From the New York Times: "When Matchbox 20's lead singer, Rob Thomas [pictured], was planning his first solo release late last year, he thought about ways to make the album a better value, in part to entice consumers who might be tempted to download his songs illegally.

"'Obviously, I don't want people to download my album,' he said. 'But you can't just complain that people are downloading music and not do anything.'

"In the last couple of years, some artists have included a second disc with bonus songs or a short DVD in order to win over potential file-sharers. But Mr. Thomas's 'Something to Be,' due April 19 from Atlantic, part of the Warner Music Group, is among the first by a major artist to be released only on DualDisc, a new format being introduced by the major labels that includes a traditional CD on one side of a disc and DVD content on the other. The DVD side includes the same album mixed in surround sound so that it can be heard through home theater systems, as well as about 20 minutes of video -- in Mr. Thomas' case, some documentary footage.

"At a time when the music business is still suing illegal file-sharers whom, the industry claims, are causing them to lose sales, the major music labels are hoping the DualDisc format will give them a multimedia carrot that can be used along with the legal stick. Because DualDisc albums have additional content but sell in most stores for only a dollar or two more than traditional CDs, they are marketed as a better value...

"On April 26, (Sony BMG Music Entertainment) will release Bruce Springsteen's new album, 'Devils & Dust,' exclusively as a DualDisc...

"So far, Sony BMG has been the most aggressive of the major labels in involving marquee artists and promoting the format, according to several retailers... Of the four major labels, only EMI Music has not yet announced DualDisc releases but it is expected to do so this year.

"Among the encouraging signs for DualDisc is the recent growth in sales of music DVDs, which nearly doubled in 2004 from the previous year...

"Retailers hope consumers see the parallels with DVD. 'We need something where, when the consumer picks up a CD, they'll think it's as good a value as a DVD,' said (Robert J. Higgins, the chairman and chief executive of Trans World Entertainment, which owns F.Y.E., Coconuts and other music chain stores). Like many retailers, Trans World usually charges up to $1.50 more for a DualDisc version of a title. But music companies hope low prices will expand the size of the market, as they did for DVDs."

Read this entire article in the New York Times, online here.

...

... David Geffen was quoted in Business Week a couple of weeks ago arguing that the biggest mistake the record industry made was when, years ago, the cost of producing CDs went down, they raised prices. Film studios, in contrast, have been working aggressively to bring down the price of DVDs every quarter -- while adding additional value as well (commentary tracks, etc.). We were looking at DualDiscs at a Borders store yesterday, and bought one, but felt that the price/value relationship still isn't correct: 50 minutes of music in 5.1 surround sound, plus 20 minutes of some documentary stuff, still costs about the same as a two-hour movie in 5.1 surround sound with an additional two hours of audio commentary. (Geffen made the point, if I remember correctly, that the soundtrack for "Shrek 2" costs more than the DVD of "Shrek 2.") The latter is clearly the better value. -- KH ...

From Slate: "For better than 30 years, activists and press critics on the left have disparaged the corporate consolidation of media. Tracking the story with the stamina of an ultramarathoner, Ben Bagdikian has written a new version of The Media Monopoly every three or four years since the first edition came out in 1983. In recent years, activist-academic Robert McChesney has beavered away at a similar rate.

"The activists and critics take the alarmist view of media concentration, decrying the fact that five big media 'corporations decide what most citizens will — or will not — learn,' as Bagdikian puts it.

"But as I wrote in my review of The New Media Monopoly last summer, the trend toward media gigantism isn't as inevitable as Bagdikian thinks, because bigger doesn't always make business sense.

"Comes now Viacom's idea of halving its behemoth self...

"What's troubling the media giants' balance sheet is (hold onto your hat, Professor Bagdikian!) competition. In a piece about the Viacom plan, the March 17 Wall Street Journal reports that 'new technologies, which include the Internet, satellite radio and digital-video recorders such as TiVo' and new media businesses are cutting media conglomerate profits...

"Revenue for the entire radio industry has been down or flat since 2000, as listeners and advertisers have abandoned it for Internet radio, satellite radio, MP3 players, and other entertainments... Regardless of whether the split-up happens, Viacom intends to refocus its Infinity radio division by selling some of its stations, especially small-market ones...

"Media giant foes such as Bagdikian and McChesney willfully ignore the market realities that undermine the monopolistic impulses of the conglomerators.

"Take radio as an example. Even though Viacom-Infinity and Clear Channel purchased thousands of radio stations and now own multiple outlets in big cities, their 'power' over advertisers to bill the volume and charge the rates they desire has been zero. Advertisers looking for value have taken their dollars to the Web, cable TV, newspapers, and elsewhere. These two radio giants have also proved themselves powerless over listeners, many of whom have turned off their sets rather than endure the 15 minutes of commercials per hour that was the industry average last year. (Some programs run as many as 22 minutes per hour, according to the Journal.) The limited playlists at Infinity and Clear Channel stations have driven audiences away, too...

"Contrary to the Bagdikians of the world, the best way to foster media competition isn't by appointing the government to determine correct levels of ownership. Instead, the government should limit its role to making sure that revolutionary new technologies and business models (peer-to-peer file sharing, CD burning, Internet broadcasting, low-power FM, satellite broadcasting, market-driven spectrum reallocation, etc.) aren't politically suppressed by the established (i.e., threatened) media companies."

Read this entire Slate column here.

From the Wall Street Journal: "When Mary Bragg got an iPod for Christmas, one of the first things she wanted to do was download some of her favorite classical pieces from the Internet -- just as her friends were doing with pop songs. But trying to locate a Chopin prelude she had read about in a novel, Ms. Bragg quickly got frustrated and turned instead to her father's and brother's CD collections...

"Pity the classical-music fan. While lovers of pop, rock, jazz, folk and rap can surf the Web and easily download everything from Iggy Pop to 50 Cent, the digital age has left consumers with a taste for portable Tchaikovsky more or less in the lurch. Popular sites like Napster, Yahoo Inc.'s Musicmatch and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN Music devote only 2% to 10% of their offerings to classical works, and the hunt for a specific track can be tough going, especially for classical fans with sophisticated tastes...

"But even if fans manage to find the classical tracks they want online, MP3 players aren't set up to easily sort classical music... there are hundreds of recordings of Beethoven symphonies under different conductors with different orchestras. Many classical-music fans often purchase more than one version of the same work...

"As it now stands, the amount of information required to pinpoint a particular digital passage of a particular work isn't readily processed by a personal music player. In addition, the small screens of iPods and MP3 players can't display all the data needed to precisely identify classical-music selections...

"The classical crowd can take some comfort in knowing their plight is being addressed, at least as far as the paucity of selections. Virgin Group's Virgin Digital, a Los Angeles-based downloading and music-streaming site launched last September, is working on incorporating and cataloging classical pieces for its site and now has 70,000 classical tracks, out of a million tracks overall. Also in the past year, Yahoo's Musicmatch has built its classical selection from 3,000 to more than 12,000 tracks (out of a total of 850,000)...

"Vivendi Universal's Universal Classics, a New York-based company, says classical music is a much bigger part of the digital business than of the CD business. At Universal, classical music's share of total digital sales is almost three times as high as its share in the world of CDs."

This entire article from the Wall Street Journal is available online here for subscribers.