EMI goes under

[Iain Purdon]

Universal are set to buy EMI. They have to sell off Parlophone as part of the deal.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19672277

Iain

[AngeliqueNL]

I saw it on the (BBC) News earlier today... how sad!

[russ]

Hopefully this will mean a full stock check and inventory, leading to some "lost" recordings being rediscovered

Best Regards
Russ

[Fenderman]

Does that mean the end of Parlophone? I like that label as its one of the last survivers from the 60's and also because it was the Beatles record label till 68.

[JimN]

Does that mean the end of Parlophone? I like that label as its one of the last survivers from the 60's and also because it was the Beatles record label till 68.

The effects of EMI having to hive off Parlophone are uncertain.

The news reports suggest that the Beatles' catalogue is not part of the Parlophone deal. That's interesting and telling, because it suggests (as, to be honest, was already known) that their deal was never with "Parlophone" in the first place, but with EMI as a whole, with Parlophone merely being the imprint under the control of George Martin. That being the case, it is not at all clear that any of EMI's back-catalogue which was originally released on Parlophone (eg, Matt Monro, Cilla Black, Adam Faith, Billy J Kramer and a lot more since) would transfer with the hiving-off of the red label. In other words, it would be the brand which was being sold, and the right to issue new recordings under it (perhaps with a right to certain recent Parlophone recordings).

When EMI finally lost the right to use the imprint "Columbia" (circa 1990), they did not lose their Columbia material. They just issued it on the EMI imprint instead (as indeed, they have done for a lot of Parlophone, Top Rank and other material from their UK labels of the day).

So... probably no change for back-catalogue (except, perhaps, for a different attitude to mining the archives).

JN