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Universal Music Group must be taking its name seriously these days. At a time when some proclaim the demise">http://www.stereophile.com/news/031907premature">demise of the classical recording industry, the conglomerate's many subsidiaries —Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, Philips, and Archiv, along with ECM, which has only a marketing and distribution arrangement with UMG —are embracing new projects on multiple continents with determination and optimism.

One of the music industry's "big five" will soon begin offering its wares as digital downloads. Seagram, Ltd. chief executive Edgar Bronfman, speaking on Friday, March 3 at the Jupiter Consumer Online forum in New York, said his Universal">http://www.umusic.com/">Universal Music Group will start selling music online this spring.

Thumbing their collective nose at pundits who predict the imminent demise of physical media, Universal Music Group has begun reissuing select back catalog and new releases in Pure Audio (audio only) Blu-Ray 24/96 and/or 24/96 download formats. The first of the classical titles appeared in February, with more rolling out all the time. To get the skinny on UMG's plans for Blu-ray and hi-res, I conducted two separate interviews with folks in the UK. The first, with Barry Holden, the extremely committed and highly articulate VP of Classical Catalogue at Universal Music, appears below.

Universal Music Group (UMG) may go on the auction block to help bail out debt-ridden Vivendi Universal. On March 6, Vivendi announced a record loss of $25.4 billion (€23.3 billion) for the 2002 fiscal year. The biggest loss in French corporate history followed a staggering $14.9 billion (€13.6 billion) loss for 2001.

Yet another major music company has joined the digital downloading stampede, in the wake of the Secure Digital Music Initiative's (SDMIhttp://www.sdmi.org/">SDMI;) recent progress toward formulating copyright standards. On July 19, Universal">http://www.unimusic.com/">Universal Music Group announced its intention to make its titles available for downloading to the coming generation of portable audio players. New devices from Diamond Multimedia, Toshiba, and Panasonic—all expected to hit the market by the winter holiday season—will play encrypted tunes from Universal and other big labels.

The New York Times reported on July 2 that Universal Music Group notified Apple that it will not renew its annual contract to sell music through the iTunes Store, choosing instead to sell music to Apple "at will," meaning it could withdraw its wares with little notice. Executives of both companies declined to comment.

An improved digital-audio compression standard has been adopted by the Bertelsmann">http://www.bmg.com/">Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG) and the Universal">http://www.umusic.com/">Universal Music Group for commercial music downloads. "Advanced Audio Coding" (AAC) is said to offer higher audio quality while occupying 30% less bandwidth and storage space than the popular MP3 format, according to an announcement from San Francisco–based Dolby">http://www.dolby.com/">Dolby Laboratories.