the collecting societies, and especially PRS, which has always enjoyed a pretty wide remit in terms of the areas in which it represents its member's rights. Perhaps they really do need a different man at the top to capitalise on new opportunities and spearhead that growing influence. -------------------------------------------------- JACKO TOXICOLOGY RESULTS MAY BE READY THIS WEEK The head of the LAPD has also said he and his officers are awaiting those test results with interest. They are expected to show what drugs were in Jackson's system when he died, and may be tell us whether or not one of those drugs caused the cardiac arrest that killed him. If the singer did die from an accidental overdose, police will want to establish if that was caused by someone close to Jackson acting negligently, or even - as some are theorising - because someone deliberately bumped him off. Anyway, toxicology reports can take weeks to come back from the lab, but the LA coroner has said they already have some results back, and hope to have a full test report in by the end of the week, or, if not, early next week. Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter told reporters yesterday that his office would tell the media when a full set of test results were in, and would then make the results public the next day. -------------------------------------------------- JACKSON SENIOR: MICHAEL COULD NEVER HAVE DONE FIFTY SHOWS Speaking on the day the Jacko mega-residency should have begun, Jackson Senior told ABC: "I was worried about his health, because all the shows that I'm seeing, no artist can do that many shows back to back like that. So I knew Michael couldn't do all those shows without some rests in between". AEG have again insisted that Jackson was consulted on the length of the O2 residency. The promoter's top man told the press: "Our original agreement with Michael Jackson called for 31 shows. When the response to the initial announcement of 10 shows was so overwhelming, we went to Jackson's advisor, Dr Tohme Tohme, and asked if the singer would be willing to do more. Tohme told us that Jackson would perform fifty. Michael himself said he was motivated to embark on a record-setting run of concerts". In related news, yesterday some 600 Jacko fans amassed outside the O2 in London in recognition of the fact last night should have been the night of the very first Jackson comeback show. At 6.30pm, when doors would have opened, they observed a minute's silence. BBC reporter Michael Osborn said there was a "light-hearted, celebratory" mood outside the complex. -------------------------------------------------- LA MAYOR SAYS CITY WILL PAY FOR MEMORIAL POLICING COSTS As previously reported, there has been growing chatter in LA over the $1.4 million spent on police, traffic control and street cleaning before, during and after last week's memorial event at the city's Staples Center, especially given the city is already in a bit of a mess financially. Some suggest AEG, who covered the cost of the actual event in the arena, should cover the city's costs too, while the mayor's office set up a website where fans were encouraged to make donations to help pay for policing and the like. But LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has moved to try and stop all talk of parties other than the city covering the $1.4 million bill - even going as far as to tell journalists he never sanctioned the donations website, and criticising his staff for setting it up in the first place. Villaraigosa has been on holiday in South Africa since the memorial, so wasn't actually involved in the launch of the donations website (which quickly went offline due to servers not being able to cope with the number of people accessing it). Yesterday he called the donations site "ridiculous", and said he won't ask AEG, the Jacksons or members of the public for help covering police costs, adding that protecting public safety is the city's job, and that includes protecting public safety at big events like the Jackson memorial. It's not clear if that means monies so far donated via the website will now be returned. BB KING SUED BY FORMER MANAGER -------------------------------------------------- NAS V KELIS LATEST Now you might think twenty grand a month is pretty good going, but Kelis is pregnant with Nas' child remember, and no doubt plans to spend thousands every week on expensive pushchairs and other baby nonsense. And that's before you factor in designer nappies. A mere twenty grand a month isn't going to cover all that, which is why Kelis is demanding big bucks from Nas. As she said a few months back: "My survival is based on Nas' will at this time". But with only seventy grand a month spare, Nas says he simply can't afford to meet Kelis' demands. He's offering here five grand a month child support. So, as you can see, a desperate situation for all concerned. I do hope those judges can find some way to solve it all. Perhaps we could have a whip round. COXON LEAVES HOSPITAL TO PLAY FINAL BLUR GIG Albarn told the crowd: "Graham literally walked out of a hospital to come