Universal get more time

As the Universal takeover of EMI gets caught up in regulators' worries about monopoly, Citibank have offered Vivendi longer to complete the deal.

The cash was supposed to have changed hands by September; now, to give time for the company to work out how to offload enough parts to keep everyone happy.

Hilariously, Richard Branson is talking about buying back Virgin:

"Richard Branson and Virgin have been assessing how to get back into recorded music business for many years," said a spokesman for Virgin Group. "The potential disposal of Virgin Records by Universal Music offers a wonderful opportunity to recreate a dynamic independent label in the market."

For many years? He can't have been assessing how to get back into music for more than five years, as up until 2007 Branson was part-owner of V2. Which was, erm, sold to Universal.

(It's worth noting that when Branson founded V2, he only owned 5% of it; the rest was held by Morgan Stanley. I know, imagine a record label mostly owned by a bank. Crazy, huh?)

While it might be fun for Richard to buy back Virgin, the failure of V2 should be evidence enough that he doesn't have a magic touch. And V2 was founded in 1996, when the music business still bore a superficial resemblance to the one in which Branson thrived in the early days of Virgin. And while the Virgin Group had a retail network.

However much people might want to believe that Beardie back at Virgin Records is a Leno-returns-to-Tonight story, it's much more likely to be akin to that awkward couple of episodes where Bet Lynch went back to Corrie, look confused and was swiftly written out again.

Virgin Media plots an all you can eat buffet. Sort of.

Virgin Media (the thing that used to be NTL & Telewest) hope that the attraction of an all-you-can-download music service is still there, as they announce plans for a new service.

When they say 'all you can eat', though, it's not quite that: their deal is with Universal, so it's more a bottomless serving from a limited section of the mainstream music industry rather than a true smorgasbord. And since most people don't know what label artists work sits under, the potential for disappointment as you discover that, oh, Pipes Of Peace wasn't released on a Universal-leaning label, is high.

And then there's the price:

The proposed monthly pricing structure of the new Virgin Media downloads service has not been revealed. But the company is thought to be looking at charging at a level roughly the cost of purchasing "a couple of albums a month". This would put a monthly subscription at about £15.

I will allow a slight pause to allow you to wipe off whatever you may have splattered across your monitors.

Fifteen quid? A month? £180 a year? Just for Universal's music?

Given that you're competing with a wider offering that costs nothing near two hundred quid, it's hard to see how this is meant to be attractive. There had been talk about hiding all-you-can-eat deals in the cost of normal broadband access, but if one record label thinks that access to its service is worth that sort of money, it's clear that consumers would notice quite sharply any such attempt.

Maybe a fiver a month, if all the majors were on board, and you might have a consumer offering.

"Virgin Media's agreement with Universal is a world first and lays the ground for a truly unique service when it launches later this year," said Richard Branson, the chairman of Virgin Group and a shareholder in Virgin Media. "It will give music fans all the MP3s they want for a small monthly fee whilst supporting the artists whose creativity is the lifeblood of music."

Branson may well think £180 a year is a "small" fee, but surely even he knows that "all" the mp3s people want may come from other labels? After all, while this deal gives access to V2, it doesn't have access to proper Virgin Records' back catalogue, which sits in the EMI vaults.

A Virgin offering which doesn't actually include Virgin product. Nice.

I wonder if anyone took Branson aside afterwards and pointed out that it's not entirely a world first, either, being as how it's just a stunted version of the one between Nokia and the majors?

Tied in with this is the pushing of a hugely watered-down 'three strikes' system:

In addition Universal Music and Virgin Media say they will work together to protect the music company's intellectual property to "drive a material reduction in the unauthorised distribution of [Universal's] repertoire across Virgin Media's network".

This will include raising awareness of online piracy, legal downloading alternatives and, as a last resort for "persistent offenders", a temporary suspension of internet access. Suspension of service could be for as little as five minutes.

"No customers will be permanently disconnected and the process will not depend on network monitoring or interception of customer traffic by Virgin Media," the company said.

Eh? While welcoming the reaffirmation that throwing people off the internet for having an unlicensed tune or two is just daft, what is the point of a five minute disconnection? Who is driving BPI policy this week - Supernanny Jo Frost?

"now... you're going to have to sit on the naughty step until you learn."

Five minutes? Isn't there every chance that the user might not even notice the suspension? Or - if it's five minutes of requested access - they could just start their machine up while they go and make a pot of coffee?

And how does Virgin intend to do this without monitoring or intercepting customer traffic? Will they just do it at the behest of the labels regardless of if there's any evidence or not? Are Virgin really saying they'll happily cut people off - for however long - without any idea if an offence has been committed?

And if you've paid fifteen quid for unlimited access to Universal's back catalogue, will you still get sat on the naughty step for downloading the same tracks elsewhere? It's all a bit half-arsed.

