CEMA reports that the portable audio category made a huge comeback in August, with sales increasing 9%, to $216 million. CEMA says that contributing to this comeback are the sales of portable CD headset units, which grew 26% in August, to $68 million. The sales of home radios and analog tape…
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According to the Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association (CEMA), the month of August saw hot increases in the sales of audio products. Factory sales of audio products rose 7%, to $694 million, equaling year-to-date revenues of $4.7 billion, slightly ahead of the first eight months of 1998.
Late July was a volatile period for the music industry. On the 29th, Bertelsmann CEO Thomas Middelhoff announced his resignation. The "young lion" who ushered the German media conglomerate into the Internet age—and into an ill-advised $100 million investment in now-forgotten Napster—apparently had a very different vision for the future of the company than does the Mohn family, which controls 75% of Bertelsmann stock. "Shareholders had mid- and long-term development prospects that were different from mine," Middelhoff told reporters. "In this context, I had no choice but to resign."…
At its January CES presentation, Sony announced that this is the year that SACD will roll out big time to the masses. News from EMI/Capitol and Silverline Records would suggest that DVD-Audio may not be far behind, at least as far as available software is concerned.
EMI/Capitol Records announced last week that, on June 18, they will be taking "the second step" in their ongoing campaign to offer classic recordings in "advanced resolution surround sound, re-mixed to optimize playback on high-end surround systems as well as home theater systems." In addition to high-rez sound, the new discs…
The Secure Digital Music Initiative has decided to reconfirm San Diego–based Verance Corporation's watermarking technology as its choice for inhibiting piracy in digitally recorded music. The May 21 announcement was made by the SDMI Plenary after a year-long campaign to evaluate the effectiveness and audibility of watermarks from 14 different vendors. The group has also apparently decided to halt further research and development efforts, which have been widely blamed for hobbling the rollout of DVD-Audio.
"While the SDMI has decided to forego Phase II of its program, Verance is gratified…
While Apple's iTunes and RealNetworks Rhapsody are battling it out in the music download ring (see related story), and Microsoft is rumored to be eyeing a corner, Sony has now decided to join the fray with a new music service announced last week in Europe.
At one time, Sony was the king of the portable audio player market with its ubiquitous and wide-ranging line of cassette-, FM-, and CD-based walkmans. But more recently, Apple's iPod and MP3 players from Creative and others have grabbed the headlines in an ever-changing portable market to which Sony has been slow to adapt.
Until…
It may be true that baby-boomers yearn to relive their childhoods, but how many aging wanted-to-be rock stars and music lovers still like to play with dolls? McFarlane Toys, which made its mark creating and marketing Spawn merchandise, is hoping quite a few.
Despite being not long for this mortal coil, Jim Morrison's tenure with The Doors established him as one of rock'n'roll's pre-eminent, if controversial, frontmen. He died in France 30 years ago this month, and to commemorate the occasion, McFarlane says that "the Lizard King will forever live on" with the Jim Morrison "action figure…
Here's an audio riddle for you. Question: What's erasable but not recordable? Answer: Downloadable music from FullAudio Corporation.
The Chicago-based Internet music startup has just signed a three-year licensing agreement with BMG Music Publishing, a division of the German media conglomerate Bertelsmann AG. BMG inked the deal in early June with privately-held FullAudio in part because the company's business model allows subscribers to download a fixed number of songs per month for a fixed monthly fee, but doesn't allow them to transfer the songs to recordable CDs or any other type of…
In 1991, British loudspeaker manufacturer B&W celebrated its 25th birthday with the introduction of the John Bowers Silver Signature loudspeaker (see review). Not the largest or most expensive speaker on the company chart, the John Bowers Silver Signature, named after the company's late founder, still prompted John Atkinson to write that its performance was the best he'd heard for its modest size in his listening room.
Ten years later and B&W is now approaching the 35th anniversary of its 1966 birth. To commemorate the occasion, the company has announced several design…
Radio broadcasts are still among the most useful resources for finding new music. They are also among the most frustrating. It's a rare occurrence anymore for announcers to tell you the name of a song and who performed it. Often, if you really want to know, you have to call the station and ask. If you're really lucky, someone might be willing to answer your question.
Get Media, a San Jose, California-based startup company, intends to change all that. The situation has gotten so bad that "people are walking into Tower Records, and they will sing the song to the clerk," says Robert…
Is the consumer electronics business swimming, sinking, or simply treading water? It all depends on who's talking. Retailers don't appear to be suffering, despite widespread staffing cutbacks by large companies, but the gains are coming more slowly than they did last year.
On April 17, Harvey Electronics, Inc. reported a 13.8% increase in sales for the five-month period ending March 24, with an 11.4% improvement in comparable store sales. The Lyndhurst, NJ–based retailer reported that net sales for the five months grew to approximately $17.2 million, a gain of $2.1 million over the same…