I intended to compare Germany’s public service broadcasters current position and those of British PBS. There had been the turndown of "Project Kangaroo", the BBC’s joint venture with ITV and Channel 4. In Germany, on the other hand, the bill much debated for defining the legal foundations to PBS online integration had been signed. Having a closer look, each one's perspective on the bill whether affected or not, reveals some astonishing aspects.
4th February 2009 saw a sudden death to promising Project Kangaroo, the BBC's joint venture project in digital distribution along with partners ITV and Channel 4. Regulation had been expected, maybe a halt due to various reasons but certainly not the one issued by Britain's Competition Commission.
Jamendo is the world's first B2C music download service offering all tunes under the Creative Commons license. At least that is Jamendo's claim. Also, I do not know about any other one either. If there are small ones or large ones out there handling their business that way – please contact me. I really would be interested in your experience.
At this year's Midem, Mike Masnick from Techdirt gave a presentation focused on how Trent Reznor/NIN is doing music business. It is worthwhile watching the video. Masnick's accompanying article can be found here. You will find additional comments there. Unsurprisingly, there are some issues mentioned which might be familiar if you read my previous articles on here.
At SIIA Industry Summit 2009, Pearson CEO Marjorie Scardino described the framework for Financial Times' digital and pricing strategy. Scardino, stressed the difference between generic content such as news and the value Financial Times provides by quality analysis. Apart from the brand value, it is in particular the supplier generated extra content which defines the product's market value.
It was in March 2008 when Warner Music Group hired business veteran Jim Griffin to develop a new business model to build upon. In early December, the result hit the public. Selected universities were approached to prove if the business model would work: Students would pay a small fee, and in return they were allowed to access and download all music available via internet for free - legally.
What remains to be a constant in music business? There’s the product, which includes performance & composition. It’s the artists, or more generally speaking, the creative bunch. On the other side of the story we’ve got the consumer. Then there’s kind of a middleware - let’s call it the platform of distribution, no matter how many third party companies are involved (if any).
