Musicians accuse other musicians of stealing their work all the time and I have no idea if this case has more or less merit than any other one. But I couldn’t resist relaying this story: Guns N’ Roses, which made a point of stringing up people who pirated the band’s last album, is now being accused of pirating songs on its last album.
Comcast says it doesn’t have a deal to buy NBC Universal. Does it want to buy NBC Universal? Ask COO Steve Burke and you’re going to get a confusing answer.
Here’s the big media deal everyone has been waiting for. Or at least, here’s the report: Sharon Waxman of TheWrap reports that cable giant Comcast is buying all of NBC Universal from GE for $35 billion. Comcast says the report is “inaccurate.”
Vevo, the music industry’s attempt to create a Hulu-like hub for its videos, is going to attract a lot of eyeballs when it launches later this year. Here’s the guy who’s supposed to attract advertisers: David Kohl, a former Nokia executive who starts work today as the site’s sales boss.
Even when the M&A market was shut down, Wall Street couldn’t stop speculating about GE’s intentions for its NBC Universal unit. And now that it’s deal-making time again, the chatter is getting very noisy.
Hence the flurry of coverage over yesterday’s remarks by Vivendi CEO Jean-Bernard Levy, in which he said…not very much.
Now that Joost has given up the ghost and bailed out of the Web video portal business, who’s next? A good bet: Veoh, one of the best-funded would-be YouTubes. Multiple sources tell me the company is aggressively marketing itself to would-be buyers, and it’s asking for less than the $70 million investors like Michael Eisner have plowed into the company. Meanwhile, rival MetaCafe is looking for a “strategic investor.”
MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe is likely to be on his way out of the company he helped found, and News Corp., which bought the social network in 2005, has a single potential successor in mind. Sources say that person is former Facebook COO Owen Van Natta, who is currently CEO of music start-up Project Playlist. People familiar with the matter tell me that DeWolfe and News Corp., specifically new digital boss Jon Miller, are discussing a leadership change today.
The world’s largest video site and the world’s biggest music company are joining up. Google’s YouTube and Vivendi’s Universal Music Group will be launching a new site, dubbed VEVO, which will highlight UMG’s videos. This is essentially what I’ve been calling “YouTube Music,” and it’s been in the works since last fall; in March I reported that the two sides had basically hammered out a deal. It’s a pretty big deal for YouTube, the music business, and the rest of the media world.
EMI Music Group, which sued Web music start-up Project Playlist nearly a year ago, has dropped its suit and will start providing its catalog to the site, which offers free streaming music. The settlement, in conjunction with an earlier deal struck with Sony’s Sony Music Entertainment, means that Project Playlist now has deals with two of the big four music labels. But Warner Music Group and Vivendi’s Universal Music Group are still suing the company.
YouTube lets you repost its clips anywhere you want–unless you’re talking about big music’s videos, which remain trapped on the site. That makes no sense, and the labels know it–or at least some of their employees do.
YouTube, the world’s biggest video site, and Universal Music Group, the world’s biggest music label, are talking about creating a YouTube Music site. About time.
Like everyone else in the music business, Universal Music Group had a rough end to 2008. But compared to its peers, the largest music company in the world did all right. It attributes some of its success to marijuana enthusiast Lil Wayne.
Local television stations used to be money machines for the big media conglomerates. No more. GE’s NBC Universal says its revenues dropped three percent and that its operating profits were down six percent for the last three months of 2008, primarily because of weakness at its local TV stations.
What’s the value of media conglomerate in a recession? Less than it was a few years ago. Last week, Time Warner announced a $25 billion write-down. Now NBC Universal’s parent company, GE, may be looking at one of its own, courtesy of Vivendi, which owns a 20 percent stake in the broadcast network/movie studio/cable TV outfit.
“There is nothing wrong with the music business. There’s something wrong with the CD business.” Talk to a music industry optimist for any amount of time, and you’ll inevitably hear that line. If it’s true, that means there’s opportunity for some nimble players. Ex-Yahoo executive Ian Rogers wants to be one of them.
Peter Kafka has been covering media and technology since 1997, when he joined the staff of Forbes magazine. Most recently, he has been the managing editor of the tech and media Web site, Silicon Alley Insider.
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
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