Music Ally

Vivendi has reported that Universal Music Group generated revenues of €4.36 billion in 2009 – down 6.2% year-on-year – with the label’s EBITA down 14.7% year-on-year to €580 million.

Digital sales? They were up 8.4% year-on-year, although the company admitted that it saw a “softening demand for mobile products in the United States and Japan”. We’ve already reported on the latter – the RIAJ said last week that digital unit sales dropped 2% in 2009, while revenues were flat.

However, Vivendi praised the impact of Spotify, MusicStation and Vevo in helping to boost its digital revenues in 2009. Elsewhere in UMG, publishing revenues were up 1.7%, while merchandising grew by 24.6%.

Every morning, Music Ally subscribers are sent our daily email bulletin, offering a snapshot of news, analysts and rumours from the last 24 hours. We’re sharing today’s for free on this blog, to give an idea of what subscribers get in their inboxes by 9.30am GMT. If you’re interested in subscribing, you can sign up for a free two-week trial here.

Read on for today’s Bulletin, and do pass this link on to any colleagues or contacts who  you think would be interested too.

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Music Ally’s latest offshoot is Sandbox.fm, which focuses on digital music marketing – with a fortnightly report and blog. Every day, we’ll be rounding up the latest stories from the latter of those.

Today, Sandbox reports on a new iPhone app called Tweeb, which provides people with analytics and follower management for their Twitter account, on the go. There’s also news of livestreaming firm Ustream’s new Ustream Producer app, which helps artists produce better interactive webcasts.

Meanwhile, trance DJ/producer Markus Schulz has released a new iPhone app that, rather than simply promote himself, actually offers 15 of his favourite tracks to listen to. Universal Music Group is also going mobile, but with mobile websites rather than apps, via a deal signed with mobile technology firm Netbiscuits.

Finally, Sandbox has published its interview with Michael Schneider of DIY apps firm Mobile Roadie, and also its analysis of MySpace’s plans to make a comeback with a more artist-focused approach.

With a name like that, we thought this had to be unofficial – but no, Mariah Carey-oke is an iPhone app made by UMG. It costs $3.99, and lets people sing along to four of Mariah’s songs – Obsessed, Touch My Body, Don’t Forget About Us and Shake It Off – scoring points if they do it well enough.

“There are four levels of difficulty to pass through as you master the rhymes and train your voice to sound just like Mariah Carey,” says the blurb, although we sense you may need artificial help from a dog-whistle to really nail it. News, tour info and Facebook/Twitter integration are all built in too.

Our only criticism: couldn’t they have picked more famous Mariah songs? Perhaps it’s not a problem for the hardcore fans who’ll snap this app up, but for those of us you who fancy a crack at Vision Of Love, I’ll Be There or that one with Westlife in the boat, the tracklist may be disappointing. EDIT: We’ve just twigged it’s probably because UMG don’t own the rights to those tracks.

UPDATE: We forgot the number one rule of journalism: headlines ending in a question mark can usually be answered by ‘No’. Ah well.

This is pure, rampant speculation on our part, but we’d like to think it’s educated. Check this agenda for the Telco 2.0 conference today in London. The first session focuses on Media 2.0 – what do you notice about the speakers?

Okay, yes, it’s another chance for UK Music boss Feargal Sharkey to butt heads with media futurist Gerd Leonhard – sparks flew between the pair when they were on the same panel at MidemNet earlier this year. But what’s more interesting is the presence of Virgin Media’s broadband boss Jon James, and Universal Music Group’s VP of digital Francis Keeling.

Nothing surprising in that – they’re working together on a new music service after all. But that’s the thing – sources have suggested to Music Ally that this morning’s session will see Virgin Media and UMG announce final details of what form the service will take, and when it will launch. We (and investors, more pertinently) would expect some kind of formal announcement before anything is unveiled, and at the time of writing there’s nothing up on Virgin Media’s online press office or investor centre.

Still, the session kicks off at 9am, so there’s still time. If Virgin and UMG are talking details, it will be interesting to see if the mooted unlimited top tier of the service is still in place. Plans to offer customers unlimited MP3 downloads were reportedly dented by the unwillingness of other major labels to sign up. Anyway, all eyes on Telco 2.0 – naturally we’ll keep you updated on here.

