Sunday, March 14, 2010
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Maybe If We Buy Another Record Company, Our Records Will Get Better

by Len Neighbors
02/20/2006

Warner Music, the fourth largest record company on the planet, is fixin' to buy EMI, the thirs largest record company on the planet. From the article:

Analysts had speculated that EMI, the world's third largest music company and home to Robbie Williams and Coldplay, could receive a fresh takeover approach after it last week issued its second profit warning in just five weeks.

Warner, the fourth largest music company, has also struggled recently, reporting a 74 percent drop in quarterly profit due to its artists having fewer hits, and any tie-up would give both sides access to more music and the ability to cut costs.

You see, EMI's sales have sucked, so they're going to be purchased by Warner, whose sales also suck. Because two of crap is one of gold. Or something like that.

We'll see more and more of this, as record companies fail to adapt to the changing nature of the music market. It is getting harder and harder to manufacture hit records using the time-honored record company recipe: mix poor person with musical gifts with hugely rich record company with marketing department, assault TV and radio with cash to persuade everyone that the music is good, watch record sales.

Every day, this system works less and less. Radio (the kind with DJs and advertisements) is hemorrhaging listeners faster than newspapers are hemorrhaging readers, people can actually listen to whole records before they buy, MTV doesn't appear to have any music on it anymore. It remains to be seen whether these trends will increase the overall quality of available music, but it will definitely increase listener choice. We think this is a good thing.

Take heart, though, and pay a bit of attention, since we're actually going to get to watch the dinosaurs go extinct, right before our very eyes.

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