Will Gompertz, the BBC’s highly paid arts/news editor, is about to be put on the spot. A former Tate Gallery staffer who lives in freely admitted awe of its director Nicholas Serota, Gompertz has given large dollops of attention to the Tate and such favoured artists as Francis Alys, Louise Bourgeois and Yinko Shonibare – and that’s in the past month alone.

But when it comes to the big Tate issue, his reticence is stupefying.

The Tate, along with other UK arts bodies, is facing waves of protest from environmental campaigners, outraged that a massive global polluter like BP can seek to cleanse itself in large donations to British art. The Tate’s chairman is Lord Brown, former head of BP. Next week, Brown will preside at the gallery’s summer fundraiser. Greenwash Guerillas intend to picket the party. It will be an uncomfortable occasion.

The Tate, along with the British Museum, National Portrait Gallery and Royal Opera House have issued a statement defending their relationship with BP as legitimate and essential. The company is not, on the whole, an enemy of the people and the art it supports will last long after the last of its oil spill has washed away, along with its hapless present management. Indeed, without BP funds much grassroots art might never develop.

I happen to support that position. The arts cannot afford to be too scrupulous about sources of funding. If cheques are accepted from Russian robber barons and pension-stripping bankers, there is no reason to refuse them from BP, no matter how dirty its seas. The arts are not arbiters of morality or marine police. The arts have a right to accept BP cash.

Nevertheless, there is a heated public debate around BP’s arts role and the BBC ought to be reporting it. So far, not a peep from Gompertz. Not a hint that the Tate party might be less than jolly. Not a word on the Ten O’Clock News about the collision between arts and ecology, although several newspapers have reported it.

That may be an oversight, an error of judgement, or a quiet word from his former boss. Not for us to know. But the BBC needs to be impartial. If Gompertz won’t report the anti-Tate demos, someone else should cover the story. Where’s Razia Iqbal when we really need her? 

Stressed by the soccer championship? Swelling in the heat? Queuing at an airport? Suffering a seasonal cashflow squeeze? Stupefied by the holiday weekend?

 

The Record Doctor is back on WNYC Soundcheck next Thursday for a special summer clinic to treat your most pressing ailments with an apothecary of tonal and non-tonal remedies.

 

Email, tweet or text in now, or phone The Record Doctor Thursday July 1 at 1pm. Lines are forming outside the consulting room. Here’s the URL:

http://beta.wnyc.org/shows/soundcheck/2010/jul/01/record-doctor/

I was just back from a research trip to Vienna when the phone rang and a friend offered me a part in a major feature film about Gustav Mahler. If it had been the lead role with a credit above the title, I might have given it more than a minute’s thought, but the best I was told I could hope for was a non-speaking part in the scrummage at a high-society orgy. In short, I could have been a Hollywood stud.

The film was Bruce Beresford’s Bride of the Wind and it sank into video oblivion without proper cinema release, weighted by the silliness of its paltry fictions.

It came to mind this morning when someone directed my eye to a Los Angeles Film Festival premiere of Mahler on the Couch, Felix and Percy Adlon’s fancification of the composer’s encounter with Sigmund Freud. You can tell that it’s fiction because Mahler was never on the couch. He met Freud in a small Dutch town in August 1910 and they set off on a four-hour walking cure. The rest can be read in Why Mahler?, newly obtainable on amazon

The first critical grab on Mahler on the Couch suggests that it is afflicted by the same silliness as Beresford’s wretched effort. I don’t expect to watch Johannes Silberschneider, Barbara Romaner, Karl Markovics struggle through 101 minutes, and I don’t object on the whole to the fictionalisation of historical incidents, so long as they enlighten us in some way about the human condition.  The trouble with most such biofilms is that they are riddled with cliches. I hoped for better from the Adlons, but I fear the worst.

Let me know if you’ve seen it.

You can post reviews either here, or on the Why Mahler? facebook page.

 

The London Jewish Museum of Art last night opened an exhibition of crucifixion images, called Cross Purposes. It contains some extraordinary interpretations from varied collections, by artists Jewish, Christian and neither.

The centrepiece is Marc Chagall’s chilling 1945 analogy of Hitler’s assassination of the Jews and their faith, along with a 1942 companion work by Emmanuel Levi in which a man in prayer-shawl and phylacteries is crucified beneath the sign ‘Jude’ in Gothic script.

There is a skeletal Graham Sutherland, a stagey Maggie Hambling and an unforgettable Duncan Grant that accentuates the Christ-figure’s sexuality. A post-colonial triple crucifixion of black men and white, by the Indian artist Francis Newton Souza (1824-2002), somehow follows you around the room and out of the door into the sun-baked street.

