Mike Butcher

I’m up in Manchester covering In The City, the annual UK music business conference(Sat-Mon), for MusicBites.com and Netimperative.com. Tune in for the coverage…… (Please Google the headline if you don’t understand it).

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“It#039s all about the long tail.” Martin Heath (on the left) of Lizard King Records, continues: “We WERE in a hits driven business, but the business is moving out of that into niches, basically the Long Tail. We are OUTSIDE the hits business now, and it#039s all about niches audiences and building them.”

Sales dive at HMV – Manchester Evening News: The company warned investors today that there were few signs of an upturn on the high street at present. At HMV stores like-for-like sales in the UK fell 11.5 per cent in the three months to Saturday – almost three times as fast as the decline over the previous eight weeks. Shares dived 10 per cent to 213.25p on the news. HMV blames it on competition in the book market. It’s banking on the launch of the albums by Williams and Franz Ferdinand and books from Zadie Smith and Oliver. More from ITN. Strangely, not much mention of digital sales…

Reuters reports that the music industry wants China to shut down pirate music factories and jail the perpetrators if it is going to keep its promise to address the $250 billion-a-year problems, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.

In a word? Yes. “Only digital music players that will play the music you’ve purchased are the ones that include Apple’s Fairplay — a technology that Apple not only controls.”

Macworld compares the Walkmand the the ROKR music phones. The final analysis? “Both phones performed well. The Rokr’s ITunes compatibility is a nice bonus, especially for current ITunes users. However, the W800i Walkman phone accommodates my needs a little better: It has comfy earbuds, takes slightly better pictures, and looks good. Alas, it’s too darn expensive. If Sony Ericsson could sign up a carrier that could mark down the price, I’d be a happier camper.” There you have it.

Red Herring reports that Warner Music Group CEO Edgar Bronfman believes selling music over cell phones is the music industry’s biggest-ever opportunity.

MusicGiants Inc. has launched a new music download service today, reports Reuters, hoping their Windows Media Audio “lossless” format will appeal above the crowd. Are they kidding? It’s reached licensing deals with all the major music labels including EMI Group, Sony/BMG, Vivendi Universal and Warner Music Group. Supposedly lossless files have up to 7 times the sound quality of music files on other commercial music services. As if anyone cares… The tracks will be priced at $1.29 each. Doh!

The Rolling Stones album A Bigger Bang has been released on a a new secured mini flash card from SanDisk. Consumers can preview and purchase more music from the band’s back catalog, through either a PC or a supported mobile phone (Palm and Windows Mobile only, Symbian phones next year). See more at The Register and Business Week. The cards are only available in the US so far. Assuming they are successful – and this is the second time SanDisk hs done this – they will come over to Europe.