Say it isn’t so

If you are like me, you have been hoping that the trainwreck Britney Spears had become in recent years would terminate her carreer. But far from it. Brit’s back again. She will begin to tour in spring of 2009, writes Billboard. AEG Live was picked to produce the worldwide tour. But it gets worse: There will be a new album, “Circus”, out in December on Jive. While this might prove as a much needed injection for retail it will also serve as further evidence to those who think today’s pop is crap. Her single “Womanizer” (video below) will chart this week. 

We7 streamlines its offer away from ad-supported downloads

Ad-supported music service We7 is trimming the product. The UK company is shifting focus from downloads to streams and they say it is solely for economic reasons. It looks like providing users with free MP3s in exchange for pre-roll ads doesn’t pay off in the eyes of CEO Steve Purdham and his business partner Peter Gabriel. However dissappointing this might seem, it also means the clutter of We7’s offering is slimmed down to ad-supported on-demand streams now. Less consumer confusion, but also less ownership of music for fans who are willing to endure commercials. Looks increasingly like MySpace Music … 
More details regarding their decision to drop downloads on the We7 blog: 

Adverts on downloads will no longer be removable after 28 days. Also, outside the UK, we will be suspending the ability to download free tracks with adverts. There are many reasons as to why we have taken these steps but the main one is simple economics, as we strive to focus upon the UK to build and deliver an outstanding music experience. Our dream is to eventually give you the choice to stream or download any music you want, for free. The barriers are many, but we are confident that we eventually deliver on our dream, even though it may be in small patient steps.

Lloyd Webber’s Cats meow for Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Sound of Music

Music business is people business, even though it is mostly about the benjamins. This old wisedom might help Andrew Lloyd Webber in his plans to acquire the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization (RHO). The publishing company put itself on the auction block in early September. The RHO is mainly a music publishing company with a big catalog of standards and Broadway show tunes. The current owners, Rodgers’ and Hammerstein’s elderly daughters, want buyers to place their bids at $130m and higher. But apparently they hope for an amount closer to $250m. Among the prospective buyers are Disney, Sony, the British Ambassador Theatre Group, and Lloyd Webber. 

People close to the musical big shot say he is putting together a bid to get control over RHO. One of RHO’s business units has been handling licensing for hits from Lloyd Webber’s works. And it manages the stock and amateur rights to Lloyd Webber’s “Cats,” “Jesus Christ Superstar,” “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” and “Evita.” The composer is without doubt a very wealthy man, but it remains to be seen if he could withstand counter offers by Disney or Sony. The catch for any buyer of RHO: Lloyd Webber can withdraw his catalog, if he doesn’t get along with RHO’s new owners. So, what better way than becoming the new owner himself?

Even though his offer might be short of some corporate giant’s, Lloyd Webber might be best positioned to be the winning bidder. He has been working closely with RHO in the past. For instance, he had staged a new version of the Rodgers & Hammmerstein classic “The Sound of Music”, which the heirs have been said to admire.

Do British music fans really switch to legal services?

According to research firm Entertainment Media Research the number of people legally downloading music in the UK is getting bigger than the number of illegal downloaders. 51 percent of the 1500 respondents to an EMR survey said they get their digital fix from licensed services. Last year EMR had found only 47 percent to say that. Sounds great on paper. But that still means 49 percent couldn’t care less if their downloads come from legal sources or not. 

EMR also found out that the number of illegal downloaders decreased by ten percent over the last year. Sounds encouraging … on paper. A closer look at the research results reveals it is the older users who turn their back to illegal activities. Among teenagers between 13 and 17 years old, 58 percent admited to downloading from illegal sources. This is supposed to be the music industry’s future customer base. 

More importantly, perhaps, for the music industry is the fact that a majority of people seems to be scared shitless about the prospect of having their internet connection turned off. 61 percent of illegal downloaders said they believed they were being monitored by their ISPs and 72 percent said they’d stop if they got one of those scary letters.

Bertie is back in the business of music

After Sony BMG was laid to rest, Bertelsmann is waisting no time to get back into the music business. Today the German media group presented more details on its new company BMG Rights Management. The Berlin-based unit will “offer custom-tailored services for songwriters and performers who want competent support in the creation, marketing and licensing, collection and accounting as well as advance financing of their music repertoire”, Bertelsmann said in a prepared statement. 

Head of BMG RM is CEO Hartwig Masuch, who tried to shed some light on the priorities for the start-up: “We are focusing precisely on that area of the music industry which promises growth,” he said in Berlin. “Music is being used more intensively and exploited more comprehensively than ever before – beyond the traditional distribution of recorded music: on a growing number of online and mobile platforms, in productions of movies, TV programs and commercials, on radio and TV broadcast, in concerts and in video games. Today, a music writer or performer can derive significantly more income from the rights to his work than before. This is where we want to position ourselves with customized, flexible services as well as transparent accounting.” 

As reported previously, BMG RM will initially work with a catalog of some 200 artists retained from the former Sony BMG joint venture. Masuch expects his company to enter the market in early 2009. Currently Bertelsmann say they are laying the foundations for BMG RM, which most likely means they are assembling a team and an organizational structure. Even though BMG RM is starting out locally in Germany, Masuch and Bertelsmann confirmed they are committed to expanding quickly into the rest of Europe and “eventually beyond”. 

Masuch’s plan is to become “one of the first ports of call for artists in Europe who want to ensure competent, transparent, comprehensive and efficient management of their rights” within five years. Help along that way will come from Bertelsmann in-house partners RTL Group (TV) and Arvato (media services/CD-DVD manufacturing). At the heart of BMG RM’s business will be in “advising songwriters and performers in building their repertoire, supporting them with marketing and licensing services, and providing transparent coverage of all their rights management needs. It will also provide appropriate advance financing during the rights-building process.” 

Although BMG RM can access the resources of a major media group from the get-go, Masuch wants it to stay lean and independent by focusing on efficiency and well-balanced budgets. “We want our partners to be more involved in a meaningful use of the budgets, and hence in efficient, cost-conscious processes. This includes giving them more say in the choice of marketing paths. We want to create a significant added value for authors, artists and other rights owners based on deeply responsible partnerships with our clients.”