But what’s a Jewish art gallery doing putting on a show of crucifixions? The idea has drawn torrents of abuse from Jewish supporters of the museum, who argue (rightly) that the crucifixion image has been the incitement for 2,000 years of Christian persecution of Jews. The gallery counters that the man on the cross was Jewish; it’s time to reclaim that heritage and discuss the terrible act from the victim’s viewpoint.

I don’t subscribe to either standpoint, but the issue is worth examining with greater intellectual clarity and the show should certainly be on your calendar.

 

LATE EXTRA: The story has been taken up by the JC:

http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/33409/jewish-art-museums-crucifix-exhibition

 

The London Jewish Museum of Art last night opened an exhibition of crucifixion images, called Cross Purposes. It contains some extraordinary interpretations from varied collections, by artists Jewish, Christian and neither.

The centrepiece is Marc Chagall’s chilling 1945 analogy of Hitler’s assassination of the Jews and their faith, along with a 1942 companion work by Emmanuel Levi in which a man in prayer-shawl and phylacteries is crucified beneath the sign ‘Jude’ in Gothic script.

There is a skeletal Graham Sutherland, a stagey Maggie Hambling and an unforgettable Duncan Grant that accentuates the Christ-figure’s sexuality. A post-colonial triple crucifixion of black men and white, by the Indian artist Francis Newton Souza (1824-2002), somehow follows you around the room and out of the door into the sun-baked street.

But what’s a Jewish art gallery doing putting on a show of crucifixions? The idea has drawn torrents of abuse from Jewish supporters of the museum, who argue (rightly) that the crucifixion image has been the incitement for 2,000 years of Christian persecution of Jews. The gallery counters that the man on the cross was Jewish; it’s time to reclaim that heritage and discuss the terrible act from the victim’s viewpoint.

I don’t subscribe to either standpoint, but the issue is worth examining with greater intellectual clarity and the show should certainly be on your calendar.

 

LATE EXTRA: The story has been taken up by the JC:

http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/33409/jewish-art-museums-crucifix-exhibition

 

Before your brains get addled by the soundbite merchants from Government and Opposition, I’ve looked at one headline figure in the Budget and come to the conclusion that the arts are going to get off lightly – much more so than they would have done under Labour.

In the months before the last election, major arts instutitions were told to plan for succession ten percent cuts over three years – that’s 27.1 percent.

George Osborne spoke to day of cutting government spending by 25 percent over four years – that’s two percent less and over an extra 12 months.

Crunch this one whichever way you like, but it means the arts ought to get away with less pain under the LibCon coalition than under the feckless hand of Ben Bradshaw.

And if Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt decides to shake down the Arts Council, that measure would be cheered from Land’s End to Hadrian’s Wall. The southwest of England, a LibDem stronghold, has been cruelly neglected by the mandarins of the ACE.

 

Ahead of today’s austerity Budget the Arts Council of England, which distributes government subsidy across the lively arts, has cut £19 million from its purse. Half of the money is being dredged up from ‘reserves’, but arts organisations have been strimmed for the rest.

All 808 receipients of ACE grants receive a 0.5 percent reduction, spread evenly across the board. That means the Royal Opera House will lose £142,000 – that’s about two-third of its chief executive’s salary, not that he will be taking a pay cut – while your local ethnic arts centre may be down as little as £200. Fair’s fair, right? Everyone must have prizes, and everyone must share the pain in equal measure.

Wrong. The Arts Council was set up by Royal Charter 1945 to nurture creativity by supporting promising start-ups. It was designed to favour excellence and shun mediocrity. Its unstated motto was along the lines of: the best is the enemy of the good.

Today, it delivers equal shares and pain to everyone, regardless of merit. A London orchestra notorious for its minimal rehearsals receives the same grant as a world beater. A theatre in Hampstead that should never have been publicly rebuilt is pumped full of subsidy while little startups like the Broadway-storming Menier Chocolate Factory get nothing.

Given a challenging opportunity to make choices on where it should cut, the ACE simply shut its eyes and spread thin gruel across the board. This is institution that has loss all will and right to exist. Its chief executive, Alan Davey, a former Culture Department bureaucrat, said limply: ‘there really is no more to save.’  

Really? He could start with his own six-digit sinecure and work his way down through an eight-person executive that has proved itself incapable of making decisions, big or small.

The ACE is presently advertising a vacancy for an officer in Corporate Communications. Have they lost all semblance of plot? The ACE is a government welfare agency. It has no corporate function and it can barely communicate the time of day. It should be cutting itself.   

Ahead of today’s austerity Budget the Arts Council of England, which distributes government subsidy across the lively arts, has cut £19 million from its purse. Half of the money is being dredged up from ‘reserves’, but arts organisations have been strimmed for the rest.

