EMI music to cut 1500 jobs, cut 20% of artists

[gmoney]

From LAUNCH...

"Music company EMI Group PLC is cutting 1,500 jobs, or about 20 percent of the staff in its recorded music division, largely by outsourcing manufacturing of CDs and DVDs in Europe and the United States.

"In addition, EMI said Wednesday it planned to trim its global artist roster by 20 percent, largely by dropping "niche and underperforming artists" mainly in continental Europe."

http://launch.yahoo.com/read/news.asp?contentID=217572

[demdave]

1. Cut 20% of artists...back to the basement with them.

"Keep the volume down down there, we're trying to watch the TV"


"But mom, we have to practice"

[Catfight]

They can be retrained to play the rifle. EOM

[Voltaire99]

6. Ahhh

Brilliant line, Catfight. :-)

[KDLarsen]

2. .. and in related news...

Research: File-Sharing Not Killing CD Sales

With little fanfare, researchers at the Harvard Business School and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have released a report that debunks a primary assumption by the music industry. "What we have found is that file-sharing on the Internet has not affected the sales -- or lack thereof -- of popular CDs," Harvard Business School associate professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee told NewsFactor.

File-sharers most likely never would have purchased CDs of the music they shared and downloaded online, according to the report, co-authored with Koleman Strumpf, a professor at Chapel Hill.

More here: http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_title=Research__File_Sharing_Not_Killing_CD_Sales&story_id=23577#story-start

[mmm]

3. Too bad, they are cutting staff and not rap 'artists'

O well, I can dream, can't I?

[progressivebydesign]

4. Corporate whores killed the recording industry.

The corporate machine pushes the one-hit wonders, then trashes them when they're through. Can't those money grubbing, totally unhip losers do something else for money? Like the stock market or something? Why did they have to destroy the music biz? The indie movement isn't a boutique enterprise, it's survival for real artists.

[mbperrin]

5. Oh, boy! Look at that *Bush job machine

go!

[Avalon Sparks]

7. When I read stuff like this about layoffs...

More layoffs - everyday some company is laying off workers.

I'm wondering why CEO's don't cringe everytime they read about it, like I do.

I cringe because I worry that it could be my job next. CEO's should cringe because more than likely it means even less people that will purchase whatever their company makes. I'm talking collectively all these companies...

Less people to buy Levi's...
Less people to buy appliances...
now less people to purchase music...

They can't see the forest through the trees I guess. I've been saying this for 4 years now - this race to the bottom of the wage scale can only eventually result in a race to the bottom for companies profits.

[joeunderdog]

8. Who will be left with enough money to buy the widgets?

No single business wants to answer that question, so they just maximize their profits at the expense of the greater good. That's why we have gov regulation, but unfortunately, GW is running the government.

EMI just bought the rights to the 2nd most valuable recordings collection in the world--Motown. Where'd they get the cash for that. This was on the radio today.

[mac56]

9. EMI is positioning to be acquired by Warner Music.

Warner Music, by the way, is no longer owned by Time Warner. TW sold it to an investor group headed by the former CEO of Polygram. I believe this is an effort to make themselves a more attractive acquisition.

Add on edit: Sony is preparing to acquire BMG Music (RCA, Arista, Jive, and so forth). When it's all settled, there will be the Big Three music companies. (The third is UMG = previously Polygram and MCA.)