here. He's alright. This is our last gig". Coxon was apparently taken to hospital with food poisoning on Sunday afternoon. As a result, he arrived to play the show an hour and a half late. The local council gave permission for the band to play past the festival's curfew, but they were still forced to shrink their set down to 75 minutes, rather than the planned two hours. CORGAN EXPLAINS PUMPKINS He wrote: "The idea of identity is a strange one to tackle. For many years, I treated the idea of the band named The Smashing Pumpkins as an existential concept that existed away from my being and body. It was sort of 'over there', if you will. ... In the centre of any of it has been for me, speaking personally, my music. Yes, MY music. The music that came out of this being and body". However, he adds that this doesn't mean the band is just him. It's just he's the only one that really matters. He continued: "I will never say to you what people say to me all the time, which is that 'I am the band'. I am not 'the band', I am just the leader of the band. I only want people around me who respect me and my music. I think that is a healthy thing to want, and is consistent with the ideas of holistic living. What would you say about me if I worked with people who didn't care about me or my music? Isn't that a form of selling out?" So, er, that's all cleared up then. OASIS ANNOUNCE AUGUST GIG -------------------------------------------------- GALLOWS ANNOUNCE END OF YEAR TOUR 26 Nov: Northampton, Roadmender BEACHDOWN FESTIVAL CONFIRMS ACTS ALBUM REVIEW: Echaskech - Shatterproof (Just Music) Buy from iTunes ROUGH TRADE SETS UP IN TOP SHOP The plan should ensure music retail continues to have a presence on the high street other than in HMV, despite the collapse of Zavvi and Woolies, and the ever shrinking CD departments in shops like WH Smith. It's also good news for the indie music retail sector, Rough Trade being proudly independent both in terms of ownership but also in terms of the music it stocks and champions. Rough Trade bosses say their partnership with Top Shop is based on their belief there is still much mileage to be had from physical music product. Certainly the Rough Trade Retail Group is doing rather well, despite CD sales being in decline for years, and many of the bigger CD sellers now out of business. The owners of what is now the UK's largest music-only store, Rough Trade East in London, reported a turnover of £2.1 million last year, and increased revenues year on year by 30% in the first quarter of this year. Confirming the Top Shop tie up, Rough Trade Retail Group director Stephen Godfroy told the Financial Times: "[This decision] supports Rough Trade's belief that the CD format is as popular as ever [and] that it is largely the poor high street retail of CDs that is to blame for declining sales on this format". The first Rough Trade outlet will appear in Topman's Oxford Street store as part of an expansion and modernisation programme, scheduled for completion in October. TERRA FIRMA LOOK TO RENEGOTIATE EMI'S CITIBANK COMMITMENTS The Times reports that Terra Firma is trying to renegotiate its terms with US bank Citigroup, the money lender who lent the private equity group much of the cash needed to buy EMI two years ago. That deal left the Terra Firma-owned EMI with large debt commitments to the bank, who in turn had originally hoped to sell on a lot of the debt to share the risk, plans that were scuppered by that thing they call the credit crunch. According to the broadsheet, Terra Firma is trying to persuade Citigroup to make another £300 million available in cash to prop up the EMI Group, and also to write off about £500 million of EMI's debts, all of which are attached to the major's recorded music business. Insiders say the talks are at a very early stage, and Citigroup is almost certain to say no to that request, though experts point out the bank can't afford to let the music firm collapse because - in its current state - any forced sale of the major is unlikely to bring in anywhere near the kind of money that Citigroup is owed. As previously reported, Terra Firma itself has had to inject cash into EMI, mainly to help it meet its Citigroup loan repayment commitments, and the private equity firm wrote down the value of its investments mainly because of the music firm's continued woes. Citigroup probably will ultimately play ball to help the private equity firm keep EMI afloat, though as both finance firms continue to face new bills associated with the music company, you can't help thinking that a quick-win sale would be attractive to both parties if a takeover offer was put on the table. Warner Music and its US-based private equity backers are surely still keeping an eye on developments at their rival and long-term merger suitor. -------------------------------------------------- ELIO CONFIRMED BY C&BINET, SAYS SOME STUFF The EMI man has been giving his thoughts about the state of the music industry ten years on from the arrival of the original Napster, following confirmation he will take part in the first big Creativity And Business