Loose Cannon
Posted: 4:37PM, Tuesday 3rd June, 2008. Updated: , Tuesday 3rd June, 2008.

Assault With A Dead Weapon

June 3 2008

I know I promised to be more regular with my column but not much has tickled my funny bone over the past couple of weeks until someone committed a boner today with my staff.

I had already been amused today when a listing form came in from a CD manufacturer who wanted to list a new staff member who we almost sued last year for not paying a bill with us. In the end, someone else paid the bill to save his ass.

We make a habit of not listing crooks and con men and to us, this new sales agent had a history, including threatening violence when told that he would be served with a legal action outside of his home having dumped his company into liquidation. You see, we had gotten a personal guarantee from him but that’s another story. We refused to list the employee to save our readers the grief.

But the funny incident that happened today which left our staff in stitches (not from any wounds) was an email from the Communications Co Ordinator (her spelling as her title instead of Co-ordinator) of a small company that wanted a few listings in the music directory. They wanted to be a Publicity and Promotions company, a management company and a booking agent. We are used to people who claim to be all things and we make sure they get one free listing in the section they are entitled to (depending on qualifications criteria) if they get it in on time. They have to pay for extra listings and late fees if not on time.

In this case, the CC (as we’ll call her) gave my staff and partner a bit of a hard time with an exaggerated sense of self-importance and a somewhat exasperating lack of attention to detail. Lisa was kind enough, since they got their listing in on time, not to sock them with a late fee. But as we say here, “No good deed goes unpunished” when you try to be considerate.

We have long memories here and remember whether people are courteous or clueless, righteous or rude and deserving or dufuses. In the CC’s case, she hit all the wrong notes. But the self-imposed suicide pact was the clincher.

CC didn’t know how to cc or even bcc properly. So she sent the following email to her boss but unfortunately copied it to my partner, Lisa, who has a great sense of humour but sometimes loses it when confronted with this sort of idiocy. The part in Bold is the corker and remember you are reading them backwards.

Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2008 14:29:39 +1000
To: "Megs " < meg@xxx.com >
From: Lisa Treen
Subject: RE: Invoice #dr41-134
Cc:

Wow!

perhaps by waiving the late fee etc and trying to help you out we should all save you a bullet and suggest you don't bother sending in any listing. Phil, over to you - I'm not attached one way or another.

Lisa

From: "Megs " meg@xxx.com
TO: Jane@xxx.com

Thanks for writing that Jane. Those people make me want to grab a gun and shoot myself.

(Copied to Lisa in error--we won’t reveal how here.)

From Jane@xxx.com]
Sent: Tuesday, 3 June 2008 1:49 PM
To: treen@immedia.com.au
Cc: Megs; Bels
Subject: Invoice #dr41-134

Hi Lisa,

Hope you are having a good week thus far.

Thank you for sending the invoice to us last Wednesday for the listing in the forthcoming directory.

Bels, my account manager only works Thursdays at xxx, and last Thursday she was away in Port Douglas with me on a business planning session.

Therefore just letting you know that we will be able to raise payment for the invoice this coming Thursday when she's in.

Thanks,
Jane

Jane | Director

xxx Pty Ltd
P.O. Box Darlinghurst NSW 1300
Suite Darlinghurst NSW 2010
Ph: +612 | Mobile: +61 Fax: +612
Email: 
Web: 
 
iChat:
skype: jane_y

So you figure Jane the boss tried to do the right thing but Megs the CC managed to compromise the relationship with the faux pas. I was told about the incident and after recovering from the sobs of laughter, decided to send CC a little note.

To: megs@xxx.com
From: Phil Tripp
Subject: Number One with A Bullet!
Cc: jane@xxx.com

Hey Megs,

I haven't received the email you accidentally copied to one of my staff, but I hear it's destined to be Number One With A Bullet!!! Not a hit record, not a hit act or a hit show, but I'm sure it will be a hot nonetheless.

I was wondering what to do for Loose Cannon on TheMusic.com.au and once I get the copy of this email, I will probably be inspired to quote you directly.

Now if you have a problem getting a gun, or a bullet, may I also suggest you stay away from sharp things for a while.

As for your company and partners, maybe they'd like to invest in your getting a few lessons on how to send email and not include the world in it. It would be cheaper than a gun.

I await your original email to shoot out at me with your best shot. You have already caused quite an explosion already. Of laughter, with our editors. I'm sure however your associates might not think it so funny.

Cheers

PHIL TRIPP--Publisher

Within a few minutes after emailing this, we received a horrified call from Jane the boss who had gotten her cc on her Blackberry at lunch and almost threw up at the table. She assured us this wasn’t her intent, she did not approve, indicated that Megs was about to leave the company and would have a personal apology from her and also from Megs. I felt sorry for her (Jane) because it wasn’t her fault.

So lo and behold within 15 minutes, we received the following:

From: "Megs "
To:
Cc: , "Jane"
Subject: FW:
Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2008 15:07:04 +1000

Lisa,

First and foremost my sincerest apologies for that last email. Obviously not only for the sentiment but that that you had to read it.

It showed an extreme lack of thought and business sense and it is completely inexcusable. The only reasoning I can give is that I wrote it during a very busy period and unfortunately took out some stress via e-mail. I am still quite inexperienced in the industry and you were doing your best to help me out and I think I was getting confused and frustrated with the back and forth. Of course, nothing to do with you.

