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Not Really Roger, Let's Take Another Look
June 17, 2011
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"I can prove anything by statistics -- except the truth."
-- George CanningThis week on his Showbiz411 website Roger Friedman (who previously wrote the Fox411 entertainment column from 1999 to 2009) wrote an article titled 'Lady Gaga Falls to Number 2, Sales Drop Another 38%'. ( http://tiny.cc/mrxyr )
I read it and thought yet again how badly some journalists who pretend to know so much, can actually write something so poorly put together. Then again, that seems to happen a lot these days thanks to the untold number of Internet bloggers who post alleged facts that we later find out aren't facts at all.
But back to Roger. He starts by saying "It looks like Lady Gaga's Amazon sale really exhausted her audience. "Born this Way" sold only 105,000 in its second week. It dropped 38% from the previous week according to hitsdailydouble.com."
Yes, I suppose a lot of her audience was "exhausted" since over one million of them rushed online and to retail to buy the album the minute it became available. But seriously Roger, it "sold only 105,000" in its second week? Well, the album was #1 for two weeks, and now it's #2 after three weeks. It sold over 150,000 in its second week at retail after the 1.1 million when it stayed at #1, so this is week three. Even Billboard notes that on their Top 200 Album Chart. And though it sold "only 105,000" it more than doubled the sales of everything else in the top 20.
Roger goes on to say, "This is quite stunning since some Universal record execs I spoke to on Monday thought they'd hit at least 125,000." Quite stunning? Is the sales figure you quote completely accurate? Does it include all physical and digital sales for the week? Even if it was, 20,000 units less than what might have been forecast in week three isn't that significant for an album already over one million in sales.
The very fact the article insinuates that a 38% drop in sales after three weeks is a sign of trouble is completely inane. Based on that math, I guess Warner Brothers Film Division must be very upset since 'The Hangover Part 2' dropped 64.5% to $43,633,172 in box office receipts after earning $122,816,593 the week before. But, of course Warner's isn't upset at all. In just 21 days of release the film has grossed $221,317,031. It took 'The Hangover' a whole lot longer to reach that number, and 'The Hangover Part 2' will out-gross it domestically and worldwide when all is said and done.
Roger writes, "The loser is indeed Lady Gaga and Interscope. 'Born this Way' isn't going to have 'legs.' Instead of spending a year or six months on the charts, it's headed to an eight-week flameout."
Gee, if it flames out after just eight weeks and outsells her previous album I don' think Lady GaGa or Universal will care one bit. With an album that debuted at #1 in over 22 countries in its first week, I have a hard time believing anybody in the music industry would look at the album's retail performance after a few weeks and say "uh oh ... trouble." Nope. Just about every label executive at every label in the world would love to have a "Born This Way."
Roger also says "But "Born this Way" has already gone through four singles, and none of them except the title track ever got breakthrough attention."
Four singles? "Born This Way," "Judas," and "Edge of Night" make three ... is there another I'm missing? And if I am, will anybody reading this please tell me? (By the way, "Edge of Glory" is number 6* on Billboard's Hot 100 next week and rising)
As I said in the newsletter two weeks ago" Lady GaGa ended up selling over 1.1 million copies of her new album "Born This Way" in its first week of release as it debuted at #1 on the Billboard Top 200 Album Chart. The #2 album that debuted on the chart that week, Brad Paisley's 'This Is Country Music' sold 150,00+. So, the difference in sales between the #2 album and Gaga was tenfold. To truly understand just how BIG the Lady GaGa number was, if you added up the sales of all the remaining albums in the Top 25, they didn't equal the 1.1 million GaGa sold."
Anytime ANY album has such an impact at retail, it drops faster in its second, third, fourth weeks at retail. All established multi-Platinum artists sell faster behind big success stories. (e.g., Taylor Swift as well)
When all is said and done, its likely "Born This Way" will equal global sales of "The Fame" and maybe even outsell it in some territories.
You see, Roger, when one really does the homework, the story can be quite different.
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THE 'A-SIDE' - TRACK 2
DVD SALES STILL SLIDING AND NOW COME THE JOB LAYOFFS
Warner Bros. and Lionsgate just laid off 50 and 10 workers, respectively, from their home entertainment units because of a massive drop in DVD sales.
They join other companies similarly hit, including 20th Century Fox (minus 22 jobs), and Paramount Pictures and Disney, which are both expected to eliminate employees. The number of Disney workers is expected to reach 250, possibly by early next week.
