Several of the nation's biggest record companies clearly want more than their MTV.
Having complained for several years that many of their new acts weren't getting played on cable's premier music channel, a handful of labels have teamed with Ticketmaster to launch a rival service by January.
The partners include Warner Music Group, Sony Music Group, EMI Music, and PolyGram Holding Inc., as well as Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG), which agreed to join in late June after scuttling a proposed channel of its own that was to have been formed with Tele-Communications Inc.
Even though, as Wired goes to press, the new venture doesn't yet have a name, a management team, or commitments from cable operators, its existence is causing a stir in the music business, where talk of monopolistic business practices can be heard.
"If their intent is to somehow control the flow of content and create a channel where they get the first window on videos, it'll be a real problem," says Les Garland, who helped launch MTV and now runs Video Jukebox Network Inc., and whose show, The Box, gets 50 to 60 percent of its videos from the big labels.
For their part, the record companies deny such motives. "We don't want to corner the market," says Joel Schoenfeld, BMG's general counsel. "But we do want the best exposure for our video products."
And one other thing: the labels want to start a "pay-for-play" system, which means MTV and others will have to fork over fees to copyright holders. And who are these copyright holders? In most cases, the big labels.
So far, MTV officials have been diplomatic but firm, saying that there won't be a problem so long as videos remain available. Besides, MTV has been moving away from its traditional reliance on videos as a primary form of programming.
"MTV knows it'll be harder to get videos," says Dave Marsh, who publishes Rock 'n' Rap Confidential, an industry newsletter. "The primary suppliers of videos are about to go into the same business."
It's a point that hasn't gone unnoticed in Washington. The Justice Department's antitrust division has begun an inquiry into the record companies' planned venture. And the same House subcommittee holding hearings on charges that Ticketmaster is an unfair monopoly is also expected to turn its attention to the big labels.
ELECTRIC WORD
M(onopoly) TV?
