Warner Music Group CEO Edgar Bronfman, Jr. sat down for an interview with BusinessWeek. The highlights:
On a proposed EMI takeover –
Consolidation for [its own] sake does not make a lot of sense. Ours is not a business that requires scale economics. Music companies have two areas where they add value. One is the editorial side of the business — finding and nurturing talent. The second is the marketing of those artists, bringing them through a massive number of different channels and promoting their music. Warner Music is large enough to do both and to continue to grow.
On iTunes and 99 cent downloads –
The issue is not what’s the proper price for a song. People have often interpreted our wish for variable pricing as a way to increase prices. Variable pricing means that some prices would fall, some would stay the same, and probably very few would rise…while tracks remain on iTunes at 99 cents, I think you’ll see tracks with lyrics, tracks with videos, all kinds of things where that pricing will move…Thanks to Coolfer for the tip-off.
