Lee Scoggins

Sony and BMG to Merge Music Units Into Joint Venture

http://online.wsj.com/public/us

I will try to find more details as additional stories cross the wire.

no fears alone at night she's sailing through the crowd
in her ears the phones are tight and the music's playing loud
~skateaway

Lee Scoggins

Here are some more details:

http://www.nypost.com/business/10084.htm

no fears alone at night she's sailing through the crowd
in her ears the phones are tight and the music's playing loud
~skateaway

Lee Scoggins

Very interesting....

And if Warner/EMI combine in some fashion (or try to depending on regulators) do we see the Beatles catalog on DVDA?

Then you have two big SACD parties and 2 big DVDA parties? and Universal on the fence with both?

lots of interesting possibilities...

no fears alone at night she's sailing through the crowd
in her ears the phones are tight and the music's playing loud
~skateaway

David Coleman

Yes this will be interesting to see how this shakes out in the DVDA and SACD releases??

Rachael B

This, ultimately, is bad news. It's bad enough having 5 huge sloth-like companies dominating the music business, the spectre of having that power concentrated to fewer companies is bad for consumers, IMO. Regulators may take the same stance? Maybe not given the present adminestration?

Rachael, the big disc cat! I used to be looking for Hi-Vision Laserdiscs & D-Theater tapes, now I'm looking for HD-DVD's and Blu-rays.

I survived the AFI top 100 Film Challenge! I've seen them all.

favourite saying: hard feelings are for park benches... sit on that!

Lee Scoggins

You may very well be right, but it appears that no one's music division was making money and maybe the combination will ensure a better (at least financially) business model for music.

I thought about something else this morning:

Maybe this merger helps hirez by creating bigger support of both formats...? For instance, music alliances may add to profitability by rationalizing distribution lines and that may help free investment cash for hirez....also maybe a bigger company focusing on hirez titles leads to a more focused marketing effort and effort to do bigger name albums-ie. more clout for talking to artists/groups like the Beatles.

Just some food for thought...

no fears alone at night she's sailing through the crowd
in her ears the phones are tight and the music's playing loud
~skateaway

Lee Scoggins

Some more details from Bloomberg:

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news...7lFmk&refer=us

Interesting market share numbers at the bottom. Universal remains at #1 even after the merger.

Speculation that any Warner - EMI alliance will be scuttled due to regulation.

no fears alone at night she's sailing through the crowd
in her ears the phones are tight and the music's playing loud
~skateaway

Michael_T

Not necessarily. Those numbers are for 2001 and 2002.

If you add the 2002 market share numbers, worldwide, for SONY and BMG, you get a number that is slightly larger than Universal's worldwide market share alone.

In the domestic US, it would seem that Universal may still hold on to the #1 share.

Lee Scoggins

I was looking at the North America numbers.

But if you add BMG and Sony on a worldwide basis, you still have Universal at #1. 25.2 for BMG/Sony versus 25.9 for Universal.

no fears alone at night she's sailing through the crowd
in her ears the phones are tight and the music's playing loud
~skateaway

Peter Kline