The Virgin returns? Branson plots return to UK radio

He's got a couple of years to come to his senses, but ages after he flogged off Virgin Radio, and a few weeks after that network was forced to change its name to something Absolutely Bloody Awful, there's reports that Richard Branson is plotting to bid for Classic FM's licence when it comes up for renewal in 2011/2012.

Oh, it gets better, though: Kelvin MacKenzie is also involved, according to PaidContent. Kelvin MacKenzie. The man who, on Question Time last week, suggested that you could disprove global warming because 99% of scientists agree it's happening, while a year ago 99% of economists agreed the economy would continue to thrive. You wouldn't put a man with that degree of flawed logic in charge of restacking the shelves in a Virgin megastore, never mind in charge of an FM rock network, would you?

Gennaro Castaldo Watch: Provincial perspective

The 25th anniversary of Now That's What I Call Music - and the "collector's edition" re-release of the first edition is a trigger for the Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph to think back over the decades. And who better to call for a catch-all thought or two on compilation albums than Gennaro Castaldo?

Gennaro Castaldo, of HMV Kettering, says the Now series has become an institution among music fans.

Hang about... "of HMV Kettering"? Have times got so hard at HMV that their Chief Quote Executive is having to pull a few shifts out in the regions? Or do all the branches have their own Gennaro Castaldo, perhaps stored alongside the promotional cut-outs which managed to get to the end of their sales period without being stolen by local youths?

Still, Gennaro Castaldo-Kettering, share your thoughts:

He said: "I think prior to Now! there were not really any compilation albums featuring the original songs."

Clearly, this can't be the London Castaldo, who would never say anything so obviously false. What about the Chart Hits collections, for example? Or Motown Chartbusters, come to that?

"There used to be some fairly cheesy compilation LPs such as Ronco, which featured currents songs but performed by someone else. Now! came along and effectively created a whole new genre that was original songs by the artists we heard on the radio."

Eh? Now might have weaponised the genre, but the suggestion that before 1983 there was only Top Of The Pops style cover version collections is absurd.

"At the time there were not many other ways of getting those songs so to suddenly get them all on an LP or CD was a great innovation and people responded to that. They were collections of the best songs of the year so if you were a real fan of popular music the job was being done for you."

If you were a real fan of popular music, you'd presumably buy the singles - Now, surely, was designed for the people who quite liked pop but not to the extent that they wanted the music when it came out. And surely only the first Now was a "best songs of the year" collection, given that the second one came out in April 1984?

"For years sales of compilation albums started to slow and the advent of downloading meant you could create your own playlist but we have found Now!, in particular, has remained resilient because someone has done that work for you."

You've done the "someone has done the work for you" bit already.

"Now! is a strong brand and is part of the culture that also gave us Top of the Pops and the Sunday chart rundown. It represents a fantastic snapshot of the most popular songs of the time and has become something of a collectors' item."

The first dozen or so are actually only a snapshot of some of the most popular songs on EMI and Virgin, but you take the point.

Incidently, the Evening Telegraph seems convinced that the whole thing was Richard Branson's idea:

It was the brainchild of Richard Branson, who was boss of Virgin Records at the time.

He was chairing a meeting in his office when the revolutionary suggestion was made that they release all their hit singles of that year on one album. Better still, if they got EMI involved they could make it a double album.

The name of the album came from a poster on Branson's wall for Danish Bacon Factories, which featured a cartoon pig craning his ear to the sound of a cockerel with the accompanying caption 'Now that's what I call music'.

Surely not even Richard Branson would try to claim that? Stephen Navin, John Webster and Simon Draper cooked up the idea, surely?. If only we had our own Gennaro Castaldo to hand, we could check.

Zavvi in one hell of a mess

Zavvi isn't having a good time of it right now - the unlovely chain was reliant on Woolworths for most of its deliveries and has already had to close its online store right at the busiest time of the year. Oh, and while bunches of prebooked and preprinted adverts were sending customers to the place.

It's getting worse: the company have had to bring Ernst And Young to help them pick their way through the minefield of their current trading. Zavvi owes £106 million to Woolworths' Entertainment UK subsidiary, and could be forced to hand over the money (which it doesn't have) or give back the stock in its stores:

Suppliers could claim they have "retention of title" over millions of pounds of stock, potentially allowing them to reclaim the goods from Zavvi stores.

People working with Zavvi are concerned that the company may be forced to choose between returning some stock at its most crucial time of year or continuing to sell it in defiance of the music labels.

Oh, come on, Zavvi - surely you don't think entertainment industry companies would be as short-sighted as to demand return of unsold stock right before Christmas, thereby making inevitable the collapse of one of the only two major record chains left trading? It's not like the BPI companies are bungling and can't separate short-term cash from long-term best interest, is it? It's not like they have a track record of that.