Read more in the Los Angeles Times here: http://tiny.cc/8p4v3
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THE 'A-SIDE' - TRACK 3
APPLE'S iCLOUD LIKELY TO GENERATE REVENUES FROM iTUNES
Forty-six percent of iTunes users surveyed by The NPD Group for its upcoming "iTunes User Report" expressed interest in signing up for a paid cloud music service. "It's notable that even before Apple's announcement this week, nearly half of iTunes users had some interest in a paid cloud-based music service. As device penetration continues to grow, and as consumers demand easier access to their music from multiple devices, we can expect interest in these services from Apple and others to continue to rise."
Read the rest on GigaOm here: http://tiny.cc/h7zi5
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THE 'A-SIDE' - TRACK 4
IS FACEBOOK SLOWING? MAYBE, MAYBE NOT
Facebook's progress towards reaching a goal of 1 billion monthly active users is slowing, as the number of users in both the United States and Canada have dropped in recent months, Inside Facebook reports.
"Most prominently, the United States lost nearly 6 million users, falling from 155.2 million at the start of May to 149.4 million at the end of it," Insider Facebook notes. "This is the first time the country has lost users in the past year."
"That's not a huge loss, and not the first time Facebook growth has appeared to waver," notes All Things D. "But no loss is good for a company close to going public, and definitely not if it becomes a trend." As Search Engine Land notes, "Even with dips in users and traffic from the USA and Canada, Facebook continued to grow globally with an overall increase of 11.8 users over May."
What's more, "Although these are headline-grabbing statistics, they are just a couple of months' data," the Financial Times writes. "It isn't yet a trend." "But big drops in the countries where Facebook first became popular can't be good news," writes Business Insider. "It suggests that there is a saturation point where people begin to burn out on the service." According to CNet: "The purported loss of users in early-adopting countries may reflect frustration with the company's ongoing effort to allay security and privacy concerns."
Read more on Inside Facebook here: http://tiny.cc/5xbgx
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THE 'A-SIDE' - TRACK 5
AND HP WANTS TO GET INTO THE CLOUDS AS WELL
According to Billboard.biz, "Hewlett-Packard is quietly making plans-again-for its own locker-based service. Multiple sources at the major labels report that the discussions are heating up."
Read the rest on Billoard.biz here: http://tiny.cc/bg23j
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THE 'A-SIDE' - TRACK 6
NEXTFLIX VS. CABLE TV
Though Netflix seems to deny it, "Cable and Netflix are competing for the same eyeballs, the same money and the same TV real estate, and the fight is getting tougher by the day," writes Janko Roettgers on Gigaom.
To support this argument, Roettgers presents evidence that includes a study showing that "Netflix users who stream the company's videos to connected devices are twice as likely to at least downgrade, if not outright cancel their cable TV subscription than they were just a year ago."
Read the rest on GigaOm here: http://tiny.cc/w4rt8
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THE 'A-SIDE' - TRACK 7
WARNER MUSIC'S BRONFMAN GETS MILLIONS FROM SALE OF WARNERS
Warner Music boss Edgar Bronfman Jr. is set for a $21.7 million payday -- including a $16.8 million "golden parachute" -- as a result of the company's pending $3.3 billion sale to Russian-born billionaire Len Blavatnik.
The parachute, which is subject to shareholder approval, consists of unvested stock options and restricted stock valued at $3.3 million and $13.6 million, respectively, which will vest as a result of the proposed sale. He will also pocket $4.88 million in vested stock options, which, along with the $3.3 million in unvested options, will net him $8.1 million in stock-option pay.
Read more here: http://tiny.cc/j1i8m
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THE 'A-SIDE' - TRACK 8
MORE WEBSITES OPTIMIZED FOR iPAD THAN ANDROID TABLETS
The lack of Web pages optimized for the mobile screen has been one of the biggest hurdles for mobile advertising. New research suggests that problem now extends to tablets, especially Android-powered ones. Among 200 popular sites, iPad has a higher recognition value.
Read the rest on MediaPost here: http://tiny.cc/90es5
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THE 'A-SIDE' - TRACK 9
COULD GOOGLE HAVE AN iPAD KILLLER IN STORE?
With the help of TV manufacturer Vizio, Google is all but guaranteed to take over the tablet market, insists tech blogger Robert Scoble. How? Slated to hit U.S. shelves by late July, Vizio's Android-supported will cost just $350 compared to the $500 Apple charges for an iPad. "There are a whole range of uses that don't need an iPad, but need a good tablet," Scoble explains.
