The streak of acquisitions for D&M Holdings continues. Last month saw the company pick up its third major consumer electronics brand when McIntosh Laboratory was brought into the fold with Denon and Marantz. Last week, D&M announced that it was successful in a bid to acquire certain assets comprising the digital video recorder and MP3 business units of troubled SONICblue.
Last week found Recoton struggling to keep its head above water. This week Gemini Industries tossed the beleaguered company a rope, announcing that it had reached an agreement to acquire Recoton's consumer electronics accessories business. In support of this transaction and Gemini's growth plan, the company raised new funding from Boston-based Parthenon Capital.
On April 8, Recoton Corporation voluntarily revealed that it and all of its US-based subsidiaries filed for bankruptcy protection in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code.
The music industry is facing its toughest business climate in recent memory, and slow sales are hurting not only the record labels, but music retailers as well. In the face of continuing sales declines, store closings, mergers and consolidations, layoffs, and seemingly intractable digital distribution issues, the industry came together last month for its annual National Association of Recording Merchandisers (NARM) convention and trade show in Orlando, FL.
At the 2003 Consumer Electronics Show in January—see the report in this issue—Sony and Philips held an SACD Event at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas. There were trippy lights. There were the Grand Pooh-Bahs of Sony, Philips, and the record labels. There was loud multichannel Big Brother and the Holding Company. And there was Sony's main SACD man in the US, David Kawakami, supplying the pep talk.
The DVD-Audio format's been around for a couple of years, but simultaneous DVD-A and CD releases of new music have been few and far between. Warner Brothers is hoping to improve on that record with the upcoming album from Fleetwood Mac, Say You Will.
Last year in late October, Universal Music Group finally announced its first set of SACD titles and the high-rez format's supporters jumped for joy. Then, at the January 2003 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Universal stood on the podium next to Sony and announced several key SACD releases from the Police, Peter Gabriel, and others.
It's no secret that the music industry has added watermarking to its arsenal in an effort to restrict how audio content is used. With SACD, DVD-Audio, and now CD, audio watermarking has been used mainly for digitally stored content. But the music business also has problems with live concert bootlegs as well as bootlegs surfacing after special broadcast events.
Audiophiles know Linn as a high-end consumer electronics company, creator of such products as the legendary LP12 turntable, compact amps, preamps, and speakers, and the innovative Kivor hard-disk music server.
Record labels have found that CDs with built-in restriction technologies have not worked in all CD players, have been incompatible with some computers, and have engendered considerable backlash from irate consumers. But why should that stop them?