EMI Music has just purchased Digital Stores Limited, a company which provides online stores for artists including The Beatles, Queen & Oasis.
The acquisition is a logical one for EMI, which is in need of revenue streams outside of physical and online music sales. Although the business has been improving since the 2007 purchase by private equity firm Terra Firma, they still lost more than 600 million euros last year.
It also dovetails nicely with the recent trend of labels signing artists to 360 deals. These deals give the label a cut of everything from merchandise to tour revenue, and are becoming an increasingly important part of the modern music business.
Owning a company like Digital Stores also has a lot of potential for selling services to artists not otherwise affilliated with EMI. Both artists on other major labels and those who wouldn’t be signing with any major become potential revenue sources.
If they manage it well, this could be a key part of EMI’s transformation from a traditional label to an all around music marketing and artist services company. Of course any of the major labels could have done that already.
The stumbling block has never been capability. What they’ve lacked has been the will to change. As long as executives are fixated on preserving a dead business model that will remain a problem.
This purchase seems like a good move, but the follow through will determine just how successful it is.
Result for: beatles
EMI and Apple Corp. (not to be confused with Steve Jobs’ Apple) have jointly the announced the release of a limited edition Beatles Stereo USB Apple which will be available worldwide.
The 30,000 USB flash drives will include the “critically acclaimed re-mastered audio for The Beatles’ 14 stereo titles, as well as all of the re-mastered CDs’ visual elements, including 13 mini-documentary films about the studio albums, replicated original UK album art, rare photos and expanded liner notes.”
The 16GB drives will include a full Flash user interface and the tracks will be available in FLAC 44.1 Khz 24-bit and 320 Kbps MP3s.
The Apples go on sale December 7th and will cost 200 GPB (about $330 USD).
You can check the full track listing here: Beatles USB Stereo Apples
Result for: beatles
According to leading video game analysts Michael Pachter and Jesse Divnich, the U.S. video game industry made a strong comeback in September, returning to growth after six months of negative year-on-year numbers.
The growth is being attributed to the price cut of the PS3 (and launch of the Slim) as well as the high sales of Wii Sports Resort, Halo 3: ODST and The Beatles: Rock Band.
The PS3 saw growth of up to 75 percent year-on-year, to 410,000 units, while the Xbox 360 stayed neutral at around 350,000 units sold. The Wii however, says Pachter, saw a giant fall in sales, about 43 percent year on year, down to 390,000 units.
Divnich believes Wii sales fell even further, to about 375,000 while the Xbox 360 grew to 370,000. PS3 numbers were about the same as Pachters.
DS/DSi sales grew 22 percent and PSP sales fell about the same amount, says Pachter.
NPD will release official numbers on October 15th.