"For instance, let's say you are outfitting a school with tablets and all you need is a good web browser at a very low cost? Vizio wins here. Apple doesn't." That's right, "This is how Android will take over the market share battle in tablets," asserts Scoble. "There are more of these uses than the ones people use iPads for. After all, how many schools need tablets? A whole lot."
Adds Scoble: "Thanks to this single tablet I can now see how Android is going to get the market share numbers it needs to get developers excited. But don't call it an iPad competitor, OK? At least not until there are a ton of great tablet-based apps, which there aren't today." Read the rest here on Scoble: http://tiny.cc/hatvt
And Now For Some News ...
The Music Industry Might Learn To Love The Enemy, Technology
THE ECONOMIST.COMIf they could, music executives would uninvent the Internet, and perhaps Apple as well. But technology, which has done so much damage to the recorded-music business, increasingly props it up.
Online music outfits such as iTunes, Spotify and YouTube bring in much less money than CD sales. But they produce far more precise, timely data. Every time a track is uploaded to or played on YouTube, every time it is sold by iTunes, streamed on Spotify, shared on a pirate network, liked on Facebook or tweeted about, it gives off a digital signal. A cottage industry has sprung up to process these signals and feed the results to the record companies.
Read more about it by clicking here.
The Story Behind NBC's Hit TV Show, 'The Voice'
THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTERThe Hollywood Reporter sat down with the executives, producers and talent who turned "The Voice" into fourth-place NBC's biggest hit in five years.
Among the revelations: The idea was born out of Simon Cowell's "Idol" exit.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Video Games Drop Big In May
HOME MEDIA MAGAZINE.COMU.S. game sales slid in May to $743.1 million, down 14% from $866.8 million last year, according to a report from market research company NPD Group. This past May was the lowest sales month since October 2006.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Apple Starts Selling An Unlocked iPhone
CNETApple has officially started selling an unlocked iPhone 4, CNET reported Tuesday. The multi-billion dollar company has listed both a 16GB and 32GB unlocked version of the smartphone on their online store, retailing at $649 for 16GB and $749.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Senate Approves Bill Making It A Felony To Stream Movies and TV
MPAA.ORGFilm and television makers, distributors and exhibitors today thanked the Senate Judiciary Committee for approving legislation that would classify the illegal online streaming of copyrighted content a felony, and bring it into line with other forms of content theft.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Nielsen Sez Online Viewers Watch Less TV (Duh!)
AP/YAHOO NEWSA recent Nielsen research report finds that Americans tend to watch less TV when they engage in more online video viewing. Overall TV watching was up 0.2% (22 minutes) per month per person over 2010.
Read more about it by clicking here.
'THE BIG MAN' SUFFERS STROKE:
Clarence Clemons, the famous saxophonist and "The Big Man" with Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, suffered a stroke this week. Early word is he was responding to treatment and improving.
CAROLE KING BIO COMING:
Latest to sign a book deal for their memoirs is legendary singer/songwriter Carole King, who has inked with Grand Central Publishing for her biography, titled after one of her most famous songs, Natural Woman. The book will come out in April 2012.
BUCKINGHAM READIES NEW SOLO LP:
Grammy winner, producer and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Lindsey Buckingham will release his sixth solo album, "Seeds We Sow," on Sept. 6.
PANDORA IPO PRICES GOES UP:
Pandora came out BIG, jumping more than 50% above the company's $16 price target. Shares started trading at $20 and jumped as high as $26 in the first hour before settling back to $23.
MACCA ADDS DATES:
Paul McCartney's On the Run tour has been extended to include shows at Detroit's Comerica Park on July 24th, Chicago's Wrigley Field on July 31st and the Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati on August 4th. McCartney has also added a second show at Yankee Stadium in New York City on July 16th.
SHAZAM BUY:
Shazam, the provider of a mobile music identification and discovery service, announced on Wednesday its first acquisition, with the purchase of Tunezee, a Silicon Valley-based provider of song lyrics.
SLY SEZ NOT GUILTY:
Sly Stone has pleaded not guilty to possession of cocaine in a Los Angeles court this week. Stone -- who has a history of drug abuse -- was arrested in April after police pulled over a van he was in for a minor traffic violation.
SPOTIFY LOCKS UP UMG:
European streaming music service Spotify has signed a licensing deal with Universal Music Group covering the U.S., leaving only Warner Music among the four major record labels to have not yet approved the service for distribution in the U.S.
