Word: emi
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...some $19.3 billion in total sales last year, a quarter less than in 1999. The digital market is hardly new, yet it still seems to catch major record labels dozing. Alt-rockers Radiohead last year famously distributed their album In Rainbows without the help of their former record company, EMI, instead letting fans decide how much to pay the band to download it. Meanwhile, adding to the sense that this entire industry is in flux, musicians' other means of income - from T-shirt sales to concert tours - are booming. "The whole industry is moving into a new phase," says Mark...
...major record companies have the most to sort out. The problems at EMI, the smallest of the Big Four record companies, have been getting more ink lately than its artists, which include the likes of Lily Allen and Coldplay. With EMI's slice of the world market under pressure - its share fell to 12.8% in 2006 from 13.6% the previous year - U.K. private-equity company Terra Firma acquired the firm for $6.5 billion last August. The new owner has been quick to make its mark: earlier this year EMI announced it was axing as many as 2,000 jobs...
...shedding more than a third of its workforce, EMI didn't allay Clark's fears. But with only a few hundred of its 4,800 staff deployed in A&R - the business of scouting for and developing artists - Hands's plan to make it more central to EMI seems sensible. But it's also obvious. And by trailing something you'd expect to already be an aim of record companies everywhere, Hands has drawn suspicion. "Here's a business person trying to turn [EMI] into a more creative company," says Dave Allen, bass player with British post-punk band Gang...
...work fruitfully in the creative industries. Since Permira, another leading U.K. private equity firm, took a majority stake in ALL3MEDIA in 2006, the British TV production company has been performing well, says Rob Donaldson, head of private equity at consultants Baker Tilly in London. A bigger worry for EMI: the publicity generated by the shakeup pushes more artists to withhold their music. "It's difficult for artists to invest in a company going through such change," says one record industry exec. "Will the A&R man who believes in you be there next month...
...Whether he is or not, chances are he won't have soothed music's biggest headache. As is the quandary elsewhere, digital sales of EMI's music, which account for a tenth of revenues, are rising - just not quickly enough to make up for plummeting sales of its CDs. And piracy remains prolific. Almost 20 billion tracks were illegally swapped or downloaded on the net in 2005. Dreaming up new ways to make money is vital. One solution: teaming willing artists' albums up with corporate sponsors, as EMI plans to do. That might have some artists turning in their grave...