Is 2.0 Music Editorial For Sale? Universal Buys Into Buzznet
It’s official. Universal has made a major investment in Buzznet. The music centered social networking site also owns music blogs Stereogum and Idolator. Here’s part of the press release:
"This partnership marks one of the first times that a music company will be directly involved in developing editorial programming for a social media site, with both companies sharing in the revenue."
There are many good reasons that this is "one of the first times" a record label has some control over music editorial content. The biggest one is fairness. Can Universal squash a bad review? Will other labels and bands get the same amount of space? Should the fans trust these site to remain impartial?
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF MUSIC COMPANIES INVESTING IN NEW MUSIC MEDIA? WILL STEREOGUM REMAIN A TRUSTED SOURCE?
How can they possibly think readers will still consider their editorial to be ‘fair and balanced’?
It’d be the same if UMG bought SPIN and Rolling Stone. Or even, for that matter, if UMG straight up purchased KROQ-FM Los Angeles from CBS Radio or MTV from Viacom. The only difference there is there’d be FCC discrepancies…
There is reason to be concerned, but I wouldn’t over-react. Just because Bank of America might buy some stock in Time Warner because they see a great return, doesn’t mean you should expect your average reporter at Time Magazine to even realize that relationship exists, let alone act on it.
Universal didn’t buy Buzznet — they made an equity investment. I’ve taken “strategic” money like this for previous startups and a vast majority of the time it simple means that some corporate investor at the company thought you were a good investment. It usually has nothing to do with any kind of integration or overlap with the rest of the company the way a merger or buy-out would.
So I doubt this really means anything other than Buzznet has some more cash to grow.