Posted inNews

UK’s competition regulator concerned by Sony Music / AWAL merger

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has announced that Sony Music’s acquisition of distributor AWAL “raises competition concerns”, and has given the major label a five-day deadline to head off a full investigation of the merger.

The CMA opened a ‘phase one’ investigation earlier this year, after the $430m acquisition from Kobalt – which also included the latter’s neighbouring rights division – was announced. The findings were published today.

“We’re concerned that this deal could reduce competition in the industry, potentially worsening the deals on the table for many music artists in the UK, and leading to less innovation across the industry,” said senior director Colin Raftery.

Posted inSandbox

Sandbox Issue 270: Always-on my mind: how do artists avoid social media burn-out?

Lead: Always-on my mind: Artists have long accepted – sometimes reluctantly – that their role includes intimate direct-to-fan digital connectivity, usually via Social Media. Grinding out content on multiple platforms, each with unique creative, time, and emotional pressures, was a stressful enough existence before Coronavirus made the need to be always-online seem all the more urgent. […]

To access this post, you must subscribe. If you are already a subscriber, log in here.

Posted inNews

The future of streaming and music marketing post Covid-19

After an introductory session offering views on Covid-19’s music impact around the world, Music Ally’s Sandbox Summit Global conference turned its attention to what happens next.

The online event’s ‘Future of Streaming Post-Covid’ strand began with some views from Chaz Jenkins, chief commercial officer at Chartmetric.

“If we’re to use one word to describe what we’ve seen happen in the marketplace this year, it would probably be ‘volatile’,” he said, adding that a number of trends that had been happening slowly suddenly went into overdrive during the pandemic.

“Where we listen to music, when we listen to music, why we listen to music, and crucially what we listen to has changed fundamentally over the course of the year,” he said.