Doug Morris To Sony Music
The ink is not dry on this deal, but this is what Howard Stringer wants. Stringer personally chose Doug.
But Doug’s got time left on his Universal contract. My source says one more year, many press reports say two.
As for L.A. Reid, he will ride herd over a limited number of acts. And Barry Weiss’s role will not be creative in a hands-on A&R sense. He’ll be more of a marketing guy/traffic cop.
As for Morris going to Sony, as one source said, it’s like pouring gasoline on an already burned down house.
Can Morris break free of Universal? Conventional business wisdom would say no, then again Doug did snooker Vivendi for all those years.
Can Doug resurrect Sony?
Can you bring back Smith-Corona? Can Gateway challenge HP?
Doug’s too old and it takes too long to build from scratch. Record labels need to be revolutionized today!
Smart move last century, dumb in 2010 (soon to be ’11).
They need someone from within, who already has relationships, who knows where the bodies are buried. But Sony Music is about destruction rather than construction.
How did Stringer let it go so long and let it get this bad?
Blame him and Rolf and Rob and… They were asleep at the switch. Remember Andy Lack? Mismanagement knows no bounds. It’s over. Regime change is so last century. You’ve got to be nimble and effect change today!
And Doug doesn’t know tech. A music guy is no longer enough. You need a digital visionary, not someone afraid of a keyboard. Tablets are replacing laptops and the main revenue generator for the majors is still CDs?
(Typed on my BlackBerry in an airport. Mea culpa re the mistakes)
