Search Results for: rivals

Tech’s big guns are wading into the online music business – and now the big question is whether Microsoft will squash its rivals like a bug, as it has so many others. Industry watchers say this time Bill Gates has his hands full. Microsoft, Amazon.com and Yahoo! are three of the players, along with AOL Time Warner and Viacom’s MTV, according to a story in The Los Angeles Times. While Gates considers a digital music launch, his company will now likely have to face off with the almighty music industry, which he needs to win over if he’s going to… Read more »

EMI Group, home to stars from the Rolling Stones to Norah Jones, came under more pressure to find a suitor on Wednesday after its debt was slashed to “junk,” sending its shares to their lowest level in more than 10 years. EMI, the world’s third-largest music company, saw its stock slump 13 percent after Moody’s slashed its debt below investment grade late on Tuesday on concerns about the weak outlook for the music industry, stoking fears about the group’s profits and dividend. Faced with an increasingly gloomy outlook, EMI has been in talks in recent months with two rivals –… Read more »

Britain’s latest manufactured pop groups were forced to hold back their tears Wednesday after promoters canceled their debut 11-night “Popstars” tour. Boy band One True Voice and their chart-topping female rivals Girls Aloud had been due to begin the two weeks of arena concerts on March 1. Concert promoter Triple A Entertainments and Granada, the producers of the “Popstars” television show, both declined to comment on why the tour was canceled. Media reports suggested tickets had not been selling, but a spokeswoman for the London Arena, where the bands were due to play on March 3, said ticket sales had… Read more »

Could 2003 be the year that EMI finally finds a mate? Frenzied gossip among executives at this year’s Midem music industry conference on the French Riviera would suggest so. As a new group of suitors eyes the EMI dowry, which includes the Beatles back catalog, bets among the glitterati at Cannes are that the world’s third biggest music company will pair up with one of its old flames: BMG or Warner Music. Yet some still hold out hope for a more dramatic swoop by private equity houses led by an industry guru – cash-rich Clive Calder being one contender after… Read more »

After a long struggle marked by false starts, frustration and fan indifference, commercial online music services see this year as the crucial second act of a hit show in the making. Since launching a year ago, subscription music services headed by the major label-backed ventures Pressplay and MusicNet have taken heat from music fans who compared them unfavorably with free peer-to-peer networks like now-idled Napster. But after expanded licensing deals and platform upgrades, these services and rivals Listen.com’s Rhapsody and FullAudio, are better armed to take on free services like Kazaa and Morpheus, which emerged in the wake of Napster’s… Read more »

Tower Records, the storied 1960s music chain that launched the music megastore and became a cultural retailing icon, strolls into its 43rd holiday shopping season this weekend struggling with debt and on the ropes. The West Sacramento, Calif.-based Tower hopes four weeks of strong sales will reverse a new image as the tottering giant inside a stumbling music industry. Among the chain’s troubles: deep-discounting rivals, changing consumer habits, lack of hits and its own missteps in the 1990s as the music business began a dramatic shift. Tower exemplifies the even deeper woes in a recording industry beset by piracy, computer… Read more »

Bertelsmann Music Group has completed its Jive lessons. The major label group said Tuesday it has closed its acquisition of Zomba Music Group, home to teen-pop label Jive Records, paying more than $2.74 billion to acquire the stakes in the closely held group it didn’t already own. BMG already held 20% of Zomba’s record labels and 25% of its music-publishing portfolio. The deal, which got rolling in June after Zomba owner Clive Calder triggered a long-standing “put” option to sell his interest, gives BMG full access to Jive’s roster of pop megastars, including ‘N Sync, Britney Spears and the Backstreet… Read more »

Japanese electronic and entertainment giant Sony Corp. will close its Indonesian audio-equipment plant in March and lay off all 1,000 workers, a company official said Tuesday. “The move is part of Sony’s overall effort to reorganize global production,” said Sony spokeswoman Ayako Hashimoto. The production at P.T. Sony Electronics Indonesia will be moved to Sony plants in Malaysia, Mexico, Japan, China and elsewhere, although details are still being worked out, she said. The Indonesian plant in Jakarta produced stereos and other audio equipment valued at about 15 billion yen ($123 million) a year. Since 1999, Sony has been restructuring its… Read more »

Lance Bass’ space voyage was at risk while Hollywood dealmakers and Russian bureaucrats squabbled over payment for the pop idol’s $20 million trip. “We have a contract, but we don’t have any money,” Russian Aerospace Agency spokesman Konstantin Kreidenko said. Bass hopes to be a member of the crew scheduled to travel on a Russian Soyuz rocket to the international space station in October. But the deadline for the ‘N Sync singer to make a payment to secure his spot was Tuesday, according to a Russian space agency official who spoke on condition of anonymity. Kreidenko would not confirm that.… Read more »

A clash with shareholders cost Thomas Middelhoff his job at the helm of media giant Bertelsmann – even though the company made money while rivals like AOL Time Warner and Vivendi ran into trouble. Not even one of the deals of the decade – reaping billions from selling a stake in AOL Europe at the height of the Internet bubble – could save Middelhoff from the same fate as Vivendi’s former chief Jean-Marie Messier and Robert Pittman, ousted as head of AOL Time Warner’s AOL division in a management shakeup. Bertelsmann said Sunday that Middelhoff was leaving due to “differing… Read more »