ANALYSIS: An A&R:14 years after A&R: Having ruled 41>04 ee. extra £5m has been he produced his first the world, Essex duo pledged by MATTHEW record JERMAINE ALISHA'S ATTIC BANNISTER to boost DUPRI has finally return with their BBC radio's coverage made his debut album second album 414> BBC RADIO 6 Talent 8 Talent 8 FOR EVERYONE IN THE BUSINESS OF MUSIC 1 AUGUST 1994 ,457// musicweek Indie sector turns thecorner by Robert Ashton share was as high as 22.7%. bigger cake," he says. According estimate they can lose as much SHARE OF ALBUM SALES Parallel imports have helped halt The improvement, reported in to the BPI Handbook the sector as 25% of sales to imports on key the misery years for indie retailers theBPIStatistical Handbook BY TYPE OF RETAILER sold 20.1% of singles last year releases. with new industry figures showing 1998 published last week, comes compared with 26.0% in 1996. With small indies suffering the the sector's share of total UK at the expense of specialist and specialist general indies super multiplesmultiples markets* Manybelieve theindies' greatest number of shop closures album sales increased last year general multiples, which lost 0.8 '9237.7%39.6%22.7% n/a improved albums performance in - 98 compared with only 11 large for the first time in at least five and 9.6 percentage points '9649.3%36.5%14.2% n/a a year when their total number of independents - within the sector, years. respectively. Bard chairman outlets actually fell from 1,207 in '9748.5%26.9%14.9%9.6% Barnes also attributes a large The grey market, the popularity Richard Wootton hails it as a sig- 1996 to 1,085 came through par- measure of the overall upturn to of indie-friendly genres such as nificant success. "It's heartening *previously included in general multiples source: Gallup/Millward Brown allel imports. Bob Barnes, charts chains with several outlets. dance and rock and an improving that indies have managed to hang director of Millward Brown, which The performance of the indie relationship with record compa- on to their share," he says. "Have indies' improvement to their per- supplied some of the figures for sector has also undoubtedly been nies helped independent retailers they reversed the trend? Let's ceived value and although their the Handbook, says itis difficult helped by the emergence of big take 14.9% of total album sales in hope so, but I think it's probably performance on singles has dete- to track parallel imports because selling rock and dance acts such 1997, compared with 14.2% the too early to tell." riorated, he remains optimistic. they often share the same bar- as Oasis, The Verve, Prodigy and previous year. In 1992, when fig- Wootton, owner of Leicester - "The singles market is buoyant so codes as UK produced stock. Radiohead, which are popular with ures were firstcollected,their basedAinleys,attributesthe they have got a smaller slice of a Privately some major labels indie customers. The Spice Girls' sold -out final UK performance at Wembley Arena on Blaxill show gives acts pre -chart shot September 20 will become BSkyB's ITV's new Saturday morning pro- "This is an exciting opportuni- second pay -per -view music event gramme SMTV Live is aiming to ty for record companies because following the success of Robbie have a direct impact on the offi- we will be creating the chart, not Williams' armchair gig on June 3. cial singles chart by using mid- reflecting the [existing] Top 40," The Spice Girls - Live In Your Living week positions to help select the says Blaxill. Room will cost viewers £9.95 if acts it features on the show. Alan James, managing director ordered before September 19. The programme, which begins of Alan James PR, says the new Meanwhile, Virgin looks set to a 52 -week run when it replaces show is a significant boost to live celebrate its seventh Spice Girls the ITV Chart Show on August music on TV. "When Ric was at number one single on Sunday with 29, will include up to seven live JOTP he was innovative and we Viva Forever. The band's first six performances a week during its are seeing his good ideas again singles all topped the chart with hour-long chart -based CDUK with a return to live music at a first week sales peaking at segment. peak time." 440,000 for 2 become 1, although Series producer Ric Blaxill told Scott Piering, managing direc- Viva Forever could beat this figure. more than 60 pluggers at a meet- tor of Appearing, says the number The group's last single Stop ended ingat LWT'sstudios last of bands being featured and the this sequence when it reached Wednesday (July 