International Network conference, or c&binet for short, which will take place somewhere in Hertfordshire in October. This, in case you wondered, is the big networking bash for the creative industries, which was set up by former Culture Minister Andy Burnham who kept on saying it was going to be like a cultural version of Davos, not realising that to most people in the creative industries 'Davos' is just a misspelling of The Doctor's biggest foe, and not a big annual Alpine shindig for credit crunch causing capitalists. Anyway, here's what Elio wrote: "Britain's creative businesses are world leaders when it comes to nurturing creative talent and working with innovative artists, but we must complement our artists' creativity with our own skills in innovation. That means listening to the desires and needs of consumers and delivering new products and services that they want to buy". He continues: "Looking at the music industry, which has become something of a bellwether for other media businesses, we have a situation where 70% of music consumption is digital and yet only about 20% of music company revenues are derived from digital. Music is in demand and the demand is growing all the time, but we've clearly lost touch with our consumers. I passionately believe that if we listen to our consumers, this gap will become our opportunity. I very much look forward to hearing the views of creative industry leaders at the c&binet forum and, of course, those of government who have a crucial role in creating an environment where both technology companies and content investors will thrive". So that's nice. There's more about c&binet at www.cabinetforum.org. The boss of Universal Music owners Vivendi, Jean-Bernard Levy, has also been confirmed as a speaker. THE KIDS AREN'T FILE-SHARING SO MUCH, APPARENTLY Leading Question's annual survey of 1000 music fans found that less respondents were file-sharing less now than just over a year ago - 17% said they accessed music via unlicensed file-sharing networks at least once a month, compared to 22% when a similar survey was done in December 2007. Interestingly, the biggest drop off in file-sharing usage was among 14-18 year olds, a group in which 42% were file-sharing a year ago, compared to 26% now. Needless to say, the growth of streaming music services, and the high-spec broadband connections needed to use them, is partly behind the declining interest in file-sharing. 65% of teens now say they use streaming music services at least once a month. Though the expansion of a la carte download stores - and probably the introduction of MP3 as the default format for these stores - has also seemingly had an impact. In fact overall more respondents in this survey were buying single track downloads than getting content via P2P (19% versus 17%). Commenting on the survey, Music Ally top man Paul Brindley told CMU that record companies and government need to recognise fast moving trend changes when considering their policies towards online piracy, saying: "File sharing is a moving target, so industry and government policies need to recognise this. It's already being somewhat displaced by other means of accessing music for free. Some are licensed, many are not licensed and some involve a bit of both. Kids find services like YouTube much more convenient for checking out new music than file-sharing. But even YouTube can become a source of piracy with some kids ripping YouTube videos and turning them into free MP3 downloads." -------------------------------------------------- MYSPACE TO REPOSITION AS AN ENTERTAINMENT DESTINATION An increasing number of industry experts - well, me if no one else - have been saying that MySpace, having lost the battle to be the uber-social network to Facebook (and possibly Bebo and Twitter), should capitalise on its one continued area of dominance - it is still the social network of choice for artists wanting a simple platform to connect with fans - and make itself the website where people connect with bands, comedians and celebs they like, rather than with each other. And it seems that is where the new management at the former social networking giant are planning on taking the web service. Certainly Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp owns MySpace of course, has given that indication by telling the Wall Street Journal that MySpace should be repositioned "as an entertainment portal" where "people are looking for common interests". With much of the old guard management cleared out at MySpace, many are now expecting that shift in focus to be formalised, and to become increasingly apparent on the website itself. Such a repositioning will, of course, make the MySpace Music proposition even more important. It has to be said, despite general panning from critics, the revamped music streaming service run by MySpace in the US has been gaining momentum among young music fans over there. MUSIC TYPES IN THE GUARDIAN'S MEDIA 100 Some music types also appear in the 100, some in the top ten. For starters Apple's Steve Jobs and Jonathan Ive are arguably only at number four because of the