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Reports Of The Industry's Demise Are Grossly Exaggerated
July 21, 2006
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"The truth is more important than the facts."
-- Frank Lloyd WrightThe music industry is going through tough times. We all know that, and it's been reported in almost all media for the past several years. Things are tough and they are going to get tougher, and the seas will get rougher before the industry rebuilds itself in whatever new model(s) will arise out of ongoing digital evolution.
But as difficult as these times are, I would still like to think anybody reporting in any well-established mainstream media about what's going on in the industry would do their homework before they tell their story in print or elsewhere.
This week I was surprised to see a story titled 'Record Biz Crisis: Top 20 Misses 750G...The top 20 pop albums sold fewer than a total of 750,000 CDs last week' by Roger Freidman on the FOX News website. ( You can read the article here. )
The article states: "The actual total was 738,211. The number includes 220,000 copies of a greatest hits singles collection from all the labels,
"Now That's What I Call Music! Vol. 22." Without "Now 22," regular releases came in around 500,000 copies."
Either Mr. Friedman failed Math in high school, or was using a calculator that wasn't working correctly. FACT#1: The 'Now That What I Call Music!Vol 22' collection sold just about 390,000 units. FACT#2: When I totaled the Top 20 CDs sales, I came up with a figure of almost 1.4 million, almost double what Mr. Friedman reported in his article. (These are the best sales figures I could get prior to receiving any SoundScan figures...but these figures are damn close to reality)
While I realize this story doesn't carry any great weight when measured against all the other important news and what's going on in the Mideast, not checking facts makes Mr. Friedman almost as irresponsible (in my opinion) as Dan Rather when he failed to check his sources and facts on the erroneous story CBS News aired about President George Bush's Air National Guard duty. Yes, the CBS story would have indeed been more important and a "heavy" one to break to the public...if it had all been factual. Of course we now know, the sources were not at all credible and forged documents were used to go with a story that later shook up the entire CBS news organization.
But the issue of being responsible in reporting facts, no matter what the content of a story, should be the basic foundation of any reporter's story. ( I think "All The President's Men" drove that home )
Mr. Friedman's article won't cause anyone in the industry to panic (although he makes it sound like everyone at any label is already in this state), and I hope anybody that read it laughed or scratched their heads and asked themselves: " Where did he get this bogus info from?"
As for me, I e-mailed the Fox News editors at large and told them it would be nice if Mr. Friedman printed a correction and checked his facts. (No response yet...I won't hold my breath for one either) Then I decided I'd write about it this week here in the newsletter.
Things are tough. But they aren't anywhere near as bad as some people would have you believe.
Socrates said: "I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance." At least he owned up to it Mr. Friedman.
Gracenote, Music Publishers In Lyrics Deal
U.S. digital entertainment company Gracenote on Thursday said it obtained licenses to distribute lyrics as music publishers mulled legal action against Web sites that provide them without authorization.
"When we first approached the publishers with this, they were excited. They thought lyrics had been an untapped resource for them and there's quite a bit of lyrics being taken for free on the Web," Ross Blanchard, Gracenote's vice president of business development, told Reuters in an interview.
Gracenote obtained the rights to the lyrics of more than 1 million songs from the North American catalogs of Bertelsmann AG's BMG Music Publishing, Vivendi's Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, jointly owned by Sony and Michael Jackson, peermusic and other publishers.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Where Indie Music Meets Mainstream Media
For those who produce commercials and television programs, finding the right background music is essential. And for the musicians who make the music, having their work used in a commercial or on a TV show soundtrack is a nice, sometimes lucrative, bonus.
Pump Audio, an online service that specializes in cataloging music by independent musicians and marketing it to producers, aims to make the path from indie recording to producer as smooth and speedy as possible. The company, based in New York's Hudson Valley, also has begun offering its service to amateur video makers who use the Internet to showcase their work.
Read more about it by clicking here.
YouTube Serves Up 100 Million Videos A Day
[ A couple of weeks ago, my commentary was titled, "You Tube, I Tube, We Can All Groove To You Tube." Now this news and more in the MTV atricle below]
YouTube, the leader in Internet video search, said Sunday viewers are now watching more than 100 million videos per day on its site, marking the surge in demand for its "snack-size" video fare. Since springing from out of nowhere late last year, YouTube has come to hold the leading position in online video with 29 percent of the U.S. multimedia entertainment market, according to the latest weekly data from Web measurement site Hitwise.
YouTube videos account for 60 percent of all videos watched online, the company said. Videos are delivered free on YouTube and the company is still working on developing advertising and other means of generating revenue to support the business.
