Switching to live commentary, as some of you aren't blessed with a UK radio feed :-)
Simon Mayo asked when we last bought a single. Scarily, I don't think I've bought one for over a year. This is rather surprising; when I was at Manchester, I'd head off into the Northern Quarter every Thursday, coming out with at least two or three singles. Phil would then spend the evening complaining that I always brought obscure rubbish into the hall. Of course, he spent most of the final two years listening to Celine Dion, so I think my taste prevails.
They're not giving the record companies any breaks here at all, pointing out that the destruction of Napster without a viable legal alternative just encouraged illegal downloading, and that sharing itself is put of the music experience. It's never a good idea to declare that your main enemy also happens to be your core audience. D'oh.
Time for some Clear Channel bashing. Always a good thing, I feel 8-). 98% of music sales in America are domestic? That's quite scary.
I'm supporting the evening by downloading tracks as the debate rolls on. My conscience is having a day off today; I'll probably get guilty about it and buy the albums on Friday.
Stuart Maconie is reading out comments from listeners. If I was the record industry, I'd be scared. The programme has been on for two hours, and I haven't heard a positive listener response yet. The general public despises them. I don't think it's going to get better, either, what with the BPI threatening to use legal action against filesharers.
The debate itself is about to start. Jeremy Vine. Oooh. The return of the fabled Tony Wilson cycle theory! The head of EMI says that record companies should try to encourage and nurture talent. Which is probably why they dropped a host of small bands, fired a bunch of staff, and then handed Robbie Williams an £80m contract, on the increasingly absurd idea of him breaking America...
(Interestingly enough, Radiohead's contract with EMI will be up soon. I wonder whether they'll re-sign or not?)
Time for the scary statistics bit: a Number #1 hit in May only had to sell 36,000 copies to reach the top. The single is dead. Let's ram a stake through its £3.99-priced body.
Independent Label woman (I'm hopeless at names, sorry) is bored of all this talk of doom and gloom; apparently the small labels are doing quite well at the moment. So far, this is all shockingly positive; all the record heads are admitting that the demise of the single format isn't the end of the music industry. Meanwhile, Beverley Knight is trying to dig herself out of a hole, after falling into the "things aren't as good as they used to be" nostalgia trap. Selective memory is a bad thing; there were an awful lot of bad records in the 1980s, as the rest of the panel are currently pointing out.
Moving on to downloading again. 12 year-olds explaining how to get music from the Internet. Heh. Beverley Knight is continuing to be annoying and patronising. And she's the only artist represented on the panel. Pricing is not the issue, apparently. Music companies are not Luddites. So, Napster - 1997, was it? In the end, it took the intervention of Apple to come up with a workable legal solution. That's six years, and only because somebody else did the work.
Compulsory licensing! Compulsory licensing! Compulsory licensing!
Paul Weller's "I think they're [record executives] all scum" gets a huge cheer from the audience. They're starting to get a little defensive now. Deflect the attention back to radio playlists! (Mind you, the story of Radio 1 wanting to see a video before they add a track to a playlist is a little weird and depressing)
Another depressing story; the singer who got radio stations interested in her single, until they discovered she's only on an independent label, and she didn't have a 'plot' (marketing plan, how much money is behind the record, etc.). The playlist controller of Radio 2 is now doing an advert for the fair and balanced selection process that they offer :-). Of course, the big game is Radio 1, which is now receiving a fair bit of criticism, specifically the rather bland daytime playlist. On the other hand, without the playlist, we wouldn't have the classic Mark & Lard sideswipes after they've played a record for the 100th time…
Apparently, EMAP video channels won't accept videos unless the management accept certain advertising packages. Payola is not just limited to the USA.
Okay, when I left Britain, it was full of generic rock clones and garage tunes. Where did all The Cure-style bands come from?