And so, with this proclamation from Universal Music Chairman and CEO Doug Morris and COO Zach Horowitz, begins Operation JumpSTART. The pricing goes into effect on September 29, when Ludacris's CD Chicken & Beer becomes the first $12.98 CD to go on the market under the plan. Catalog stuff and other CDs will sell for even less, and Universal has implied that retailers could sell CDs they buy at $9.09 for $9.99 "if they so choose." (If they choose to go out of business, they mean, at least as far as mom-and-pop record stores are concerned.)
Universal will subsidize the plan in part by eliminating co-op advertising, a program by which the label gave stores money to advertise their products for them.
JumpSTART has stunned the entire music biz. "They are basically forever changing the record business today," one unnamed executive told The Wall Street Journal. "It's a massively bold move; it's the kind of move we as an industry need to be making."
Universal also unveiled that the carrot of cheaper CDs was not far from a stick -- they would also be hunting down file sharers with renewed vigor, and soon after the Universal announcement the Recording Industry Association of America announced a fresh brace of lawsuits against hundreds of file sharers. A 12-year-old girl and a Dallas-area grandfather with the wonderful name Durwood Pickle find themselves ensnared in the dragnet. (There's already a "Free Durwood Pickle!" T-shirt in the works -- can a new band by that name be far behind?)
The RIAA and Universal even brought a bogeyman out from under the bed. Music fans, they claim, have accidentally downloaded kiddie porn when all they wanted was a copy of "Right Thurr"! (Why someone would choose to disseminate kiddie porn through popular Web sites such as Kazaa, the very ones that are under intense scrutiny right now from the recording industry and legal authorities, was not addressed.)
Universal figures if it simultaneously attacks pirates and lowers prices, there will be an orgy of music spending this holiday season not seen since the pre-Internet salad days of Garth Brooks and Nirvana.
At least as far as the cheap CDs go, the press spin has usually been that this is a completely wonderful development. Finally, the price of CDs will come down across the board. Finally, a major company has shown some compassion for beleaguered consumers in these trying times. Finally, the greedy music industry gets the post-Internet world. Consumers and retailers should rejoice!
Well, yes and no. Mostly no. Some see it as something akin to when a baseball team dumps salary to make the franchise more attractive (and expensive) for potential buyers, and indeed, Universal Music is for sale. Others see it as a pre-Christmas publicity stunt -- nothing more than a temporary company-wide sale. After all, nobody has ever said that this is going to be permanent.
Others detect the hand of big retail, and the smart money's on them. Dave Ritz, long the owner of the now-defunct Infinite Records, and now the host of regular record conventions, doesn't see it as a particularly charitable move, especially as far as consumers and mom-and-pop record stores are concerned. "I was talking to a Universal employee who told me that this was not so much a benevolent act so much as they were forced into it by a coalition of major retailers who told them they didn't want to pay more than ten bucks for a CD and if Universal didn't sell at that price they would put something else in that space."
Further, it must be remembered that this is a participation program, not an across-the-board price cut. To qualify for the JumpSTART pricing, stores must agree in writing to a "promotional commitment" requiring them to devote a minimum of 33 percent of end caps, windows and listening booths and 25 percent of their bins to Universal records.
While chains such as Target and Wal-Mart would have no problem meeting those terms, they seem designed to ensure that many, if not most, smaller record stores won't. Take Cactus or Soundwaves, and then take a look at Universal's catalog.
Current artists on Universal labels include Ashanti, Mary J. Blige, blink-182, Mariah Carey, Sheryl Crow, Dr. Dre, Eminem, 50 Cent, Enrique Iglesias, India.Arie, Elton John, Diana Krall, Nelly, No Doubt, t.A.T.u., Shania Twain and U2.
Then there's Universal's old stuff, which includes ABBA, James Brown, Eric Clapton, Patsy Cline, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Nirvana, the Police, Rod Stewart, the Who, Hank Williams and the Motown catalog.