Read more about it by clicking here.
MTV Eyes Its Own YouTube
Judy McGrath wants her YouTube. The MTV President used her keynote address and a question-and-answer session with reporters afterward at today's CTAM Summit to hint at several forthcoming MTV Networks announcements in the digital media space.
The company is looking globally to launch a service similar to YouTube, because "video is our expertise. ... We're looking at acquisitions and builders," Ms. McGrath told reporters. YouTube has created a "new definition of social video," she said, and that has been the biggest shift in media landscape in the last six months. "If you look at a chart [of the growth of user-generated content] it's like a hockey stick," she said.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Technologists Square Off On Net Neutrality
WASHINGTON--Two Internet pioneers dueled on Monday over whether proposed Net neutrality regulations supported by companies like Google and Amazon.com are the best way to prevent "abusive" behavior by broadband providers.
A debate here hosted by the Center for American Progress, a nonpartisan research institute that brags of challenging "conservative thinking," pitted Google Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf, who co-developed the Internet's backbone protocols and has emerged as a leading proponent of congressional antidiscrimination mandates for network operators, against Dave Farber a Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist widely considered to be a "grandfather" of the Internet.
Read more about it by clicking here.
CinemaNow Unveils Download-to-burn DVD Service
Online movie seller CinemaNow late on Tuesday unveiled a new service that allows customers to download a movie from the Internet and copy it onto a DVD that can be played on any standard DVD player.
The new, legal download-to-burn service marks a major step for Hollywood as its movie and television studios seek to offer movies and TV shows to consumers via the Web for playback on TVs and portable DVD players. The studios see digital movie downloads as generating new revenues from old titles, and CinemaNow aims to do just that.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Now You Can Rip CDs In Your Car
Chrysler raises the bar on in-car technology with the MyGiG: a 20GB hard drive embedded in the dashboard for ripping CDs and for storing navigation data. Included is a Gracenote lookup engine to provide artist, track, and title information; this is the first use of Gracenote in a new-car audio system in North America. (By the way, the Wall Street Journal reported that Gracenote may finally be legally allowed add lyrics to its other track information. It's about time!)
Read more about it by clicking here.
New Tricks For Old Broadcast Medium
Satellite radio reinvigorates the sound of entertainment
John Clay describes his job at XM in two words: "Radio heaven." Clay, the program director of the '70s channel at the satellite radio company, isn't alone in his fondness for his employer.
He sits at a table in XM's cafeteria with colleagues Pat Clarke, who oversees the '60s channel, and Kurt Gilchrist, the "Decades" channels senior program director, and the three trade war stories of their days in "terrestrial" radio (that is, the old-fashioned broadcast stations). They recall what they describe as short-sighted managers, corporate groupthink and obedience to ratings books.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Pandora's Music Box Inspires Fans
Internet radio service is gathering listeners as its founder tours the country meeting music lovers.
SAN FRANCISCO--Tim Westergren could be thought of as a modern-day Santa Claus with a bag full of compact discs you've probably never heard of.
The founder of Pandora, a 7-month-old, so-called music-discovery engine, Westergren travels from town to town, sharing his time and story with fans who, because of his service, say they've rediscovered a love of newfound music.
From every town he visits--places like New Orleans; Austin, Texas; Portland, Ore.; and Biloxi, Miss.--he carries back to his Oakland, Calif., headquarters a bag full of CDs given to him by local taste makers. Songs on those CDs make it into the Internet-based radio of Pandora, which in seven short months has acquired 2.5 million registered listeners largely by word of mouth.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Yahoo Sells Jessica Simpson Single Sans DRM
Yahoo announced Wednesday that it is selling Jessica Simpson's latest single in MP3 format--in other words, with none of the usual copyright protection coding.
Because the song, a party-pop track called "A Public Affair," has no digital rights management (DRM) protection coded into it, it will be compatible with just about every type of digital music player, from the iPod to the iRiver, as well as with film- and music-editing programs that may not have been able to read DRM-encoded files.
While MP3 music files are commonplace in search results of peer-to-peer networks where files can be copied and shared illegally, they're noticeably scarce among files sold by online music stores such as Yahoo, Rhapsody and Apple Computer's iTunes.
Read more about it by clicking here.
MTV CURSE? OZZIE AND SHARON NEXT?
The next couple to sign up for an MTV show documenting their eternal love does so at their own risk. Carmen Electra and Dave Navarro have announced that they are "amicably separating" after less than three years of marriage. Let's see how "amicable' it is when it comes to financial settlements.
