Jon Webster, chief executive of the Music Managers Forum, has said the recent music industry initiative to make songs available for purchase as soon as they are played on radio is now ‘effectively dead’, after Sony admitted they will take a step back from the idea.
“I’m very sad to see it effectively die already,” Webster told BBC Newsbeat. “To deny consumers the opportunity of buying something when they’ve heard it is to deny them an entry point to the market.”
“The problem is it’s pretty much dead as soon as one company doesn’t do it. It was doomed from the time it was voluntary and not compulsory. It needs to be everyone, and if it’s not everyone, it’s not going to work.”
Webster’s comments come in the wake of a statement released by Sony which has said they are ‘now looking at each release on a case by case basis,’ something which represents a distancing from the original intention to include every release in the strategy.
Another industry big gun, Universal, resisted a similar blanket procedure for the sales plan, but has said it ‘remains our policy’ while also insisting there will continue to be exceptions ‘depending on what’s right for our individual artists.’