It’s most definitely not a regular thing for me to do that. I did it once and this is the result. To say this is a lesson learned is an absolute understatement.

I would like to reiterate that my words did and do not reflect the thoughts of Jane or any other members of the xxxx, including the artists.

Again, I am deeply sorry and enormously embarrassed that this has happened.

If there is anything else I can do to make amends, please let me know

Sincerely,

Megs

Oh well, all’s well that ends well. I hope you had a laugh but also hope you’ll be careful to check who your recipients are. This is about the tenth email this year that we’ve been copied on from internal emails that were not supposed to be read by us. 

Posted: 8:31AM, Friday 23rd May, 2008.

I've always had a fascination with the stats of the music industry and from time to time, new ones come out showing not the future, but the present and this one by Pew Internet published this week shows consumer music buying habits int he US from a poll of 800 people.

The full report is here, http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Consumer.Decisions.pdf but these are extracts of the Consumer Decisions on Music portion.

• Only 7% of respondents said online information had a major impact on music purchases.
• Of the respondents that made the music purchase online, only 22% said online information had a major impact on the purchase decision.
• 86% of music buyers find out about music through TV, radio or movies.
• 64% of music buyers find out about music through family, friends or co-workers.
• 56% of music buyers find out about music through online tools such as artist websites or streaming samples.
• Only 42% of music buyers said online information helped them save money on the purchase.
• 51% of respondents said online information had no impact whatsoever on their music purchases, 37% said it had a minor impact and 12% said it had a major impact.

Formats:
• 82% of respondents (69% for people under 35) said they still buy all (62%) or most (20%) of their music in the CD format.
• 15% (27% for people under 35) said half the music they purchased were individual digital files.

Retail:
• 74% said their most recent purchase was done at a physical store, 22% said it was done online (download or CD).
• Of respondents whose most recent purchase was in a store, 56% of those that bought music recently said they could have made the purchase online while 37% said they could not have.
• Of the 22% whose most recent purchase was online, 61% said it could have been in a store and 35% said it could not have.

Sharing/Discovery
• 77% cited offline as the favored means of sharing music with friends and family.
• 57% said online resources introduced them to new artists.
• 68% said it helped them find more information on an artist they were interested in.
• 9% said they mix the music into their own creation.

Online Resources
• Artist or record label website is the most popular online resource (37%) followed by free streaming samples (34%), online stores (34%), downloading music (27%), Internet radio (25%), online music videos (23%), MySpace pages (18%) and emails from artist or label (11%).

Marketing
• 26% of Internet users who bought music in the last year said online resources led them to buy more music. That number jumps to 40% for people who bought music in the past and did at least one post-purchase activity (such as visit an artist website).

By Age
• 90% of people ages 18-35 find out about music through TV, radio and movies. The number drops to 86% for ages 36-50 and to 76% for 51 and over.
• 53% of ages 18-35 find out about music through copies of songs given to them by friends, 33% for ages 36-50 and 23% for 51 and over. 
• Younger adults are more likely to do search activities such as visiting an artist website or music store, download a song, reading online commentary or blogs and watching online music videos. 
• Younger adults are also more likely to take part in post-purchase activities such as visiting an artist website or social networking page, post music to their social networking pages or post online reviews of the music.
• For ages 18-35, 29% said their most recent music purchase was online versus 18% for those over 35. 70% of 18-35 got their most recent purchase at a physical store versus 75% for those over 35. 
• 43% of the 18-35 group said all of their purchases are on CD, versus 65% for the 36-50 group and 77% for those over 50. 
• 11% of the 18-35 group said all of their purchases are digital, versus 3% for the 36-50 group and 2% for those over 50.

The Sample
• 53% of respondents said they had purchased music in the last year

Posted: 12:00AM, Wednesday 7th May, 2008.

I've followed the stats on what the number of releases are pout in the US by majors and indies as well as what sells in terms of numbers per release.  Ed Christgau at Billboard always has a little analysis of the previous year about this time annually and below is what he has pulled from Neilsen figures for calndar 2007.

I wish we had these sort of figures on the number of Australian releases each year but I doubt ARIA and AIR could get together on this.  As a matter of opinion, I have serious doubts that AIR can get it together period with its recent move to Melbourne seeing to be an ambulatory shift for a stiffening zombie. As for ARIA, it would be interesting for them to at least give the figures from its members but I doubt its really in their interest.

"Last year, the U.S. music industry issued nearly 80,000 new albums, of which 54,500 were in the physical format while 25,200 were in the digital format only. That represents a 5.2% increase over the 75,744 issued in 2006.

Of the nearly 80,000 releases issued in 2007, roughly 60 titles accounted for 30% of all new release sales, which totaled 70 million units. Meanwhile, nearly 62,000 new releases each sold less than 100 units.

Of the total new releases, nearly 11,000 albums were issued by the majors. Those albums sold nearly 151 million units, or 80% of total sales, which were about 180 million units last year.

In moving to downloads, Muratore pointed out that while 4 million different tracks were downloaded last year, only 303 tracks scanned over 250,000 units while nearly 3.5 million tracks sold less than 100 units".

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