William Hong keeps us up to date:

>Via another mailing list to which I subscribe, came an item from
>the Musical America website, that reports a memo that Tower Records
>headquarters sent out to all of its stores.

In one of my other live, I am a computer solutions architect, my current
project is a one terrabyte data warehouse for the desk top.  What prey
tell, does this have to do with classical music?

Classical music needs to cut its overhead, reducing the cost structure
of distributing recordings and material.  One essential part of this is
changing the model by which material is distributed and the amount of
profit each step takes along the chain.

A broadband user can download a standard CD in an hour or less, that is,
as raw bits, and burn that cd on what is now commodity hardware for PCs.
Within 1 year CD-W burners will be standard on almost every PC, as they
are now virtually standard equipment on all high end laptops.

Removing the cost of trucking around billions and billions of heavy protons
from the euqation means that the cost charged for a classical CD will be
reduced to the pure cost of the information itself.  It would also remove
several layers of middle men from the equation.

The reason this has not happened is because both sides are willing to pay
for what the middle men provide - convenience.  It is more convenient to
browse a record store, or order through tower.  It is more convenient for
the label to hand the problem of getting information into people's hands
to a distributor.

However, this is where the next part of the solution comes in - coallation
of that material from the users side.  The user will be able to build a
"virtual distributor" which goes to each of the record labels he cares
about, and queries them, putting the results back in a browsable format.
He could also include record stores, consignment outlets and foreign
sources.

Sound far fetched? Sound like too much of a burden on the consumer?

Far fetched it is not, pieces of the technology are already in place,
including searches which are able to go through formated websites.  The key
part is really the "tweezing" that makes it easy for someone to do out of
the box, to the point where it is consumer friendly.

What this is known as in business lingo is "supply chain management".

- - -

The other side of this is not technological, but business.  To make this
arrangment viable woudl require the other side - the supplier side - to
take much less money per unit.  Let us face facts, the packaging and so on
costs less to provide than record labels think they can charge for the
packaging itself, and is used to justify the enormous percentage that
disappears down various holes.

Which is why actions like the tower "let it age on our shelves for a year"
deal should be a wake up call to all of the smaller classically focused
labels.  The majors will have the wear with all, and the clout, to keep
these relationships going with record stores.  The smaller labels - who
have done much of the best work in recording and taken more of the risks -
will not.

The solution to the distribution dilemma is out there, however, grasping
it means accepting a great deal less profit per unit, and finding ways of
selling more units.

Sadly the trend seems to be in the other direction, to market more and
more to the people willing to pay 19 dollars US per CD.  This may make
good sense in the short run, but not in the long run, since it closes
down creation of newer fans, who are, by and large, not yet willing to
pay 19 dollars per CD.

Stirling Newberry
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http://www.mp3.com/ssn