Fox-Metoyer Promoted

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Kerri Fox-Metoyer has been named vice president of Sony United, effective July 18. In this new role, she will partner with Sony sister companies to distribute and market products and services across the Sony brand. She will continue to be based in Nashville, but outside the Sony Music office.
“Kerri has been a valued member of the Sony Music team and we are happy that her talents as a sales and marketing executive will now benefit the entire Sony family in this important new role,” says Thomas Hesse, President, Global Digital Business, U.S. Sales and Corporate Strategy, Sony Music Entertainment. “We look forward to working with her in the future to drive Sony United initiatives across our various retail partnerships.”
Fox-Metoyer was most recently VP Sales for Sony Music Nashville, where she oversaw sales and retail marketing initiatives for the label’s roster. A 20-year industry veteran, she joined the company in 2009 after previously serving as VP Sales for Walt Disney Records. Her background also includes tenures with Liquid Audio and EMI Christian Music Group.

Toast A Little Good Sales News

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A music marketing exec. walks into a bar and says to the bartender, “Hey give me a drink, album sales are up 1% YTD this year.” Bartender who reads MusicRow says, “Sounds like you’ve already had enough to drink!”
Why?
Because although a trickle of good news is better than none, there really aren’t enough tidings yet to celebrate. All genre album sales have fallen about 34% during the six years from 2004 through 2010. For country music they have fallen 44% during the same period. Those are pretty steep declines. Figure in a paltry 1% YTD all-genre gain and about a 2% loss for country and yeah, you’d have to be drunk to cheer with enthusiasm.
The consumer press is embracing Nielsen SoundScan’s proclamation, “Album sales are up for the first time since 2004.” But the reality is this little kernel of truth is dwarfed by the enormity of the marketplace consolidation that has taken place. Also since 2004, album prices are lower, costs are higher and margins slimmer. But there is more upbeat news as well.
Here’s a few SoundScan Factoids
>>Digital album sales are up 19% through the first six months over 2010 and are on pace to set a new sales record at the end of the year.
>>E.T. by Katy Perry tops the chart for best selling digital song for the first six months of 2011 with 4.1 million downloads
>>Lady Gaga’s Born This Way experienced the biggest 1st week album sales of 2011 with 1,108,000 units.  The album sold a record 662,000 digital albums in the first week of release.
>>July 3, 2011 – Eminem’s Recovery becomes the first digital album to sell more than one million units; Adele’s 21 is on track to surpass a million units next week.
Looking at the various compiled Top 10 lists, Adele tops most of them. Nashville artists are included on the following…
Top Selling Albums: No. 4, Jason Aldean, My Kinda Party
Top Selling Physical Albums: No. 3, Jason Aldean, My Kinda Party; No. 9, Taylor Swift, Speak Now
Top Selling Catalog Albums: No. 2, Miranda Lambert, Revolution; No. 10, Johnny Cash, VH1 Story Tellers
Top Selling Digital Catalog Albums: No. 8, Miranda Lambert, Revolution

Sales Strategy Shakedown

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Every album launch has a different set of objectives for marketers on Music Row. Influencing these goals are the artist’s past sales, level of stardom, lead single success and more. With new albums coming from Blake Shelton, Chris Young and Ashton Shepherd, Tuesday’s (7/12) release schedule is a prime example of why sales expectations are different for every act.
Blake Shelton
After a decade of hard work, he’s at the pinnacle of his career thus far. And Soundscan watchers expect Red River Blue to bring big debut week sales. A key indicator is that lead single “Honey Bee” has already sold one million digital downloads.
Shelton has a lot going in his favor. As he releases his eighth project, he is Warner Nashville’s biggest active star and has full label team support. 2010 and 2011 have been his best years yet: winning CMA Male Vocalist of the Year, and putting out two successful Six Paks. Not to mention the boat load of publicity from his coaching gig on The Voice, and marrying fellow star Miranda Lambert.
Chris Young
Young’s career has been building steam over the last year and could be set to explode. He is primed for solid sales of Neon, given that lead single “Tomorrow” has already moved 550,000-plus downloads.
Young is on a roll at radio, with three consecutive No. 1’s, including “Voices,” which made an unlikely climb to the top of the charts more than two years after its original release. His sophomore RCA album The Man I Want To Be is approaching Gold sales status.
Ashton Shepherd
With the pending release of her sophomore effort, MCA’s Ashton Shepherd is still building her career. Just like her 2008 debut, the new Where Country Grows is getting great reviews from high profile outlets like Rolling Stone and Entertainment Weekly.
What she has in her favor is critical praise, what she is lacking is a blockbuster hit. Lead single “Look It Up” made it into the Top 20, and the title track follow-up is going for adds Monday (7/11).
It’s been about three years since the release of her debut album Sounds So Good. Waiting so long between projects doesn’t help keep fans hooked, hence Shelton’s Six Pak strategy.
• • •
All three artists are offering pre-order incentives to drive first-week sales. And all are set for high-profile television appearances. Shelton will perform tomorrow (7/8) on the Today Show’s Summer Concert Series. Also tomorrow, catch Shepherd on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Young is set for Good Morning America on release day (7/12) and Jimmy Kimmel Live! later this month (7/27). Do TV performances influence sales? Weigh-in with a comment below.

