Tag Archive for: feature

Industry Ink: BNA Signs Tyler Farr

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Farr Joins Sony Nashville
Singer-songwriter Tyler Farr has signed a recording contract with BNA Records. The Missouri native is in the studio working on his debut album.

(L-R): Gary Overton (Sony Music Nashville Chairman & CEO), Tyler Farr, and Jim Catino (Sony Nashville VP A&R).


Warner Buyer Eyeing EMI?
Russian billionaire Len Blavatnik agreed to a $3.3 billion purchase of Warner Music Group last week, and now has his eye on EMI according to the New York Post. Citigroup is prepping EMI for sale after repossessing it from Guy Hands’ Terra Firma in February. The auction was expected to launch in May, following the Warner auction.
Voorhis Adds Clients Grand and Gee
Grand and Gee Music Publishing has signed on with Chip Voorhis’ Voorhis Consulting for business management and bookkeeping services. Voorhis Consulting is an independent firm specializing in financial services for music publishers, songwriters, engineers and studios. Grand and Gee is enjoying the success of the current Chris Young hit “Tomorrow.” Voorhis may be reached at 615-977-4727 or [email protected].
CMA Songwriters Series Adds Second Night
Due to the popularity of the CMA Songwriters Series, the engagement will return to Joe’s Pub in New York for a two night run, June 21-22 with two shows per night. Easton Corbin will be the featured artist/songwriter on June 21 and Clay Walker will be featured on June 22. Performing both nights will be Carson Chamberlain, Mark D. Sanders, and host Bob DiPiero. Details here.
Naxos Purchases Altissimo!
The Naxos Group is proud to announce that American military music label Altissimo! Recordings has joined their roster. The Naxos Group has purchased Altissimo! and Naxos of America will begin physical distribution of the label in North America on June 1, 2011.
TCN Adds Five Stations
The Country Network (TCN), a country music video television network located on Music Row in Nashville, TN, is now broadcasting on Newport Television stations in Salt Lake City, Tulsa, Fresno, Wichita, and Little Rock.
ACM’s Award-Winning Program Book
The Academy of Country Music has been named the winner of the prestigious 2011 Maggie Award for “Best Annuals & Custom Publication/Trade & Consumer” by the Western Publishing Association, an honor bestowed specifically for the 45th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards program book.

2010 Sales Wrap: Country Slide Continues

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Today is an especially robust data day for Nielsen SoundScan watchers since the week ending 1/2/2011 closes the door on 2010. Pundits will continue squeezing out details over the next few weeks in an effort to fully understand the past and perhaps peer into what lies ahead, but simply stated the industry overall continued its decline, with CD sales (both physical and digital) dropping 12.8% compared with 2009. Country CD sales for the same period fell a kinder, gentler 5.2% affording the format a slightly stronger market share of total CD sales— 13.4%—up from last year’s 12.3%. (As the album sales graph shows, country CD sales have plummeted almost 50% since this decade’s highpoint in 2004.)

Keeping this year’s decline in the 5% range required a massive fourth quarter full court press on the consumer. (As late as 9/5/10 country was behind 13.2%.) The ten Top Selling Q4 Country CD releases shown in the colorful graph [above] show how much superstar product was launched into the marketplace. The Sales Percent graph [top] shows how the numbers (and consumers) responded. Six artists were able to shift more than a half million units each in the 15 week (or less) holiday season leading to year end. Lady Antebellum’s Need You Now also must be mentioned. Although the trio debuted 49 weeks earlier this year and therefore didn’t make our Q4 chart, they racked up 3.09 million units YTD.
Taylor Swift’s spotlight continued to shine brightly this year, eclipsing all but a very few other artists worldwide. Her 1.05 million unit Speak Now debut week (10/31) exploded and she ended the year selling just shy of 3 million units over a 10 week period. The colorful Q4 graph tells the tale and explains why the young singer/songwriter continues to reap large editorial coverage.
As we wonder about 2011, insiders project that retail shelf space will continue to shrink, and marketers will therefore continue to place a premium on prospecting for new sales opportunities.
In 2010 country digital album sales grew to about 15% of the total up from 11% in 2009. However, all genre digital album purchases equal 26% (up from about 20% last year). This 15/26 gap shows that country consumers still have a lot of catching up to do as they travel toward the digital frontier. However, with the amazingly rapid integration of smartphones, tablets and more, 2011 may well be the year that country’s fans narrow the format’s “technology gap.”