webofevil | Jazz Hands

The man who has taken over EMI and intends to shed a third of its staff isn’t just about the asset-stripping. Some of the changes Guy Hands is making, which are aimed directly at cost-cutting, make sense; duplication can indeed be cut right down, while the fact that 85 per cent of what the company releases makes no money and 30 per cent of its artists who receive advances never go on to make albums shows that things could definitely improve.

At yesterday’s meeting for all staff at the Odeon cinema in Kensington, however, he also presented other ideas for generating money in the harsh new music download world—among them, this:

“Football teams have very distinct corporate sponsorship. Why shouldn’t some of the leading bands have the same sort of relationships?”

As an example, he said EMI could help bands who would not make it on the international stage find local sponsors who want to break into the student market. [Financial Times]

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