What do you do if you’re billions in debt? Let’s say you’re already paying $1 billion a year in interest on $18 billion in debt and $4.5 billion is due in 2014 yet your company only generates $200 million in net profit each year? If you’re Clear Channel radio, the largest radio conglomerate in the [...]
Read more2011 is turning out to be a year for the record books in recorded music – in a good way. Nope, none of the negative story lines about collapsing sales that we’ve read ad nauseum for the last six years. In fact, physical sales are down just a couple percent from last year (just 5 million [...]
Read moreLast week I attended my first Silent Disco. Well, sort of. Have you heard of this, Silent Disco? I hadn’t. A colleague told me this was a cool side tent event at Bonnaroo. And I wouldn’t know that as I don’t attend multi-day festivals anymore. I’m sure you could say it’s because I’m old but [...]
Read moreBest Buy has gotten out of the music business. In the last few months the Minneapolis-based big box electronics and entertainment retailer instituted key changes within the organization and effectively gave up on music retailing. It’s been a tough year for the mass merchant. Their stock price has fallen about 30 percent. The purchase of [...]
Read moreI’ve looked at the clouds from both sides now, from up and down, and still somehow … wait a minute. If I’m looking at the new cloud music services from Apple, Google and Amazon, are there three sides or just two? Depends on how you look at it. So, before you take the leap and [...]
Read moreI got an extra hour of sleep Sunday. Normally I get up at 4:45 a.m. and head to Iowa Western Community College to host “Sunday Morning” on 89.7 KIWR, but this week I snagged some extra shut eye before catching a plane for L.A. for the annual National Association of Recording Merchandisers convention. There is [...]
Read moreAn update from a couple months ago when we wrote about whether music sales had finally hit bottom and were beginning to rebound. At 15 weeks in for the year, we have had eight up weeks and seven down with a six-week run of up sales from early February to late March. Physical sales are [...]
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