How long til Sanctuary goes out of business?<\/p>\n
My inside mole told me they were two hundred million in the hole.\u00c2\u00a0 In the limo I forgot to ask him whether he meant dollars or pounds, but in either event, that’s a lot of debt.\u00c2\u00a0 Especially when you’ve got little guaranteed income.<\/p>\n
Oh, they’ve got a catalog of sorts.\u00c2\u00a0 But catalog sales have taken a dive.\u00c2\u00a0 And it’s not like they’ve got Led Zeppelin.<\/p>\n
Oh, LED ZEPPELIN?\u00c2\u00a0 Did you know that Robert Plant has a new CD available on Sanctuary?<\/p>\n
Probably.<\/p>\n
But, have you heard it? Other than e-mail from Sanctuary’s tireless Michael Plen, I’ve read essentially NOTHING about this album, I haven’t heard it on the radio, it’s like it never came out!\u00c2\u00a0 And this ain’t Christopher Cross.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, even MICHAEL MCDONALD got more hype, never mind airplay, for his last two solo albums.<\/p>\n
But why is Mr. Plant on Sanctuary anyway?<\/p>\n
The bucks.<\/p>\n
That’s what Sanctuary does.\u00c2\u00a0 Give you a big payday.\u00c2\u00a0 An irresistible one to old has-beens and those no longer wanted by the major labels at a high price.\u00c2\u00a0 As far as execution??\u00c2\u00a0 For all the hoopla about Morrissey’s new record, it ultimately stalled in the marketplace.\u00c2\u00a0 And, other than the Manchester sexual neuter, nothing else has had an impact on Sanctuary.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, it was like the Kelly Osbourne record never was released.\u00c2\u00a0 And, if you LISTENED to it, you’d see it was a workable record, it didn’t even SOUND like her, if she had still been on Epic you’d be being bombarded by it on paid-for Top Forty stations as we speak.<\/p>\n
But Sanctuary doesn’t spend that kind of money.\u00c2\u00a0 Not in promotion\/marketing anyway.<\/p>\n
They do pay that kind of money in advances.\u00c2\u00a0 And salaries to managers who see it as the sweetest deal of all time.\u00c2\u00a0 A guaranteed income??\u00c2\u00a0 Unless you’re an Azoff or a Burnstein, the concept of getting a constant stream of money to manage acts is a deal you can’t refuse, even if you have to give up a few cents on the dollar.<\/p>\n
BUT, the company paying you this salary must have the cash…<\/p>\n
It’s like a bucket brigade.\u00c2\u00a0 Acts go on tour, the money goes to salaries, the debt gets higher, when does the cash run out?<\/p>\n
And what’s the end game?<\/p>\n
It can no longer be a stock market play.\u00c2\u00a0 The company’s stock has tanked.\u00c2\u00a0 And who are you going to sell the company to?\u00c2\u00a0 Warner Music is laden in debt and its numbers are bad.\u00c2\u00a0 Other than Universal, EVERYBODY’S numbers are far from rosy.\u00c2\u00a0 And Universal doesn’t NEED Sanctuary, they already have economies of scale and enough market share to wield a big stick.<\/p>\n
So, Sanctuary’s gonna implode.<\/p>\n
At least Clear Channel had some assets.\u00c2\u00a0 Those sheds.\u00c2\u00a0 And to break into the concert business is nigh near impossible whereas to start up a record company\/management company…ANYBODY can do this.\u00c2\u00a0 The only thing that separates the strapped newbie from the major is the deep pockets to market.\u00c2\u00a0 But, if Sanctuary had this money to spend, you’d know that Robert Plant is NOW selling a live EP.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m a FAN and I had NO CLUE!<\/p>\n
Is this any way to run a company?<\/p>\n
No.<\/p>\n
Which is why I believe this company is not going to run for very much longer, not in any fashion resembling its present incarnation.<\/p>\n
Make no mistake.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s a ton of talent at Sanctuary.\u00c2\u00a0 Everyone from financial whiz Andy Taylor at the top to John Kalodner and Peter Asher in the trenches.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s just that it was a flawed plan.\u00c2\u00a0 Smoke and mirrors have kept Sanctuary alive this long, but they’ll pull the plug or sell it off at a deep discount in the future.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, companies go bankrupt every day.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s business.\u00c2\u00a0 The way of the world.<\/p>\n
P.S. Sanctuary’s debt, as of the company’s last report, is $215 million (118 million pounds).<\/p>\n
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How long til Sanctuary goes out of business? My inside mole told me they were two hundred million in the hole.\u00c2\u00a0 In the limo I forgot to ask him whether he meant dollars or pounds, but in either event, that’s a lot of debt.\u00c2\u00a0 Especially when you’ve got little guaranteed income. Oh, they’ve got a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-1G","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}