BILLIE JOE TO BIG SCREEN:
Tom Hanks' production company Playtone Productions has announced that Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong will star as St. Jimmy in the movie adaptation of American Idiot, the stage musical based on the Green Day album of the same name.
iCLOUD SUES APPLE:
iCloud Communications, a voice overIP provider in Phoenix, is suing Apple for trademark infringement over the use of their name, in association with the company's new online storage service.
E-MUSIC INTO THE CLOUDS AS WELL:
Digital music subscription service eMusic plans to launch a cloud-based storage and streaming service later this year. eMusic CEO Adam Klein told Billboard the service will let subscribers upload songs they own, and stream them to multiple devices.
FACEBOOK VALUED AT 100 BILLION FOR STARTERS:
Facebook is expected to go public in the first quarter of 2012, at a valuation that could top $100 billion, CNBC reported.
NOT WINNING:
A Los Angeles Superior Court judge has declined to exercise jurisdiction over Charlie Sheen's $100 million lawsuit against Warner Bros. and Two and a Half Men co-creator Chuck Lorre, the case will likely be confined to a private arbitration.
The Music Industry Past, Present & Future, And The Internet I answer questions on EconTalk
I did an interview about the industry and the Internet at EconTalk with host Russ Roberts. Russ is also a professor of economics at George Mason University, blogs at Cafe Hayek, and has written three novels that teach economics. He's also the co-creator of the Keynes-Hayek rap video. (And if your understanding of the economic meltdown that occurred needs to be enlightened, this video will do it)
In the interview we talk about the evolution of the music industry, the impact of the digital revolution, and I give my reasons for believing in the virtues and potential of the Internet in enhancing the music industry. I point out, as I have many times here in the newsletter, that the internet allows numerous artists to make money from their music and it can enhance revenues from live performances by expanding an artist's base. We also discuss the challenges facing record companies and I suggest that the full potential of the Internet as a distribution channel has yet to be fully exploited. There's a lot of ground covered, but based on the comments already posted of those who have tuned in, they've enjoyed it.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Quotes of the week
"I feel like a walking cartoon most of the time."
-- Katy Perry, who voices the role of Smurfette in the upcoming movie 'The Smurfs', to USA Today. Well Katy, for starters stop wearing blue hair."Adele wants to be a more global artist. She's got a great voice, but it's impossible to pinpoint where she's from. Adele could be Italian. That happens when stars become world famous. In a sense, nationality goes out the window. "Born in the USA" by Bruce Springsteen. I heard it in a car in Spain and I felt like it was part of the culture there. A world hit, same as "Lola" or songs like "You Really Got Me," they all become part of the become part of the cloth. You lose your national identity."
-- Ray Davies, in the Wall Street Journal."I had an amazing time doing it and I loved it, but I have a lot other things happening, and it's going to come down to me making a choice of really what I want to do for the next year. We're not really at the breaking point of 'You have to make a decision right now!' I'm just really enjoying the time of just waiting and seeing."
-- Jennifer Lopez, on whether to re-up for "American Idol" next season, interviewed on BBC Radio 1. What "other things," J-LO? Your movie career is nowhere, and you aren't a big pop star anymore. Where else but on "Idol" can you get the attention you want?"I don't have a single song ready to go. People keep asking me when a new song or album is coming out, and I don't know what to say. Music is not my focus right now. It may be someday. It could happen next month or next year but right now it's not where it's at for me."
-- from Justin Timberlake in Playboy
The B-Side - 'Blips'
THE ONION (www.theonion.com) STORY OF THE WEEK:
'Green Lantern' To Fulfill America's Wish To See Lantern-Based Characters On Big Screen
Read the rest here and laugh: Click Here.
The Blogs
Check out Jerry Del Colliano's (the founder of INSIDE RADIO) daily blog, by clicking here: http://www.insidemusicmedia.blogspot.comWebsite
Check out attorney Ray Beckerman's website at: http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com where he prints news about the RIAA's ongoing activities
Smart Marketing Consulting Services
Smart Marketing Consulting Services has been in business sixteen years, and consults clients in the music, entertainment, attraction, media, and technology industry on branding, marketing, online exploitation, maximizing new media, and more.
"And the beat goes on, the beat goes on ... drums keep poundin' rhythm to the brain."
"Work is life, you know, and without it, there's nothing but fear and insecurity." -- John Lennon
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