Directory  News Off The Wall |
| Music Industry Brain Damage - The "ringle" |
|
|
|
 Just when you thought stupid ideas had become an endangered species, the RIAA has pressed forward and shown us how naive we have been. The RIAA has officially backed a move by the recording industry to reintroduce the CD single. The product includes two songs and a "ringtone". This brilliantly clueless idea is to be marketed as a "ringle", complete with an even more clueless retail price ranging from $6 to $7 per CD. Apart from the fact that the industry has not agreed on how the ringtone is to be redeemed (Sony BMG, the initial proponent of the idea, is the exception here), the pricing puts it way out of the league of legitimate digital music downloads. Reuter's reports... Sony BMG Music Entertainment, which came up with the ringle idea, and Universal Music Group are going to be the first out of the box with ringles. The former will unleash 50 titles during October and November, while UMG will have anywhere from 10 to 20 titles ready. The Recording Industry Association of America has approved the "ringle" name, and there is an industrywide logo to help brand it. But except for Sony, each major still needs to cut a deal with a digital aggregator to allow consumers to redeem the ringtone. Meanwhile, label profit margins for the format are considered slim. The majors are gambling that the ringle can instill in consumers the mind-set to connect to the Internet via the CD. Sources suggest the ringle will carry either a $5.98 or $6.98 list price, while the wholesale cost to retailers will be less than $4. If it's $5.98, ringles will have a 31 percent gross margin, shy of the 35 percent profit margin that CD albums carry nowadays; if it's $6.98, that would give retail a 42.7 percent gross margin, similar to the profit margin cassette and vinyl albums enjoyed back in the day. Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites           
Powered by !JoomlaComment 3.12 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||