BMG Launches Moscow Affiliate, Vows Anti-Piracy Campaign
Five years after opening a research office in Moscow, BMG">http://www.bmg.de/">BMG Entertainment has launched an affiliate called BMG Russia OOO, which will work from the capital. The intent is to develop the Russian market for BMG products, discover and sign new musical talent—and combat piracy.
BMG Leading Record Labels into Online Sales
In a move that is likely to push record labels into the uncharted territory of direct sales, BMGhttp://www.bmg.com">BMG; has announced its intention to add in-house sales to its network of music sites. "BMG will be moving in the fall to its own fulfillment capability because of the demands of consumers," said senior vice president Scott Dinsdale at the Business Online 98 conference in San Francisco last week.
BMG Plans to Have It Both Ways
The most common complaint about record companies: CD prices are too high. In fact, many blame Napster's runaway success on the insistence of "greedy labels" on pricing discs at $15 or higher. Apparently BMG Direct, a division of BMG">http://www.bmg.com/">BMG Entertainment, has put two and two together and found it equals $9.99.
BMG Reorganizes Management with New US and European Directors
On January 19, Bertelsmann">http://www.bmgentertainment.com/">Bertelsmann Music Group Entertainment announced changes in senior management that include a new chief financial officer and new directors for its American and European divisions. A major division of the German media conglomerate Bertelsmann">http://www.bertelsmann.de/">Bertelsmann AG, BMG suffered the loss of music industry veteran Rudi">http://www.stereophile.com/news/10930/">Rudi Gassner shortly before Christmas. Gassner, who had been slated to become CEO of BMG, died of a heart attack while vacationing in Bavaria.
BMG Restricts Discs
More compact discs that attempt to restrict how you use them are coming to a record store near you. BMG announced last week that its Arista Records division will be the company's first label in the US to release a commercial CD using copy-restriction technology.
BMG to make Top Hits Available Online
The age of downloadable digital music is showing signs of maturing. Territory that was explored by hobbyists, pirates, and startup companies eager to stake their claims will soon yield to the irresistible force of multinational conglomerates.
BMG-EMI Merger Draws Nearer
The "Big Five" of the recorded music industry is one step closer to becoming the "Big Four," according to late-January reports from Frankfurt, Germany, home of Bertelsmann">http://www.bertelsmann.de/">Bertelsmann AG. Bertelsmann is the parent company of Bertelsmann">http://www.bmg.com/">Bertelsmann Music Group, which has been in merger discussions for several months with the United Kingdom's http://www.emigroup.com/"> EMI Group PLC. Discussions are near completion, according to a BMG official.
Bo Diddley:1928–2008
Some musicians are remembered for a single remarkable album; some are remembered for a hit song—Bo Diddley will always be remembered for a beat. That eponymous beat—a rhumba-inflected Bomp a-bomp-a-bomp, bomp, bomp—may well have been "the most plagiarized rhythm in rock," as Rolling Stone claimed in 2005.
Bob Stuart gets CEDIA's 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award
On September 8, the international custom-installation trade association CEDIA named J. Robert Stuart, co-founder of Meridian Audio Ltd. and Inventor of MQA, as this year's Lifetime Achievement Award recipient. Stuart will be recognized at the annual CEDIA Awards Celebration at CEDIA EXPO on October 17, 2015.
Bob Stuart Talks About Active Loudspeakers
Bob Stuart, chairman and co-founder of Meridian, will deliver a lecture on active loudspeakers to the UK Section of the Audio Engineering Society in London on Tuesday, July 11. Although Bob has been a champion of active speakers for 30 years, he has, surprisingly, delivered only one previous paper on the subject, at the AES UK Conference earlier this year. In this lecture he will expand on that presentation and be able to discuss the topic more fully with the audience.