As a result of EMI’s $1.9 million merger with record label giant Universal Music last September, a move that the Australian Independent Record Labels Association (AIR) and its representatives slammed the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) for after it decided not to oppose the acquisition.
Now, EMI Music Australia’s staff are beginning to feel the industry fallout of the acquisition, with staff being retrenched in the shuffle this week.
According to The Music, EMI Music Australia have retrenched about 20 staff as it begins to be swallowed up by Universal Music Australia, with the sad news of the lay offs reaching staff yesterday in a meeting at Sydney’s Surry Hills office with Universal bosses, among them Australian head George Ash.
Single staff members have also lost their jobs in the Melbourne and Perth offices, including industry figures such as Perth-based Dixie Battersby and A&R mum Glenn Dickie.
Retained staff, largely from the media, promotions, and marketing departments will be offered new roles today under the Universal Music Australia banner, or keep their jobs with the EMI frontline, while accounts, business, and financial staff are expected to be rolled into the new EMI owner’s lineup.
The Music also credits a source with information that reveals Universal will keep EMI as a separate entity initially, with its own marketing and promotions team, but new businesses will be dealt with jointly. EMI Music Australia have retrenched about 20 staff as it begins to be swallowed up by Universal Music Australia, with the sad news of the lay offs reaching staff yesterday.
The Universal-EMI merger that has led to the tragic loss of jobs within the Australian industry was just one of the foreshadowed criticisms made by AIR, who expressed disappointment with the ACC’s decision to allow the acquisition to go ahead unchallenged.
AIR and its backers expressed concern that the combined might of Universal, Australia’s biggest record label buying EMI, Australia’s fourth biggest, would result in control of more than 50% of the market and will decreased musical diversity and consumer choice.
“The ACCC’s decision is incomprehensible to me, and marks a terrible day for Australian music consumers,” said Merlin CEO Chalres Cadas at the time. “If this transaction goes through unchallenged we can only see those consumers facing less choice, higher prices, and less comprehensive digital offerings than they should be entitled to enjoy.”
AIR’s General Manager Nick O’Byrne also emphasised that “the ACCC needs to enforce territory specific concessions and divestments to ensure fair competition in Australia,” believing that the merger would see Universal’s market power exert undue influence on fledgling digital business models, as well as increased control of access to the digital and physical market through the media – creating a stranglehold that makes the already difficult market for independents an even bigger struggle.
Including the indie labels’ latest fight with MySpace, slamming the revamped, Justin Timberlake-owned social media site for refusing to acknowledge their illegitimate use of licensed music that’s streamed for free on the website. The relaunched MySpace has been accused of hosting unlicensed music on its website, saying that they’ll only respond to take-down notices for individual cases rather than clean up shop.
Independent groups AIM, A2IM, WIN and AIR issued a joint statement slamming MySpace for their “regressive and outdated approach,” emphasising their disappointment with the service’s abuse of independent music, and “urge any service acting in this way – and especially one part-owned by the three remaining major record labels – to think again.”
