Search Results for: four year strong

Paris – Note to readers: Vivendi Universal provided preliminary, unaudited revenue information on a French GAAP basis for the third quarter and the first nine months of 2004 to ‘Balo’ a French official bulletin for publication in accordance with French regulatory requirements. On a comparable basis(1, the revenues for the third quarter 2004 were up 6%, and 7% at constant currency. On a comparable basis(1, the revenues for the first nine months of 2004 were up 5%, and 7% at constant currency. Vivendi Universal’s consolidated revenues for the third quarter of 2004 amounted to EUR 4,703 million. On a comparable… Read more »

Los Angeles – Will it be a blue Christmas in the music business? The first eight months of 2004 were a romp, when labels and retailers were measuring their progress against the soft numbers from the first two trimesters of 2003. The question looming then was how numbers would hold up when we got to September, which was the point last year when same-week increases bloomed for the first time in almost three years. The answer so far? Not so great. Even with collective sales of this week’s top 10 on the Billboard 200 outweighing that from the comparable week… Read more »

Toronto – Perhaps it was best that Green Day were in Canada on the evening of the U.S. presidential election; after all, it’s here that they can share the almost unanimous anti-Bush sentiments in an almost-packed Air Canada Centre. “Well, hopefully tomorrow we’ll have a brand new President,” Billie Joe Armstrong said to a roar of cheers. “I fuckin’ hate him and I think he’s more of a threat to the world than Saddam Hussein.” And though the dads of pop-punk were away from home, the enthusiastic crowd – which included one fan with a “Fuck Bush” sign – made… Read more »

JUST days after the European launch of Apple Computers’ online music store, a chorus of customers are voicing their complaints. The lack of songs from artists on independent record labels – which account for a quarter of the UK market – has left iTunes looking like a poorly-stocked American import store, lacking local talent such as Travis and Franz Ferdinand. “Most Scottish acts are on independent labels,” says Alison Wenham, chairman and chief executive of the Association of Independent Music (AIM), which represents the majority of the UK’s indie labels. “Celtic acts typically start off very strong in their home… Read more »

Having sold millions of copies of their 1997 debut, Middle of Nowhere, Hanson may have a few dollars to spare, but they’ll never part with their Penny. In fact, it’s pretty much impossible to get away from Penny. Contrary to the assumption that the co-protagonist of Hanson’s new single is an omnipresent girlfriend, Penny is actually a catchall for the memories and experiences that define a person. Everyone’s got a Penny. “There’s lots of symbolism in that song – like driving down the highway and smoking cigars in the summertime,” Taylor Hanson said. “Life is sometimes in little pictures. You… Read more »

Green Day’s first studio album in four years will be titled “American Idiot,” a spokesperson told Billboard.com. The set is tentatively due Sept. 14 via Reprise. It’s the follow-up to 2000’s “Warning,” which debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 and has sold 998,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Along with No Doubt, Foo Fighters, Bad Religion and others, Green Day is expected to lend a track to “Rock Against Bush Vol. 2,” the second in a series of politically minded compilations due this August. Frontman Billie Joe Armstrong will also contribute two songs to… Read more »

As Britney Spears begins her European tour Monday in London, the pop singer can count on selling more than $10 million worth of concert souvenirs like baby-doll shirts and posters during the five-week trek. About half of that sum will end up in her pocket, says Dell Furano, CEO of Signatures Network Inc., a merchandising and licensing firm that handles Spears products. In the 25 North American dates of her Onyx Hotel tour, Spears’ merchandise sales averaged $150,000-$170,000 a night, reaching a high of $180,000 during the Los Angeles show March 8, according Furano. Her career merchandise sales passed the… Read more »

Federal regulators opened a new front in their crackdown on offensive broadcasts Thursday, saying that almost any use of the F-word on over-the-air radio and television would be considered indecent. The Federal Communications Commission overruled its staff and said an expletive uttered by rock singer Bono on NBC was both indecent and profane. It marked the first time that the FCC cited a four-letter word as profane; the commission previously equated profanity with language challenging God’s divinity. The FCC on Thursday also proposed maximum fines for the broadcast of the Howard Stern radio show and for a program on two… Read more »

U.S. album sales rose 10.4 percent in the first month of 2004, Nielsen Soundscan reported, welcome news to the music industry after a three-year slump marked by costly litigation, rampant piracy and consolidation. The uptrend began late last year, a development hailed by Sanford Bernstein analyst Michael Nathanson in a recent report. But he said he was hesitant to say declines were over. Other analysts note that comparisons were easy with last year when U.S. album sales fell. But many saw signs the music business – led by big record labels at Time Warner, Bertelsmann AG, EMI Group Plc, Sony… Read more »

Time Warner Inc., the world’s largest media company, swung back to a profit in the fourth quarter of 2003 after reporting a $44.9 billion loss in the same period a year ago because of write-downs at its AOL unit, the company reported Wednesday. Time Warner posted net earnings of $638 million, or 14 cents a share, in the three months ending in December, just shy of the 15 cents per share that analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call had been expecting. The year-ago net loss was equivalent to $10.04 per share. Revenues rose 6 percent to $10.9 billion from $10.25… Read more »