The record companies bitch about profitability, yet the continue to leave money on the table.
Linda
Right, it's what I've been saying from what we've seen, the record companies don't know what they're doing at all. The music market in the 21st century has matured and fractured into sub-groups or niche markets and they need to understand them in order to grow them into larger franchises. Sorry, but there will be no "Beatles" anymore or "super groups from the 70s" where you can just put out one release and every demographic will buy. That train left the station years ago. The best you can hope for is some sensation act like Lady Gaga to quickly cash in before the public gets tierd of the artists antics, unless they continue to have great songs or are replaced by something else for the time being.
The Record companies IMHO had it right with DVD-Audio / SACD 10 years ago to give the public better audio for the same price as a CD. But like Quad perhaps the timing wasn't right as:
1. Unnecessary format war for one "to rule them all." When in reality they now and forever will live side by side as both are enjoyable products and will continue to be so. SACD also suffered from "it didn't know what it was" until it went "Hybrid" with a CD layer.
2. Which leads to how many SACD's we're returned to the store as it wouldn't play on a regular CD player? You couldn't hear what you we're getting so why buy? Many serious collectors and average music fans also just completed their CD collections by 2000. You want me to now buy
what? And without listening stations and to also let folks know of the ease, no hassle to connect, well, your going to have a problem selling a product at first. But the public eventually catches on and did buy and
still wants as eBay / Amazon prices will tell you, even in a down economy.
Rhino is/was on the proper path of really growing the Multi-Channel market and getting the all important Quadraphonic material a proper modern re-release to preserve for all time these tapes and recordings. Of course Rhino made money from the "Quadio" project and will continue to do so. Look what TCM (Turner Classic Movies) also a division of Warner has been able to do with vintage material like Movies. They also release CD soundtracks from Movies. They continue to grow an ever increasing market from humble beginnings. The folks here are loyal and as devoted as we are. Here is their store (TCM Vault Collection):
http://shop.tcm.com/vault/default.asp?cat=uni&semref=21365
Not that anyone in the Music Industry will read this post, but if lessons are learned and we get the right team working at the record companies so called "small" markets will grow into much, much larger one's as TCM has proved. This also goes for new music, as we also have small fractured markets and tastes. Don't expect downloading/streaming alone to save the music industry because it won't IMHO. It's a matter of understanding these fractured listening tastes/markets and giving better service with better product as simple as that.