Search Results for: four year strong

U.S. album sales plunged 9.5 percent last year from 2006, continuing a downward trend for the recording industry, despite a 45 percent surge in the sale of digital tracks, according to figures released Thursday. A total of 500.5 million albums sold as CDs, cassettes, LPs and other formats were purchased last year, down 15 percent from 2006’s unit total, said Nielsen SoundScan, which tracks point-of-purchase sales. The shortfall in album sales drops to 9.5 percent when sales of digital singles are counted as 10-track equivalent albums. About 844.2 million digital tracks sold in 2007, compared to 588.2 million in 2006,… Read more »

Like it or not, major record companies are expected to continue drafting their artist contracts so that labels share a piece of most — if not all — of the artists’ rights in all types of revenue streams, not just record sales, but also concert tickets and t-shirts. Artist lawyers say that their responses are as varied as the rights and terms in each label’s “360-degree” deal. Some labels want to be the merchandiser, while others want rights only in certain types of merchandise connected to album cover artwork. And when it comes to artist royalties, some labels pay a… Read more »

After 2006 — a year when virtually no one managed to launch a digital music service in competition with Apple’s dominant iTunes — 2007 was a refreshing change of pace. Several fresh faces emerged onto the digital music scene this year, buoyed in part by record companies’ newfound willingness to experiment with different business models, but also by the departure of several high-profile competitors. By far the most visible service to throw in the towel this year was MTV’s Urge; now, a new entity called Rhapsody America joins Rhapsody’s technology with MTV’s editorial and music curation staff. Sony began the… Read more »

Every record collector’s library contains a handful of forgotten classics, great records mismanaged by labels and lost to the annals of history. In recent years, some specialty labels have started reissuing these records for new audiences. Among them, Hacktone Records, founded in 2005 by Rhino Records veterans David Gorman and Michael Nieves. “Our goal is not to cater to completists or to be a legacy label,” Gorman said. “We’re not putting out lost demos by famous acts or throwing a few bonus tracks on a well-known record and putting it back out.” Rather, they acquire the rights to lesser-known works… Read more »

Getting fired wasn’t the first time Don Imus had hit rock bottom. Like his stumble into addiction in the 1980s, Imus fell into a personal purgatory after calling the Rutgers University women’s basketball team “nappy-headed hos.” “I analogize it to being an alcoholic and a drug addict, which I also am,” the talk-show host said during an apologetic return to the airwaves Monday. “If you get into recovery, as I am for 20-some years now, you have the opportunity to be a better person, to have a better life than you ordinarily would have had. And that’s true in this… Read more »

British music industry major EMI wants to cut its funding to the industry’s trade bodies, a source familiar with the situation told Reuters on Wednesday, which could deal a blow to the fight against music piracy. The source said EMI, which was recently taken over by private equity group Terra Firma, was looking at ways to “substantially” reduce the amount it pays trade groups. The groups, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and other national associations, represent music companies and the fight against illegal piracy. They receive funding from the four… Read more »

It’s been nearly 15 years, and they’re no longer youngsters, but the Backstreet Boys are still around and have just released a new album. The youngest of the four-member group, Nick Carter, joined the ensemble at the age of 12 and is now turning 28. Their sixth album, “Unbreakable,” is near the top of the Billboard 200 charts. “We’ve been so blessed to have so many fans worldwide that are still keeping us around,” said band-member Howie Dorough, who is getting married next month. Members of the group have kept busy putting out solo albums, managing other artists and doing… Read more »

Sumner Redstone, the billionaire businessman who grew up in Boston’s former West End and went on to build a career at the forefront of the entertainment industry, delivered a message to a standing-room-only crowd at Boston University yesterday: content is still king, but in the digital age, copyright is what matters. Redstone, 84, the majority owner of National Amusements and the chairman of the boards of Viacom, the CBS Corporation, and the MTVi Group, spoke at the School of Law Auditorium about the challenges of keeping a media company profitable in the digital age and answered questions from Bill Schwartz,… Read more »

Executive said on Monday the music company’s business was poised to rebound as it tapped new revenue streams to counter the decline in sales of traditional CDs. Warner Music, the only publicly listed major music company in the United States, has seen its share price decline as CD sales have fallen. People are increasingly buying music through online downloads rather than physical CDs and records. The company’s third-quarter earnings report, for the three months to June 30, showed a 2 percent revenue decline as growth in digital revenue failed to make up for declining CD sales. To counter this, the… Read more »

The quickest-rising star in Los Angeles morning radio isn’t cute or hip or young or remotely trendy.He’s Don Cheto (aka Mr. Cheto), a 63-year-old hillbilly from the town of La Sauceda in Michoacan, Mexico, who crossed the border more than 30 years ago, speaks accented English, bickers with his daughters over their boyfriends and complains about the loss of morals. And yet Don Cheto has managed to drive listenership of his station, regional Mexican KBUE (La Que Buena), taking it from No. 14 in share for audiences age 12-plus to No. 4 in less than a year, according to Arbitron.… Read more »