At the moment, the whole thing is balancing on a line of credit underwritten by Richard Branson - a man who must have thought he'd never have to worry about those bloody stores when he offloaded the Virgin Megastore chain back in September 2007.

The Zavvi.co.uk website is like a bizarre Mary Celeste webspace right now - you can go through, look at items: there's just no way you can buy them. "Pick up instore" is the best the website can offer, allowing all the convenience of a high street store with none of the convenience of not having to go into a poorly-lit digital rummage souk. That link, by the way, takes you to the Rubiks Cube page:

It's the no.1 Christmas present this year and the best selling puzzle in history! It has 43 quintillion combinations, but it can be solved in under 30 seconds.

The number one Christmas gift this year? Really? Perhaps in households that are relying on Zavvi for their income.

I don't want to blame the Rubiks Cube page for bringing down the whole company, but is "hey, this is a puzzle which you can solve in less than a minute" really a great selling point for any product? "Hours of fiendish fun", maybe; "seconds to learn, a lifetime to master" - that could be good. But "buy your kids something that has an even shorter lifespan than our company" doesn't sound like a sweet spot for your consumer goods.

Last weekend I happened into a Zavvi for the first time since they grew ashamed of their roots and started to hide the records behind the service elevator, to buy a DVD box set as a gift. "Would you like a bag?" asked the assistant. Normally, I'd decline but I had other shopping to do, and it was a gift needing concealing, so I said "yes, please."

The assistant disappeared under the counter and re-emerged holding the sort of brown paper bags greengrocers would use for mushrooms, shoved the box into the bag and handed it over.

So I'm left holding a package which is same size, shape and weight as it was before, and still equally as difficult to carry as it had been before the bag became involved. Only now: it looked like pornography.

Virgin for sale?

Following on from the collapse of MVC, MusicZone, Fopp and Tower and the struggling of HMV as it tries to adjust to being a juice bar rather than a record shop, the Telegraph is reporting Richard Branson is thinking of offloading the UK Virgin Megastore chain.

Apparently, the chain's management are hoping to organise a buyout of the "roughly breaking even" chain. Presumably you can enjoy the downward spiral more if you've paid for your ticket.

1970s hippie tried drugs - breaking

We're starting to wonder if The Sun is being put together by a bunch of shut-ins at the moment, as they really do run this paragraph this morning expecting us to be surprised:

SIR Richard Branson has revealed how he joined the Mile High club with a married woman AND tried out mind-bending drugs.

Really? Drugs? The man who released Tubular Bells did drugs? Whatever next? It'll be Ozzy Osbourne revealed to have taken them.

And how "mind-bending" were the drugs he actually took? Did we nearly see one of the greatest self-promoting minds of our generation going off his cake on a mixture of LSD and smack?

Not quite:

He said: “I took ecstasy once. But it didn’t have a massive effect on me”. Of cocaine, he said: “I suspect I‘ve tried it, yes.”

The businessman, reportedly worth £5billion, claimed Rolling Stone Keith Richards was the “first person to teach me to roll a joint”. He said he had not tried super-strong “skunk” cannabis.

But he added: “I have smoked cannabis though. I mean, I went with my son on his gap year, for God’s sake. We learned to surf and had some nights where we laughed our heads off for eight hours.”

Of course, the Sun trots out some drug "experts" to condemn him:

Peter Stoker, director of the National Drug Prevention Alliance, said: “Richard Branson as a parent should know better than to take health-endangering drugs with his child.

“It was irresponsible and sets a bad example.”

The real worry, though, is what sort of kid takes their dad on their Gap Year with them?

Branson to try to regain Virginship?

There's a curious story in the The Observer today which suggests that Richard Branson and Charles Allen - the man who did so much to make ITV what it is today - could be linking up to launch a bid to regain control of Virgin Radio.

Just what the station needs - more management shuffling. With, doubtless, another new set of plans, formats and shake-ups. What could possibly go wrong?

Please say it'll be a one-way trip

The thought of McFly being blasted into space is one to cheer the sould on a cold winter's morning, although the apparent plans to bring them back as well takes the edge off slightly.

They're supposedly going to do something linked to Richard Branson's supposed holiday-in=space company.

Even if the technology exists, and Branson's underwriters let him go ahead, this won't be until 2009 at the earliest, so it's quite a leap of faith to assume that McFly will still be a going concern by then. It's always dodgy planning to put musicians on spaceflights too far ahead of time - NASA had a terrible time explaining to Eddie Fisher why he lost his seat on the manned trips to the moon - but even if Branson was blasting idiots off into space tomorrow, would the very rich really want to be entertained by a band aimed at nine year-old girls?

Still, at least in space, nobody can hear you scream "they're a bit like a poor man's Busted, aren't they?"