BNA PICKS PICKLER
SAmerican Idol finalist Kellie Pickler signing a record deal with country label BNA Records and 19 Recordings. The blond belle is set to release her first single in September and her debut album drops Nov. 14--the same day as albums from Taylor Hicks and Katharine McPhee. TORY
PEOPLE ARE ALREADY TAKING BETS ON HOW LONG THIS ONE WILL LAST
Pamela Anderson announcing plans to wed Kid Rock on her official Website. "Yes. I'm finally getting remarried...it's been a whirlwind...spontaneous but well thought through." Well gee Pam...if it is indeed "well thought out", then it wasn't really spontaneous was it?
WELL THANKS FOR TELLING US...NOT THAT ANYONE WOULD EVER VOTE FOR YOU ANYWAY
Justin Timberlake telling London's Guardian that he would never want to be President of the United States because he's "done way too many drugs already."
THIS WEEK'S NON-EVENT NEWS AND WHO CARES ITEMS
ITEM#1 - In the August issue of her "O" magazine, Oprah Winfrey answers those gay rumors involving her and best friend Gayle King. Although she said she can see why people think they're an item because they're always together, she denied the two were a couple. Maybe the one person who really cared about this was Stedman. ITEM#2 - Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes' fellow Scientologist Leah Remini (and how many of us know who she is?) telling 'Us Weekly' that she met baby Suri weeks ago.
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER
The state of Arkansas is prepared to pardon Keith Richards for being a reckless driver, 31 years later. The state Parole Board on July 3 approved an application for clemency submitted on behalf of Richards, guitarist for the Rolling Stones, by Gov. Mike Huckabee. Huckabee has until 30 days from Tuesday to sign it, clearing Richards' record.
ASHLEE OBVIOUSLY DOESNT LIKE LIVING SO CLOSE TO HOME
Ashlee Simpson putting her $6 million Encino, California, pad on the market after living there for less than a year, People magazine reports. Accordingto Simpson, the place comes with semi-famous neighbors: "You can see my parents' house," she said.
MAYBE WEARING THAT COSTUME AND STILL HAVING TO SING "YMCA" FOR THE PAST 27 YEARS AFTER IT WAS A HIT CONTRIBUTED TO THIS
Ex-Village People cop Victor Willis pleading no contest Wednesday to drug charges.
COMING SOON!
- Tom Petty, Highway Companion & Revelations (7/25)
- New York Dolls, One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This (7/25)
- Five for Fighting, Two Lights (8/1)
- Christina Aguilera, Back to Basics (8/15)
- OutKast, Idlewild (8/22)
2006 Industry Conferences
Date Name Location CMJ October 31 - November 4 New York
Quotes of the week
"I want to prove myself as an artist, as a rapper and as a human being in society who goes through everything everybody else goes through."
-- Kevin Federline to USA Today. Really Kev? Then start by getting a REAAL job and try working for a living to pay your bills instead of living off your wife's millions."We really had fun together. I mean, she's not going to be having our child in Namibia, but we really enjoyed working with each other."
-- Luke Wilson, on his relationship with My Super Ex-Girlfriend costar Uma Thurman, to David Letterman."How creepy is this? A Dutch court has given approval for a new political party whose main goal is to lower the age of sexual consent from 16 to 12. Today Michael Jackson was seen shopping for wooden shoes."
-- Jay Leno
NARIP Information
NARIP (The National Association of Record Industry Professionals) promotes career advancement, education and good will among record executives. To find out more about this great organization, how you can join or attend their events, just go to: www.narip.com.
The B-Side - 'Blips'
RIN-TIN-TIN 2006: OGDEN, Utah -- A police dog that was left in a pickup truck with the engine running apparently knocked the vehicle into gear and ran down a woman who was walking to her mailbox. Mary F. Stone, 41, was expected to remain hospitalized with a fractured pelvis and tailbone until at least Friday, said her husband, Paul Stone.
The dog, a German shepherd named Ranger, had been left in the truck while its handler responded to a domestic disturbance call Tuesday, police Lt. Loring Draper said. The truck's engine was on so Ranger would have air conditioning.
Draper said Ranger must have hit the shift on the steering column, putting the automatic transmission into gear. As the truck slowly rolled forward, police officers yelled to Stone, but she couldn't get out of the way in time, he said.
ADS FOR DRAMAMINE AND OTHER ANTI-NAUSEA MEDICINES WOULD BE WELL-PLACED HERE: PHOENIX -- It's enough to make you sick -- barf bags with ads.
U.S. Airways will start selling advertising on its air-sickness bags. Airline spokesman Phil Gee said the company is looking for new ways to counter rising jet fuel and labor costs. Passengers will start seeing the ad bags in September.
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