WMG Call: Bronfman: We're Not Doing As Bad As The Rest Of The Music Industry
This story was written by David Kaplan.
[In progress] Edgar Bronfman, Jr., Warner Music Group's Chairman and CEO, began the call offering a set stats designed to show how the company is outpacing the rest of the music industryor at least doing less worse. However, major successes came from albums by Frank Sinatra and Madonna, not exactly rising young artists. Online digital front, ringtone revenue remains small and was flat in Q2, especially in Europe and the U.S., but Bronfman has expectations that mobile revenue growth will grow soon as western consumers have been gradually adopting the portable music listening and purchasing habits that are entrenched in Japan.
In terms of other experiments designed to grow digital, Bronfman pointed to Jason Mraz's album We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things. The album release was preceded by sales of bundled tracks over three months. Ultimately, WMG was able to offer two versions of Mraz' album on iTunes, with the premium release eventually outselling the basic one on Apple's (NSDQ: AAPL) download store. WMG is also working with Nokia (NYSE: NOK) on its "Comes With Music" feature, which is slated to launch later this year and Bronfman is hopeful about the benefits. He also emphasized short-term business deals for digital to maintain flexibility and see what works and what doesn't.
By David Kaplan