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Business News Week In Five
The music business week in five – 27 Jul 2012
By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 27 July 2012
So, another busy week in EMI developments then. But could we be nearing the end of this saga, in Europe at least, with a set of bold asset-sale promises enabling a speedy all clear from European Commission regulators? Or will this story push all the way to its September deadline? That remains to be seen. This is the last Week In Five until September, so perhaps when we return Universal/EMI will be a done deal already. Needless to say, you’ll get all the updates in CMU each day, and don’t forget you can plot developments on our EMI sale timeline here. And now this week’s big stories…
01: Universal pondered over what divestments to propose to secure regulator approval for its EMI deal in Europe. The major has until next Wednesday to formally propose concessions to overcome concerns expressed by European Commission regulators over the big acquisition. That mainly means pledging to sell off bits of EMI. Up to 20 parties have now apparently come forward expressing an interest to buy some of the British major’s assets, including BMG, which is interested in the all important Parlophone archives.
Various independent sector execs have now confirmed their support for the Universal/EMI deal, providing UMG boss Lucian Grainge sticks by his commitment to offload EMI assets to indie label bidders. Though not all indie types are convinced – Bella Union’s Simon Raymonde, Panegyric’s Declan Colgan and AIM’s Alison Wenham reaffirmed their opposition this week – while Beggars chief Martin Mills says the deal should be blocked, but if it isn’t, artists should have the right to buy back their catalogues from the combined major before any other asset sale takes place. CMU Timeline
02: HTC sold half its stake in Beats back to Dre and Iovine, meaning the phone maker now owners just over a quarter of the headphone and music services company, which recently acquired streaming platform MOG. HTC said that selling shares back to Beats’ founders was a “realignment” to allow more rapid growth for the young company. Morgan Stanley called the arrangement “puzzling”. CMU report | Reuters report
03: Pop celebs called for more government action on piracy, in an open letter to David Cameron. Sort of using the Olympics as an excuse to speak – “as the world’s focus turns to the UK this summer” – Andrew Lloyd-Webber, Elton John, Simon Cowell, Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend, Brian May, Roger Taylor, Robert Plant, Professor Green and Tinie Tempah were among the artists calling on the PM to get a move on with enacting the anti-piracy bit of the 2010 Digital Economy Act (three-strikes etc), while also suggesting that search engines – by which they really mean Google – should be made to do more to police the distribution of unlicensed content online. The letter preceded new stats released by the New Zealand record industry this week, that claimed that the three-strikes system enacted there has cut file-sharing. Letter report | New Zealand report
04: Amazon accounted for a fifth of UK entertainment sales, according to the latest figures from Kantar Worldpanel. In the last quarter, Amazon grew its market share by 3.2% year on year, meaning it now accounts for 21.1% of entertainment product sales, giving it quite a lead over HMV, which now accounts for 16.6% of sales, down from 17.4% in the same period a year earlier. CMU report | Retail Week report
05: Melvin Benn said he was planning to reinvent the Big Chill festival, which was cancelled this year. The Festival Republic chief admitted that competition from the Olympics was only part of the reason why Big Chill 2012 was canned, adding that he felt the event needed an overhaul, maybe even changing its name in 2013. CMU report | BBC report
And that’s your lot. If you’re into Olympic things, enjoy all the sporty shenanigans, corporate brand controlled festivities and Danny’s big bash. If not, good luck avoiding all that. May I suggest you join me in Edinburgh, where the annual August festival is so flippin big, Olympic nonsense is unlikely to invade your consciousness (follow www.ThreeWeeks.co.uk for more on all that)?
Chris Cooke
Business Editor, CMU
