I expect there will be many people today who are disappointed by the news that The Times and other News International titles will need to be paid for online from June this year.  Like everyone else, I love getting good stuff for free.  But today’s announcement is in fact great news for those who app... [More]

I was happy to attend the launch on Wednesday of the music industry’s new Music Matters campaign, at the Curzon cinema in Soho. This is a joined-up effort by the whole of the industry – including artists, labels, managers, publishers, trade bodies etc – to communicate with music fans about why music is important, and to help fans easily identify sites that properly pay artists and the everyone else involved in making music. [More]

This year it was the 30th anniversary of the BRIT Awards and the staging was as spectacular as ever. As in the past few years it was screened live from Earls Court and was watched this year by a TV audience averaging 5.8m viewers, with a peak of 6.3m. Performers on the night included Lily Allen, JLS, Kasabian, Cheryl Cole, Jay-Z/Alicia Keys and Lady Gaga, whose win in every category in which she was nominated made several of the front pages the next day, crowning a superb 2009 for her. [More]

The deadline for registrations to the 2010 BPI Sync Licensing mission passed last week, and I’m pleased to say despite the testing commercial times we live in (or maybe precisely because of?), we have had a record number of applications and are taking over 40 companies to the City of Angels this coming April. The delegate list contains a large number of ‘first-timers’, plus some returnees. Hopefully, whatever category our delegates fit into, all will find it a useful and hopefully profitable experience. [More]