European Commission gives the nod to the UMG/EMI deal

Earlier today the European Commission said yes to Vivendi/UMG’s bid to buy EMI Recorded Music. The full Commission press statement is here . Is anyone surprised at the outcome? Our guess is no. If the Commission didn’t want the deal to go through it would have said so months ago.

In the release there are some big name artists that are part of the Parlaphone sell-off (Coldplay, David Guetta, Tinie Tempah). The statement issued earlier today by the Association of Independent Music’s Chairman and Chief Executive Alison Wenham described these divestments as “the crown jewels of EMI.” But there are also quite a lot of artists and bands being divested whose best days are behind them (Tina Turner, Duran Duran, Jethro Tull, Depeche Mode, Moby) and whose value is going to lessen over time. But, UMG has The Beatles and so the company now has the two biggest UK bands ever (inc. The Rolling Stones) in its stable. Other icons moving under UMG’s control include the Beach Boys, Genesis and Bob Seger. Contemporary big names that pass to UMG include Katy Perry, Emeli Sandé, Robbie Williams, Herbert Grönemeyer, Lady Antebellum and Norah Jones.

Big differences in Beatles album pricing

With much of the hype surrounding the Beatles’ music being added to iTunes now starting to fade, all attention is turning to chart placings for both single tracks and the albums. Despite Apple winning the race to secure the digital exclusive on the Beatles, CD versions of the albums are likely to see a sales increase on the back of all the free advertising.

Music & Copyright has conducted a quick survey of some of the leading online CD retailers in the UK to see what, if any, pricing differences exist between the digital versions offered by iTunes and the retailers’ CD versions. The results were quite surprising.