artist management

OK...since I'm a few days late on this post and don't have time for a huge write up, I'm going to give a quick recap of the Next Big Nashville festival/conference that went off in Nashville last week. (No rest.

Yes, there are a lot of bands playing NBN, but this year they've also added a confer

• Album sales were down 13.3% year over year last week. Three Doors Down's self-titled album debuted at #1 with sales of 154,000. (Billboard.biz)

Bertelsmann reported its 2007 earnings yesterday. For the year, BMG revenues declined by 27.8% to €1.5 billion and operating EBITA (basically operating profit) dropped 46% to €93 million. Physical revenues dropped 17% while digital increased 40%. Digital accounted for 17% of BMG's revenue (up from 12% in 2006).

Call it what you want -- the commodification of music, alternative revenue streams, the coming of the apocalypse -- but Universal Music Group has been extending its non-recorded music revenues. Last year we heard about the deal the [bleep]cat Dolls inked with toymaker Hasbro.