A five-month boycott of Rolling Stones product at HMV Canada will end tomorrow (March 4), when the 100-store chain begins restocking titles by the rock legends. The move follows an online survey of 3,000 Canadians, which indicated continuing interest in seeing the band’s CDs back on HMV shelves.
HMV Canada — along with other Canadian retailers Sunrise Records and Pindoff Music — had removed all Rolling Stones product from its stores in October to protest an exclusive arrangement the band made for its “Four Flicks” DVD, which limited availability of the product in Canada to Future Shop/Best Buy. Sunrise and Pindoff have already returned Rolling Stones products to their stores.
“We wanted to gauge how strongly Canadians felt about the issue,” says HMV Canada president Humphrey Kadaner. “Based on the survey, the vast majority of Canadian consumers [about 70%] supported our decision to remove the products from our shelves and thus send the message to the band that their ‘exclusive’ arrangement was unfair to consumers. In addition, about half of Canadians polled feel that we have made our point clear and would now like to have access to the band’s product when shopping in our stores.”