SoundScan Mid Year Wrap '11

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There are numerous ways to dissect the meaning of country music sales through the end of the second quarter 2011. But perhaps these few lines of Nielsen SoundScan code tell the story best…
Country Music Album Sales (Physical/digital)
2004—77,912,000 units
2007—62,696,000
2009—46,130,000
2010—43,718,000
As one can see, there has been a 44% country album sales drop during the six years from 2004 through 2010. So when we say that YTD the first half of 2011 is down only 1.8% (from the previous year), the above numbers might temper any joy you are feeling. Watching the country album business melt away, almost 45% in six years is painful by anyone’s yardstick.
The bleeding hasn’t stopped, but it has slowed. Digital album sales, which are included in the above totals are also rising as a share of total album sales. YTD country digital album sales are up 29.9% and the share of country albums that are purchased in the digital format has grown to 20.2% as compared with 15.3% a year ago. (All genre digital album sales are 32.3% of total album sales up from 27.4% at this time last year.) The difference between 20.2% and 32.3% makes it clear that a larger percentage of country fans still prefer the CD format over digital.
We should note that track sales are beginning to reach critical mass, even among country fans. Country digital track sales YTD 2011 are at 73.578 million. Dividing that total by 10 to create track equivalent albums adds about 7.35 million additional albums, enough to put the year’s totals in positive territory.
Scanning The Charts (SoundScan revised its charts after the first charts were released. The chart numbers below have been updated.)
Jason Aldean is on fire, in case you hadn’t noticed. His latest, My Kinda Party is No. 1 again this week with scans of almost 48k and total album scans of 1.45 million. Aldean’s “Dirt Road Anthem” is No. 1 on the Digital singles list, downloading over 127k copies this week, plus he has a total of five songs on the country digital tracks 100. Justin Moore’s strong second week sales slid back a modest 54% (less than expected), remaining above the 30k level and placing him at No. 3.
The Voice judge Blake Shelton, aka “Honey Bee” needs a separate paragraph to describe everything selling in his camp. Shelton’s Loaded: The Best of … package flies up 183% to No. 4 this week with almost 25k units, hopefully as a precursor to his new album, Red River Blue which hits bins next week. Shelton also has four digital tracks on the Digital Country tracks chart!
American Idol stars also finished high in this weeks country album stats, although they were missing when the charts first arrived earlier this morning. Scotty McCreery debuts at No. 2 with over 40k units sold and Lauren Alaina debuts at No. 6 shifting over 20k units.
Independent Country Album Highlights
>>Dolly Parton debuts at No. 11 with scans slightly below 11k;
>>Colt Ford (No. 20; 4.4k) and Aaron Lewis (No. 21; 4.1 k) remain in the Top 20.
 

Luke Bryan Shakes It Straight To Gold

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Luke Bryan is powering toward his August album release with hit single “Country Girl (Shake It For Me).” The lead track from Tailgates and Tanlines has been certified Gold by the RIAA, with sales totaling 615,800 digital downloads [Soundscan].
Co-written by Bryan and fellow Georgia native Dallas Davidson, the song is the fastest rising single of Bryan’s career, and debuted at No. 1 with 105,498 downloads. See the full track list from his upcoming Capitol release here.
Bryan is on a roll with three back-to-back No. 1 singles: “Do I,” “Rain Is A Good Thing” and “Someone Else Calling You Baby.” Those tracks are from his Gold-certified Doin’ My Thing, which recently won MusicRow’s Marketing Achievement Award.
Bryan is spending the summer on Tim McGraw’s Emotional Traffic Tour, and will headline CMT On Tour: Luke Bryan Tailgates & Tanlines this fall.

MySpace Purchased By Specific Media and Justin Timberlake [Updated]

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News Corp. has reportedly sold social-media site MySpace to ad network Specific Media and its partner, pop star Justin Timberlake.
The Wall Street Journal says the sale was valued at $35 million in cash and stock, far below News Corp’s $100 million asking price. News Corp. will also retain a small stake in the site going forward.
MySpace was purchased by News Corp. in 2005 at the height of its popularity for $580 million, but has since seen its usage dwindle after the rise of Facebook. MySpace now has about 157 million active users, compared to Facebook’s 600 million.
Following the sale, Myspace CEO Mike Jones will be vacating his post though he plans to work with News Corp. and Specific Media to help the transition. Additionally, MySpace will begin laying off a significant number of its employees.
Timberlake, who recently played Facebook affiliate Sean Parker in The Social Network, will have an office at MySpace’s Beverly Hills headquarters as well as a small staff devoted to developing ideas for the site. Specific Media and Timberlake say plans for MySpace’s future will be unveiled in the next couple of months.
Specific Media was founded in 1999 by brothers Tim, Chris and Russell Vanderhook and assists marketers in buying web, mobile and TV ads. The company’s advertising network is now one of the country’s biggest, and since 2007 it has acquired digital advertising companies, an online video company, and an ad technology company.

