Results tagged “classical” from Slipped disc

Decca: The word from Herbert Breslin
Here's a comment from Herbert Breslin:
 
Let's face it. The thrust of Decca's promotion, marketing, and publicity never materialized from London. For many years I was responsible for the public relations careers of Luciano Pavarotti, Joan Sutherland, Alicia de Laroccha, early Marilyn Horne and later Georg Solti. Without what my office accomplished, not one of these artists would have made the important, powerhouse career they did.
 
True, Decca produced the records and they were extraordinary. But the what then was taken over by me. Without the work by me as well as the work of important colleagues such as Edgar Vincent, Cynthia Robbins, among others, Decca Records would never have dominated the US marketing, Billboard charts and sales. 
Herbert Breslin
 
Norman Lebrecht adds:
Herbert's right, of course. So long as Decca was an independent, self-standing label, it made good records and employed a range of people, in-house and out, to promote them. Terry McEwen, who effectively created classical Decca in the US and invented the phenomenon Pavarotti (against some opposition from London), was the mind behind this strategy. See Herb's book for more, and mine.
 
Once Decca came under corporate control, these publicity skills withered. One of the so-called 'efficiency' arguments for gathering labels under one big roof is that centralised marketing will cost less and sow benefits across the board. Universal has given the lie to that.
 
Instead of records being driven by the excited imaginations of artists and producers, all big-budget projects at Universal arose from the whim of a corporate executive, serving some inarticulate policy paper that first got him the job. That's the tragedy of Decca, and so much else in the dying sector. Classical records could have survived a while longer as a cottage industry at Decca, Philips, Erato, Teldec and more. It's the corps that killed them.
 

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February 11, 2009 8:30 AM | | Comments (2)
Strange radio noises in Holland

Make of this what you will:

 

Concertzender victim of its own success

Hello Norman,

A bizarre situation has developed in the Netherlands. Everywhere in the world, classical broadcasters are shutting down, because of dropping listening figures.


In the Netherlands however, the Concertzender, who you might
know because of its internet channels, has to shut down
because it has become too popular...

 
Dutch Public radio hosts the Concertzender, and working with 150
volunteers and a handful of paid staff members, they operate on a basis of 500.000 euro a year. Cable companies in the Netherlands are now opting to broadcast the concertzender, instead of the non-classical Radio 6. Instead of looking for a good solution, the co-ordinator of radio 6 just wants to pull the plug from the Concertzender...  

To make things even weirder, a message explaining the situation with a call for support had to be removed from the homepage. A small flood of support letters came in, prompting the board of management of the Dutch public radio to postpone their decision. Because the Concertzender has also a large
international following, could you please write a mail to:

mening@concertzender.nl

http://www.concertzender.eu/?language=en


I hope I can count on your support!!


Greetings,
Rolf den Otter

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September 9, 2008 10:36 AM | | Comments (1)

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