The Future of a More Expensive Sirius XM Radio…
Is it kosher for Sirius XM Radio to hike its subscription prices, especially after promising regulators that prices would remain steady? According to a recent Wall Street Journal report, Sirius will soon tack an additional $1.98 to its standard monthly subscription rate, based on internal documents. The document – an employee training manual – squarely blames the increase on royalty [...]
Streets Is Watching: Suspicious Selling Emerges at Warner Music…
Shares of Warner Music Group (WMG) have boomed from a sub-$2 basement, thanks to a sudden shift by analysts and a revived market. But a revitalized stock price could be prompting some suspicious selloffs – potentially the start of a deflating balloon.
Apple Took It There: The $99 iPhone Arrives…
Apple has now pushed its venerable iPhone below $99 – at least on the older, 3G model carrying 8GB of storage. The critical price drop will open the device to a broader audience, though users will still face hefty monthly charges from AT&T. Still, the dropped tag puts the iPhone into an irresistible category for lower-end buyers, and modest differences [...]
Another Thud: CD Sales Now Back at Mid-90s Levels…
US-based CD sales are now back to mid-90s levels, according to data revealed by Nielsen Soundscan on Monday. “If you look at 1995, there were 368 million CD albums purchased, and in 2008, we were basically back to that same volume,” said Nielsen’s Chris Muratore, during a data-focused presentation at NARM. The 2008 total was roughly 360 million.
Resnikoff’s Parting Shot: Wikipublisha
The music industry is notorious for its infighting, often to the detriment of revenues, growth and the welfare of artists and consumers. If there’s a license, chances are there’s been a fight over it – often multiple times over, for years on end.
Sneak Peek: Epix Not So Epic – Yet
Epix — the joint venture from Paramount Pictures Corp., Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., and Lions Gate Entertainment — has finally launched a private beta of its online video on demand (VoD) site, and Contentinople got a sneak peek of the service.
In Other News: Timid Twitterers, Drama at EMI, Vevo…
*Another study about lackadaisical, non-committed Twitterers. According to research published in the Harvard Business Review, 10 percent of Twitterers account for 90 percent of tweets, while 75 percent have twittered four times or less, ever.
Why Big Radio Has Major Labels by the Balls…
As big, US-based broadcasters get closer to shutting down the Performance Rights Act, a number of insiders are questioning why the bill was even drafted in the first place. Labels have been clamoring for performance compensation from terrestrial broadcasters for decades, and their current economic distress motivated the most recent push. But the Performance Rights Act assumes that radio stations [...]
Kindles & iPods: Weapons of Media Warfare
If you are a media company, it’s got to be disturbing that the biggest beneficiary of the digital music revolution has been a computer company (Apple). Or, that the company that’s made the biggest splash in e-books is also the largest retailer of paper-based books (Amazon.com).