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Seth Meyers: Fox News Poll Contradicts Fox News Talking Points on Vaccine Mandates

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Captain Magic9/21/2021 4:52:24 am PDT

Here’s article by Bob Lefsetz talking about who’s in good position and who isn’t to mine back catalogs:

If you’re interested in the recorded music business you must read this article.

Used to be, in the first decade of this century, when music was the canary in the coal mine for digital disruption, everyone was tuned into the business and when a player spoke they got heard.

Not anymore. You’re probably unaware of Hartwig Masuch’s words.

The big news of the past week has been about Universal Music going public. You may have seen the puff piece about Lucian Grainge in the “Financial Times”: on.ft.com It doesn’t really tell you anything you don’t know, and Lucian deserves kudos, but the question is where the business is heading, the fact that Universal dominates new music, is that as laudable as it seems?

You see all the money is in catalog. Turns out the classics of the past are much more valuable than the hits of today. With everything in recorded music history available on streaming sites new music has to compete with the old and the verdict is in, people favor the old, by a large margin, 70% to 30%. How much does it cost a record company to stream old music? Right now essentially nothing. You just put it up there and reap the rewards. Might that change in the future, when the business acknowledges the power of the past? Yes, in many cases labels would be better off promoting the old acts, Queen is light years more popular than any new act.

And Universal, as a result of consolidation, has the best catalog, so it is positioned well for the future, but when investors start looking at costs are they going to get pissed how much is spent on new product for so little return? And are we going to see the breakup of these companies, since catalog is so much more valuable than new material? And even if you break new material, will it be classic in the future, or is it one and done? A moment in time. That people in the future won’t be that eager to visit.

We’ve already seen the separation of publishing from recordings. Used to be big acts owned their own publishing and just made administration deals. But it turns out their catalogs were undervalued, and once Pimary Wave and Round Hill and Hipgnosis came along and offered big bucks, a multiple far outstripping previous prices, artists started to sell. And now so many of the greatest songs of all time are no longer controlled by the major label publishers. And Merck just started a songwriters guild… Bottom line, publishers are underpaid on streaming, because of the majors’ leverage. But that leverage is eroding, will there be a righting of the wrong? Furthermore, despite the big ticket purchase of Bob Dylan’s catalog by Universal and Paul Simon’s by Sony, the truth is these companies are now rearguard operations, they’re only dipping their toe while the new independent players are all in. In addition, the new players are putting far more effort, money and time, into their acquisitions. Most legacy publishers are about picking up the phone, the new ones are much more active.

And publishing is a predictable business. Why should it be tied up with a record company blowing all that money on new artists? You’re taking a steady income and jeopardizing it. Investors don’t like this.

There is so much institutional b.s. that needs to be corrected. Like executive salaries. Hartwig posits that a $10 million salary requires 2 billion streams just to pay for it. Actually, in truth the numbers are even worse.

More here….