Irving broke the model.<\/p>\n
Has there ever been a greater friend to the artist?\u00c2\u00a0 With this much power?<\/p>\n
Geffen screwed Laura Nyro with the Tuna Fish Music deal, and ultimately sued Neil Young.\u00c2\u00a0 And Bob Dylan signed to Asylum and then abandoned Geffen, went back to Columbia.\u00c2\u00a0 But Irving’s artists stick with him.\u00c2\u00a0 Because no one can extract money from a corporation, no one can find more profit in a deal than Irving.\u00c2\u00a0 If Irving’s on your team, you’ve got Kobe, A-Rod and Lance Armstrong all wrapped into one.\u00c2\u00a0 Or, as Don Henley so famously said, "He may be Satan, but he’s our Satan."<\/p>\n
Yes, you want Irving on your side.<\/p>\n
And who was conventionally on the other side?<\/p>\n
The label.<\/p>\n
The way it worked was the label made the lion’s share of the money.\u00c2\u00a0 Forget the rationalizations, that they took all the risk, made the investment, for eternity, or the life of copyright in most cases, the label owned your records and profited from them.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is why Mo Ostin is richer than any concert promoter ever, and he worked for a public company!\u00c2\u00a0 Working for the label is where the money was.\u00c2\u00a0 Everyone who was a manager jumped ship in the nineties, for that huge cash.<\/p>\n
Then it all imploded.\u00c2\u00a0 Not overnight, but gradually.\u00c2\u00a0 Took ten years for sales to go down 52%.\u00c2\u00a0 And the hubris of the labels was such that they dictated to Irving, saying it was "company policy."<\/p>\n
So what did Irving do?\u00c2\u00a0 He rolled up all the managers and said it was FRONTLINE’S POLICY!\u00c2\u00a0 Frontline became bigger than any label.\u00c2\u00a0 And then the Eagles didn’t need a label at all, out of contract they went directly to Wal-Mart.\u00c2\u00a0 And not only were sales huge, profits were incredible!<\/p>\n
Yes, Irving made it so the artist has all the power.<\/p>\n
You people looking to make a 360 deal with the still extant major labels…\u00c2\u00a0 I’m scratching my head.\u00c2\u00a0 Irving fights your battle and then you concede after victory?\u00c2\u00a0 You give the label the lion’s share of the dough when you no longer have to?<\/p>\n
But to play Irving’s way you need a few elements.\u00c2\u00a0 Talent.\u00c2\u00a0 And perseverance.\u00c2\u00a0 And Irving himself.\u00c2\u00a0 Easier to place faith in the crumbling monolith, then you have someone to blame when you fail.<\/p>\n
But make a deal for music without a label and you keep almost all the money.\u00c2\u00a0 Not only at Wal-Mart, but with the newspaper, Prince got paid, and even Tunecore.<\/p>\n
So when it comes to recorded music, the artist is in control, at least when it comes to profit participation.<\/p>\n
And when it comes to concerts, an act with traction can easily get the entire gate.\u00c2\u00a0 In the case of Jimmy Buffett, more than the admission receipts.\u00c2\u00a0 Because the promoter is going to profit from parking, merch and concessions.<\/p>\n
Nothing inherently wrong with this, but please note…the artist gets the big piece of the pie, everybody else fights for crumbs.<\/p>\n
So I don’t see how Live Nation becomes hugely profitable.\u00c2\u00a0 Because they need the acts.\u00c2\u00a0 And Irving’s paved the way for the acts to get all the dough.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, there’s money in concert promotion, when done right, but not big money, not Google money, not MTV money.\u00c2\u00a0 MTV benefited the artists, giving them exposure, but the profit was in the advertising, kept by Viacom…and ultimately MTV didn’t need the artists at all.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s different for Live Nation.\u00c2\u00a0 They can make sponsorship deals all day, but not if no one plays their buildings.\u00c2\u00a0 Live Nation is dependent on the acts, and always will be.<\/p>\n
Rapino has to institute some discipline.\u00c2\u00a0 He has to take back some turf from the acts.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s a bit to be reclaimed, but not much.\u00c2\u00a0 Because where there’s profit, there’s Irving, saying there’s no show, no revenue without his acts.<\/p>\n
Ticketmaster works…\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, Irving wants a cut of that for his acts too.<\/p>\n
Synergies are Live Nation’s upside, new products that can be sold because all the elements are under one roof, ticketing, promotion and talent.\u00c2\u00a0 Used to be artists were skeptical of promoters, you could film the acts in concert, but you couldn’t do anything with the results, not unless you paid them exorbitantly.\u00c2\u00a0 Irving can broker new deals, new opportunities for revenue.\u00c2\u00a0 But, the lion’s share of the dough will always go to the acts.<\/p>\n
So it’s the best of times and the worst of times.<\/p>\n
It’s the best of times if you’re an artist.\u00c2\u00a0 Slavery has ceased.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, it’s not that easy to get a job, to get a toehold in the new world.\u00c2\u00a0 Your master gave you work and food, but he also beat you.\u00c2\u00a0 You can sign up with the major label if you still want to be beaten, but that’s not too appealing.<\/p>\n
The worst of worlds is if you’re on the business side of the equation, if you’re not the talent.\u00c2\u00a0 Because you’re going to survive on crumbs.<\/p>\n
Irving should be able to make Live Nation work.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, he’s best as an outside agitator as opposed to a chief executive.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what a manager is, an outside agitator who prods other people to produce, results, both marketing and revenue.\u00c2\u00a0 Can Irving be the inside guy as opposed to the outside guy?\u00c2\u00a0 We’ll see.\u00c2\u00a0 But Live Nation stock is never going to be like tech…\u00c2\u00a0 Certainly not like Apple, with its double digit margins, in some cases approaching forty percent.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s more akin to a blue chip.\u00c2\u00a0 Assuming there’s discipline.\u00c2\u00a0 Can Irving get his house in order, instill discipline not only in Live Nation but the entire music industry, which he’s fundamentally changed and controls more than any other person?<\/p>\n
We’ll see.<\/p>\n
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Irving broke the model. Has there ever been a greater friend to the artist?\u00c2\u00a0 With this much power? Geffen screwed Laura Nyro with the Tuna Fish Music deal, and ultimately sued Neil Young.\u00c2\u00a0 And Bob Dylan signed to Asylum and then abandoned Geffen, went back to Columbia.\u00c2\u00a0 But Irving’s artists stick with him.\u00c2\u00a0 Because no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","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-3135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-Oz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3135","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3135"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3136,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3135\/revisions\/3136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}