Justin Moore Reels In Sales

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Justin Moore fishing for album sales in Central Park.


Album Sales
Justin Moore’s sophomore effort debuted at the top of the Country album charts this week moving 65K units, which also brought him in at No. 5 on the all-genre chart [Soundscan].
Outlaws Like Me was propelled by hit single “If Heaven Wasn’t So Far Away,” and a launch event where the Valory artist held a six-hour media fest from a bass boat in the Central Park lake.
Thirty-four percent of Moore’s sales were digital downloads, while fellow new country releases from Corey Smith and Cody Canada & the Departed reaped almost 50 percent digital.
Canada, previously of Cross Canadian Ragweed, sold a total of 7.8K units, and the debut from Average Joe’s artist Smith moved 4.8K.
Outside the Country front, Jill Scott and Bon Iver had big debuts, with 135K and 104K, respectively.
Digital Tracks
On the singles front, Jason Aldean and Blake Shelton are ruling the roost. Aldean’s “Dirt Road Anthem” rap has reacted with fans to the tune of 1.11 million paid downloads. This is the combined tally from both his solo, and Ludacris-duet versions.
Shelton’s performance of “Honey Bee” on The Voice made fans buzz over to their computers, equaling a 35 percent bump from the week before. This additional 110K units brings the song’s RTD total to 938K.
2011 Sales Status

As we near next week’s mid-point for 2011, Country music is down 2.6% YTD, while all-genre album sales are up a tiny .4%. Overall digital track sales continue to climb, and are up 10% YTD.

Google Goes Social With Google+

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Google has revealed details of its new social networking service, Google+, which is now in limited use by invitation only. The service aims to integrate seamlessly with Google’s other products like maps and images, while enriching the experience of online interaction.
According to Google’s official blog, online sharing is “awkward,” and Google+ is an attempt to correct that. By adding selective features such as +Circles for organizing friends into niche groups (work, music buddies, running partners, etc.) and +Sparks for easy discovery and sharing of web content that matches user interests, Google+ is addressing what it deems Facebook’s problem of being too “rigid.”
Other features in Google+ include +Hangouts, which hopes to promote group video chat and encourage easy, low-pressure interaction with friend circles. Mobile apps, starting with Android, are also in development.
If successful, the service could be serious competition for social king Facebook. The appearance and operation (see screen shots here) are similar enough that users should have little trouble making the transition. The Google navigation bar has been redesigned and will now appear black instead of the usual gray. Once the service is ready, Google+ icons with options for profile access, notifications, and content sharing will appear in this area.
At present membership is invitation-only, but interested parties can request an account here. There is also a Twitter feed to keep everyone informed about developments with the service. The limited invite rollout is not unlike Google’s introduction of Gmail a few years back, which successfully drove demand for addresses sky high.

BE Music & Entertainment Opens in Nashville

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Dallas-based London Broadcasting Company has opened BE Music & Entertainment, headed by executives Terry London, Carl Kornmeyer and Michael Blanton. With offices in Dallas and Nashville, the full-service artist development agency provides management, production and publishing services to clients across a range of music genres, as well as in film, television, visual art, and literature.
All three executives have more than 30 years of experience in the entertainment industry, including time at Gaylord Entertainment, where London previously served as President and CEO.
Today he is President and CEO of London Broadcasting, which owns and operates 12 television stations in Texas and also owns 41 Entertainment, a Dallas-based television production company.
Kornmeyer is COO of the company’s Content Group, and Blanton is on board as President of BE Music & Entertainment.
Blanton’s background in production and management has been instrumental in developing the careers of Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith.
For more information, visit www.BEMusicEntertainment.com or call them at (866) 339-8686.

Michael Blanton, Carl Kornmeyer and Terry London

Chris Young's "Neon" Shining Soon

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Chris Young’s third studio album Neon is due for release Tuesday, July 12 and he’s giving fans some incentive to pre-order the album’s deluxe version on iTunes.
The deluxe and regular versions of Neon are available for pre-order on iTunes starting today (6/28). The deluxe version features two bonus tracks not found on the regular album– “I’m Gonna Change That” and “Don’t Leave Her (If You Can’t Let Her Go)”–as well as a photo gallery containing new images of Young. As an added bonus, fans who pre-order the deluxe version will receive an immediate download of Neon’s title track.
Neon’s lead single, “Tomorrow,” co-written by Young with Anthony Smith and Frank Myers, is the fastest-rising song of his career. Seven tracks on the James Stroud-produced album were co-written by Young. The singer will spent most of the summer on the road building his audience as part of Jason Aldean’s sold out My Kinda Party Tour.