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| MUMFORD & SONS’ BABEL HAS 2012’S BIGGEST DEBUT, TOPS BILLBOARD 200. Mumford & Sons’ sophomore release Babel had an historic first week: The British folk-rock quartet officially had the biggest debut sales week of any album this year selling some 600,000, according to Nielsen SoundScan and topped the Billboard 200. It’s also the first No. 1 album for the band’s label, Glassnote Records and the first No. 1 this year for an indie label. Billboard.biz |
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| BUSINESS MATTERS: MUMFORD & SONS’ BABEL SMASHES SPOTIFY STREAMING RECORD: Mumford & Sons’ sophomore release, Babel, blew past Spotify’s record for streams from an album in a single week. Spotify users in the U.S. streamed ” around eight million listens” from the album in its first seven days of release, according to Spotify, shattering the previous record by a factor of three. One out of every 10 Spotify users in the U.S. listened to a track from Babel last week. Billboard.biz |
APPLE IS PRODUCING AN IPAD MINI: Apple Inc.’s Asian component suppliers have started mass production of a new tablet computer smaller than the current iPad, according to the Wall Street Journal. Sources said the smaller tablet will have a 7.85-inch liquid-crystal display with a lower resolution compared with the latest iPad model that came out in March.
Wall Street Journal
BEST BUY’S SCHULZE, 4 PRIVATE EQUITY FIRMS CONSIDERING $11 BIL. BUYOUT (REPORT): Best Buy founder Richard Schulze and at least four private equity firms are examining the books of the world’s largest consumer electronics chain, early steps toward what could become a potential $11 billion buyout, according to sources. Apollo Global Mgmt., Cerberus Capital Mgmt., TPG Capital and Leonard Green & Partners LP are among firms conducting due diligence on Best Buy’s financials.
Reuters
DOES SPOTIFY REDUCE PIRACY?: In a Digital Music Index report set released today, London’s Musicmetric found that music file downloads using BitTorrent tend to increase in countries that don’t have legal music streaming services such as Spotify. Among the top 10 countries with the fastest growing BitTorrent market share in the first half of 2012, only one ( France) had Spotify.
Billboard.biz
FCC STARTS COMMENT PERIOD ON LIBERTY MEDIA REQUEST TO TAKE CONTROL OF SIRIUS XM: John Malone’s Liberty Media filed a second request with the FCC in August, asking for approval to take outright control of Sirius XM Radio . Liberty has in recent weeks continued to acquire Sirius stock, inching closer to owning a 50 percent stake. The FCC said in a notice that comments are due by Nov. 1, with responses due by Nov. 20. A decision is expected within weeks of the deadline.
The Hollywood Reporter
RIAA TARGETS FOREIGN MUSIC DOWNLOAD PORTALS: The RIAA has asked the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to subpoena the privacy protection services of three music download sites and these requests were recently granted. The targeted sites are Mimp3.net, Descargaralbum.com and Jou-site.me. The first two allow users to download music files from external sites and are popular in Latin America. Jou-site.me is a small private BitTorrent tracker for Dutch users.
TorrentFreak
ELECTRIC DAISY CARNIVAL BRINGS $207 MILLION TO LAS VEGAS’ LOCAL ECONOMY: This year’s Electronic Daisy Carnival broke records by attracting over 320,000 dance music fans to Las Vegas. The three-day festival, held at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway from June 8-10 with EDM titans David Guetta, Tiesto and Kaskade on the bill, got an attendance boost with the addition of the first EDC Week andd EDMBiz conference,
Billboard.biz
NICKI MINAJ ON MARIAH CAREY: ‘I’M NOT F—IN’ PUTTING UP WITH HER F—IN’ HIGHNESS OVER THERE’: American Idols indeed. The two “American Idol” judges were caught on video Tuesday engaged in a heated exchange during auditions for the Fox singing competition in Charlotte, N.C. TMZ posted the video, which showed a furious Minaj cursing about Mariah.
The Hollywood Reporter
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