Orange is launching its big-budget marketing campaign for its new Monkey mobile music service today, kicking off with TV ads around Friends, Hollyoaks and Ugly Betty.

The ad takes the form of a pseudo weather report, pretending that genres of music are sweeping the UK (rock sweeping the north, etc etc). Which sounds a bit cheesy, but here’s the quite-interesting thing: the ads will be updated every couple of weeks to use real data from Monkey users’ listening habits. There’ll be an online version that’s updated every day, too.

The campaign also takes in contests on broadcast partner Channel 4’s various channels, starting with VIP tickets to see La Roux play Paris in early November. Outdoor ads and flyposters (hang on, aren’t flyposters illegal?) will also be plugging the Monkey playlists of La Roux, Lady GaGa and Tinchy Stryder, ensuring exclusive label partner UMG gets its dues.

And if that’s not enough marketing wheezes for you, Orange is promising “the UK’s first multi-artist holographic gig across five locations in the UK”. Nice. Monkey, as you may remember, is an IVR-based service where users dial in to listen to music from UMG acts, while building their own playlists on the online version.

Orange UK has teamed up with Universal Music Group and Channel 4 to launch a new unlimited mobile music service called Monkey.

However, it’s not downloads like Nokia’s Comes With Music, and it’s not streaming over the network like Spotify. Its 16-24 year-old target demographic will access the music via voice call.

It’s worth digging into the details. Monkey is aimed at the kind of young pay-as-you-go customers who are unlikely to have either an expensive mobile phone or a flat-rate data tariff. Hence the use of IVR as the delivery method.

“We didn’t want the service to be limited to high-end handsets,” Pippa Dunn, director of Pay As You Go at Orange UK tells Music Ally. “You can access this on all handsets, from those costing £9.99 upwards.”

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Virgin Media’s unlimited digital music service, which was announced earlier today, uniquely contains both a carrot and a stick for music fans. The carrot is unlimited MP3 downloads, while the stick is the threat of temporary internet suspensions for illegal downloaders.

Users will pay a monthly subscription fee for the service, and although details weren’t announced today, Virgin Media and launch partner Universal Music Group have confirmed to Music Ally that it will cost “less than the price of two CDs a month”.

There will also be a lower priced scheme which will allow users to download a set number of downloads each month. Both tiers will also allow unlimited streams. Virgin has confirmed that it’s already in discussions with other labels and publishers, and hopes to have as many as possible on board for a scheduled UK launch “before Christmas”.

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The UK’s minister for communications, technology and broadcasting, Stephen Carter, has welcomed the announcement of Virgin Media and UMG’s unlimited streaming and downloads music service.

“Government has a role in creating the right legal and regulatory framework for rights and copyright,” says Carter. “However, the market will flourish through innovative commercial agreements between companies, and agreements such as this will help significantly in reducing any demand for piracy.”

The announcement comes a day before the expected publication of Carter’s Digital Britain report, which includes in its focus questions of how to fight online piracy while fostering legal music services. So it’s good (and presumably un-coincidental) timing on Virgin’s part.

Meanwhile, BSkyB is also expected to launch its own music service in the coming weeks, offering a combination of streaming and downloads (although not the unlimited model touted by Virgin). Interestingly, UMG was also the first major partner for that service.

Okay, so UK ISP Virgin Media and Universal Music Group have teamed up for an unlimited streaming and downloads music service, as we just reported. But what does Duffy think about it, you’re probably wondering to yourself?

“When I was growing up, the nearest record shop was two hours away, which made it tricky to get any music at all. So something like this would have been great,” she says, quoted in the announcement of the new service.

Other UMG artists speaking out in favour of the new service include Ronan Keating – “Virgin Media’s new service is a great way to legally access lots of great music” – and the Sugababes: “We know our fans want to do the right thing. Now they can.”

Oh, and James Morrison too: “I like to think that people are honest by nature, and making it easier for them to get lots of music, all legally, can only be a good thing. There should be something special about buying a great piece of music, a bit of magic that comes with discovery”

So there you have it.