Showbiz Sandbox 430 – Taylor Swift Helps Fellow Artists With Her New Record Deal
November 26, 2018
When her current recording contract expired at Big Machine, Taylor Swift went looking for a new label. After a heated bidding war, Swift wound up at Universal Music landing a deal that allows her to retain control of her masters. Swift also demanded that if the label ever sold its share in Spotify that she get a cut. More importantly, she insisted on this for every single act in Universal’s roster.
This is especially notable because Swift is not a big player in music streaming, because she holds back her albums with a window to urge fans to purchase them instead. Unfortunately, the sales of physical albums, like vinyl LPs and CDs, is collapsing, causing many artists to get out of the habit of actually creating them. Instead, some big acts release a constant stream of singles, videos and live cuts since that’s how their fans listen to music these days.
Meanwhile the North American box office continues to chug along at 10% over last year’s tally, with a record breaking $12 billion in sight. That growth rate is keeping pace with the Chinese box office, which is up 11% this year, earning $8.1 billion thus far. Maybe the date for when China’s theatrical box office will surpass that of North America’s needs to be pushed back a year or two.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including why pop stars may be headed to Broadway, how YouTube has begun showing blockbuster movies (with ads) and the winners of this year’s International Emmy Awards.
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Showbiz Sandbox 298: Predicting The 2016 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductees
October 12, 2015
Among the 2016 nominees for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced this past week were legendary musical acts like The Smiths that will surely be inducted, unheralded backing groups such as the J.B.s that are a long shot and even a popular 1970s funk band, Chic, that has now been nominated ten times. The nominations that generated the most media discussion were probably for pop star Janet Jackson and N.W.A., the hip hop group which popularized gansta rap. We debate which of this year’s nominees are deserving of induction and which are real head scratchers.
Meanwhile government and film industry regulators in China agreed to allow greater oversight into their box office receipts through a public website. Only time will tell whether this was a symbolic gesture meant to assuage Hollywood studios or a true step toward more transparency.
We’ll also dip back into book publishing, where despite recent setbacks many companies are trying to launch all-you-can read subscription services.. Given the numbers revealed by Amazon for its Kindle Unlimited program, it appears authors don’t have much to gain.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including a lifetime achievement award for composer John Williams, the plans to adapt Nancy Drew for television and Woody Allen goes digital.
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