The record bidness is in trouble ...
... on a couple of fronts.
First, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has reached a $10M settlement with industry giant Sony BMG and has the industry's biggest other players in his sights as he singlehandedly tries to stamp out "payola," the practice of bribing radio stations to play particular records. Good luck with that, but it's always good to see record moguls have to lawyer up. (During my time in the music/radio bidness, I had decent relations with most record-company promo reps, primarily because I always felt free to tell them when a record just plain sucked, but had nothing but contempt for the way they treated bands I knew.)
But the bigger danger to the industry might be ... wait for it ... Wal-Mart. Chris Anderson at The Long Tail, combining research of secondary sources with in-person visits, describes how record sales are constrained by America's largest retailer, which sells about one-fifth of all the recorded music Americans buy in a year. Some notable observations:
He concludes, dead-on: "It's the paradox of plenty: a mile wide and an inch deep may look like everything at first glance, but in a world that's actually a mile wide and a mile deep a veneer of variety is not enough."
Comments (1)
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By imposing its "standards," Walmart is creating culture by limiting or encouraging certain books to be read. Whether or not this is their "right" to sell only those title they choose, there is a bigger impact on the growth (or lack of same) to a very large part of the citizenry. When they pulled Jon Stewart's best-seller over some SCOTUS robes, they went over my definition of a line.
It's a tough argument; do they have the right because they own the store vs. the right of the larger community to have choice outside of Walmart's perhaps narrow vision? If they are responsive to the community and recognize their impact on society and want everyone to shop there, don't they also have an obligation to open up the thin category of acceptability they impose?
For my part, I simply won't shop at Walmart. I haven't been in one for more than 2 years.
Posted on July 27, 2005 7:13 PM