success of their music enterprises, meanwhile Sony exec Simon Cowell represents the music business proper in the top ten rated as he is as the seventh most powerful media man, even if at least half that power comes from his TV franchises rather than his music company. The next highest rated music person is also arguably really an IT geek - Spotify's Daniel Ek is a new entry at 28. Then you get Universal Music International chief Lucian Grainge at 33, UK Music man Feargal Sharkey at 56, artist manager Jonathan Shalit at 71, 'X-Factor' judge and Girl Aloud Cheryl Cole at 76 and American pop sensation Miley Cyrus at 91, for reasons of which I am not sure. TOTAL ROCK WORLD ALBUM CHART 1. Green Day - 21st Century Breakdown (Warner Bros) BEATLES SIGNING FLASHMOB THINGY -------------------------------------------------- BLACK EYED FERGIE WANTS TO GET CLEAN She told Marie Claire: "I wasn't trying to be a role model with 'The Dutchess'. But suddenly, seeing little girls in the audience with their moms made me think about what I do on stage a little bit more. I had to watch my mouth, because it can be filthy. It changed things for me". -------------------------------------------------- LILY ALLEN ON TOPLESS PICS AND PEREZ The two have exchanged words in the past, and now Hilton has said this, on his site: "More known for her outrageous behaviour than her music, Lily Allen continues with her 'antics'. The hard-pAArtying Brit goes topless in the new issue of i-D magazine. Why? Well, why not??? We've already seen 'em before - a lot!" The singer responds: "Just saw Perez's views on my topless i-D pics. It may come as a surprise but I'm completely comfortable with getting them out. Tits are tits. I wish mine were as big as Perez Hilton's though". Of course, there's a difference between having your tits out because you just feel natural and unashamed about it, and specifically getting your tits out in front of a camera for a magazine. -------------------------------------------------- KINGS OF LEON SPAT AT T IN THE PARK The Sun quote a source as saying: "He was livid about the sound and took out his anger on stage without considering the consequences. His guitar is now ruined. The crowd were oblivious to the sound difficulties but the Kings want every show to be perfect. When they came off stage tempers flared and they were effing and blinding at each other. It was really nasty before their tour manager stepped in. They were even threatening to pull out of Oxegen". -------------------------------------------------- REVEREND MCCLURE ON BECKHAM AND IRAQ Anyway, telling The Mirror that he believes celebs have a responsibility to use their fame for good, McClure said: "If David Beckham had of spoken out about Iraq it wouldn't have happened, I honestly believe that hand on heart, or Britain certainly wouldn't have got involved. Beckham's cultural gravitas was as such in that period that if he'd have gone, 'I don't want this war in Iraq, it's an awful thing, we should not do it', it wouldn't have happened, the public would've gone mad against it. But because he kept his gob shut, and everybody else did, it happened, we sleepwalked our way there". You know, back in the day, I used to have a degree of sympathy for the viewpoint that celebrities should leave politics to the politicians who know what they are talking about. Especially the stupid celebrities. But the more I see of the greedy, career focussed clowns that are actually running the country, the more I think that they don't know much about politics either. So come on, celebrities. Use your superpowers for good. With great power, comes great responsibility. Stan Lee said it, so it must be true. |
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SUBSCRIPTIONS>> CMU Daily is a free daily e-bulletin for people working in the music industry and music media, delivered direct to your PC each morning. If you want to stop receiving this e-bulletin click the 'unsubscribe' button below and follow the instructions. If any of your colleagues want to receive the CMU Daily tell them to email their name, company, job title and email to [email protected]. If you would like to recieve the CMU Daily as a text email, send a blank email from the email address you are registered at to [email protected]. MEDIA PEOPLE>> If you are looking for an independent quote on anything to do with the music business, or you need someone to come on your TV or radio show and talk music business, then we can help. There's nothing we don't know about. Email requests to [email protected] or call 020 7099 9050. CMU is published by and (c) UnLimited Media - www.unlimitedmedia.co.uk Send news stories to [email protected]. If we don't respond directly, we do apologise, only we get sent hundreds of emails a day and don't have time to respond to every one of them. However we do check every email sent to the musicnews email address, and do pull out stories that we feel are relevant to our readers. Send CDs for review to CMU, UnLimited Media, 221-222 Shoreditch High Street, London, E1 6PJ. |
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