So, yes, back to MIDEM in Cannes, and things kicked off yesterday with a major label representative on home turf, though it was the first time Jean-Bernard Levy, the CEO of Universal Music's French parent company Vivendi, had actually addressed the annual music conference.
And, despite the continued doom and gloom in the recorded music part of the business - illustrated by those IFPI figures last week that global record sales were down 10% - Levy chose to be upbeat in his keynote address, though, as parent CEO of the one major record company that is actually doing very well for itself thank you very much, that possibly wasn't a surprise.
Levy touched on several topics in his 30 minute address - Universal's '360 degree business' ambitions, their acquisition of BMG Music Publishing, DRM and interoperability, the future of the CD and even developments over at rival EMI.
Of note was his opinion that the CD will continue to play an important role in music-ville for quite some time to come, despite its undeniable decline in favour of digital. And also his thinking that interoperability in the digital domain should remain an issue of concern - even if the adoption of DRM-free MP3 by the majors makes the conflicting technologies used by different IT players less problematic for consumers in the short term. The music industry, he said, should continue to pressure IT types to make competing digital music services and players as interoperable as possible.
On his own company, he stressed that Vivendi - which offloaded many of its other entertainment assets during that financial meltdown a few years back - was not considering selling its music business which, he said, was in good health under the leadership of Doug Morris. Should 69 year old Morris choose to retire, he added, a management structure was in place to ensure the market leader major continued to operate successfully, though he added there were no plans for Morris to stand down, and would not speculate as to a possible successor.