Kind of interesting that the consensus is that there's been no noticable sales uptick as a result of the UMG price drop. And no matter what you think about the accounting practices of the music business, trust me on the fact that it's not doing very well right now, and if there aren't sales to make up the shortfall, some people are going to be losing their jobs, and not necessarily the people who made the decision to cut MSRP across the board.

The especially odd thing about this is that, after the initial publicity blitz (which UMG probably didn't have to pay for--the stories seemed mainly self-generating), there's been no marketing push to publicize the new lower prices. Whether this is because they don't want to spend the money or because they want to retain their "boutique" status, I'm not sure, but it's awful stupid.

It's also making me think, once again, that this is maybe just a big publicity stunt. "You guys complained that CD prices were too high, but see? We drop 'em and nothing happens! It's piracy that's killing the music!" I guess we'll see...
posted by Mike B. at 11:28 AM 0 comments