22) that the length of the series will assist all number two. Viva Forever is the 11.30am-12.30pm slot will fea- pluggers. "With this number of first single released by the band ture acts likely to perform well in bites at the cherry I hope to get since Geri Halliwell quit. the following day's chart. many of my bands on," he says. MW COMMENT MW signs new charts deal When we launched CIN eight Music Week has signed a long- director Doug Shuard and years ago, it was an attempt term licensing deal for the official PolyGram UK chairman and Mics by Music Week's publishers UK music charts with new chart director John Kennedy last Friday. and by a then -infant Bard to compiler Mics (Music Industry Shuard said, "We are very bring a new independence to Chart Services), a joint venture of pleased with the new arrange- the compilation of the UK the BPI and Bard. mentswhich extend Music music charts. The deal guarantees Music Week's 40 -year association with By putting an independent Week readers full access to Mics the UK charts." third party - ourselves - in charts through the millennium Kennedy said, "On behalf of the driving seat of the charts, and beyond. Bard and the BPI we are delighted we believed we would bring a ono The key consequences of the we have renewed our relationship new openness and even- f new arrangement are: withMillerFreeman and we handedness to the charts. An extension of Music Week's believe this is the best result for We believed that we could be access to chart data; all concerned." the honest brokers working An agreement between Music The Mics joint venture took with record companies, Breaking hits in europe Week and the BPI to work togeth- over responsibility for the UK retailers and the media to the er to exploit jointly the 40 -year -old charts on July 1. This followed the benefit of the entire industry. Des'ree, B*witched, Karen Ramirez and Rod UK chart archive; expiry of the CIN joint venture To a great extent our hopes See how the UK's acts are doing in Europe A major investment by Music betweentheBPI andMiller were fulfilled. In market - every week Week in a new music business Freeman on June 30. research terms the UK charts internet site featuring searchable As part of its deal with Mics, CIN produced have been the databases and charts. Miller Freeman is selling its share envy of and the inspiration for For a sample copy, call Anna Sperni or Richard Coles on The deal was signed by Miller in the assets of CIN to Mics. music sales charts around + 44 (0) 171 921 5957 or 5906 Freeman Entertainment managing See story, p3 continued on p4 N U E AWING COMP,,flt stationsacrosswith over 80... of and3 themillion Wednesdays UK's listeners largest on commercialper Channel week 5 CAPITALcall ADVERTISING 0171 766 6138 www.pepsichart.co.uk newsfi/e UNIVERSAL CLINCHES ITT US DEAL Universal Records has struck a PRSpreparesbig changes deal to distribute ZTT's entire output, including catalogue, in the US and Canada. Releases by acts such as The Art Of Noise, 808 State, Adamski's Thing, The Frames and Lee Griffiths are in radical royalties review expected to become available in those territories from the end of by Tracey Snell Andrew Potter, chairman of PRS, transparent, accurate and fair. the year. The deal has been The PRS is planning wide-ranging which licenses some 7.3bn public The changes are due to be imple- struck with Universal Music Group changes to the way it distributes performances a year and last year mented from next April and contin- chairman/ceo Doug Morris, who royalties to its members, following distributed £172m toits 30,000 ue through to July 2000. The rec- describes ZTT founders Jill the biggest review of public use of members, says, "Most of the 72 ommendations are currently under- Sinclair and Grammy winner music ever conducted in the UK. changes were blindingly obvious. going analysis to assess their likely Trevor Horn as true creative The collectionsociety has About seven gave us significant effect on the income distribution entrepreneurs. approved in principle 72 changes to amount of discussion." mix. As this is a requirement of the its data collection and distribution Among the biggest changes will MMC, PRS is unable to release full RADIO WELCOMES GREEN PAPER policy recommended by the review be a new system for collecting live details until the work is complete, The radio industry has welcomed team, whose study encompassed performance data to account for all which is expected to be early next the government's Green Paper on all aspects of public performance types of venues.