— Target said in its Q1 earnings call on Wednesday that it will soon overhaul the Target.com entertainment section. “As part of our continued commitment to multichannel integration, Target.com will completely reinvent our music, movies, books and video game offerings, starting in August. Target.com will be revamped to include trailers, audio clips, book reviews and suggestions. Making it a completely new experience for our guests. We are committed to maintaining our innovative edge in the current economy, by continuing to focus on the critical areas of frequency, value and differentiation.” (SEC filing)
— House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers is responding to criticism about the recently passed bill on performance royalties by stressing the exceptions in the bill. “The amended measure creates a sliding scale where small stations would pay as little as $500 a year. Three-quarters of America’s radio stations will be eligible for the scale and 90 percent of black-owned stations would be protected, he said. Additionally, all music stations that gross less than $1.25 million annually will be eligible for a flat fee. Due to the current economic conditions that have hit both musicians and broadcasters particularly hard, he and his colleagues changed the bill so stations that gross more than $5 million per year will be on the hook for payment one year after enactment. For stations that gross less than $5 million per year, no royalties will be due for three years.” (National Journal)
— The Layaways, whose David Harrell runs the Digital Audio Insider blog, got $0.305 per download from eMusic in Q1 2009. Before CD Baby’s 9% cut, the per-song payout was $0.335. That’s a bit better than the $0.278 it received for Q4 2007 ($0.305 before CD Baby’s fee) and an even bigger improvement from the $0.249 ($0.274 before CD Baby) in Q3 2006. In the post about the band’s Q1 eMusic statement, Harrell discusses breakage, the revenue from unredeemed songs that do not carry over at the end of the month, as an important part of what artists are paid. If all possible downloads were redeemed, payouts would drop. eMusic has never publicly given breakage figures or whether breakage has increased over time, but it’s definitely a factor – the per-song payout is greater than the per-song cost of most subscription plans. Over the years, increases in the cost of subscription plans have been one obvious reason for the improved payouts. (Digital Audio Insider)
— Green Day is not enthused about Wal-Mart‘s policy not to carry albums with explicit content. The band did not create a clean version and as a result “21st Century Breakdown” is not being carried by the retail giant. “”They want artists to censor their records in order to be carried in there,” said singer Billy Joe Armstrong. “We just said no. We’ve never done it before.” The album debuted at No. 1 on this week’s Billboard album chart with sales of 215,000. (AP)