All 808 receipients of ACE grants receive a 0.5 percent reduction, spread evenly across the board. That means the Royal Opera House will lose £142,000 – that’s about two-third of its chief executive’s salary, not that he will be taking a pay cut – while your local ethnic arts centre may be down as little as £200. Fair’s fair, right? Everyone must have prizes, and everyone must share the pain in equal measure.

Wrong. The Arts Council was set up by Royal Charter 1945 to nurture creativity by supporting promising start-ups. It was designed to favour excellence and shun mediocrity. Its unstated motto was along the lines of: the best is the enemy of the good.

Today, it delivers equal shares and pain to everyone, regardless of merit. A London orchestra notorious for its minimal rehearsals receives the same grant as a world beater. A theatre in Hampstead that should never have been publicly rebuilt is pumped full of subsidy while little startups like the Broadway-storming Menier Chocolate Factory get nothing.

Given a challenging opportunity to make choices on where it should cut, the ACE simply shut its eyes and spread thin gruel across the board. This is institution that has loss all will and right to exist. Its chief executive, Alan Davey, a former Culture Department bureaucrat, said limply: ‘there really is no more to save.’  

Really? He could start with his own six-digit sinecure and work his way down through an eight-person executive that has proved itself incapable of making decisions, big or small.

The ACE is presently advertising a vacancy for an officer in Corporate Communications. Have they lost all semblance of plot? The ACE is a government welfare agency. It has no corporate function and it can barely communicate the time of day. It should be cutting itself.   

The hedgetrimmers who own what was once the flagship of the music industry have appointed yet another corp-speak soundbite to head the ailing giant. His name is Roger Faxon and he comes from the music-publishing side, which he will merge with the recording business.

He seems to think it’s all about brand, but judge for yourselves. I attach his golden hello letter to fellow executives, along with the press release.

If there are any bookmakers out there, you might like to give me odds on how long before Faxon Faxoff. Tenure at the top of EMI since Terra Firma took over averages around two years.

Among those presently being moved on are John Birt, former boss of the BBC, and Charles Allen, cultural wrecker of ITV.

 

—————————————————-

Here’s Faxon’s fax-on:

 

Dear All,

 

I wanted to reach out to all of you following the announcement earlier today of my appointment to the position of EMI Group Chief Executive.  As I said in the press release (attached here), it is a real honour to be working with you all and to be given the responsibility of leading the operations of what I believe to be one of the greatest music brands in the world. I am excited about the challenge of leading the company in the next phase of its long history.

 

I have worked with many of you in my role as Chairman and CEO of EMI Music Publishing for the last three years, and for those of you who are not so familiar with me, I’ve held a number of roles across EMI Music, EMI Music Publishing and EMI Group in more than 16 years with the company. This is a business that I know well, and one which I believe can make a real difference for the artists and writers that we are all privileged to represent.

 

My goal is to build a Global Rights Management Business that draws on the expertise and talents of everyone across the entirety of both divisions. I believe that the two businesses, working in concert with one another, sharing the same values, pursuing a coordinated strategy can and will deliver for our artists and songwriters no matter what challenges we face.  

 

That new business needs to be built on some principles that I believe are fundamental to achieving success in this rapidly changing marketplace:

 

  • We must be unswervingly focused on championing our artist community, and providing them with the help they need to achieve their maximum potential.

 

  • The commitment to discovering and promoting new music is absolutely essential to the future growth of the company.

 

  • We need to recognize the power and importance of the extraordinary catalogue of recordings we represent, and as we do that we need to respect the creative contribution of all the talented artists who made those recordings.

 

  • We have to be passionate about providing world-class service and services to the many and varied music users and retailers across the globe. We need to be the most trusted and effective partner to them, while also providing fans with the products that they demand.

 

  • It is vital that we constantly work to enhance the skills of staff in the pursuit of excellence across all parts of the business, if we are to provide artists with the service that they deserve.

 

  • We must cultivate a culture of cooperation that will enable us to work better and more effectively across different geographies, functions and divisions. By offering a broader set of services to our artists, and a broader set of rights to our clients, we will be able to build a new look EMI that better reflects the way that music is created and consumed, and that delivers more for the talented people we represent.  

 

I know that many of these principles are as important to you as they are to me, and certainly they have played a big part in the work we have done to deliver growth at EMI Music Publishing over the last few years.

 

EMI Music has achieved some notable successes recently – all against a remarkably testing and trying corporate backdrop. The change in leadership being announced today is designed to build on that success to forge an EMI that is ideally positioned to deliver for the people that matter most – our artists.

 

Over the next few weeks and months, I’ll be getting up to speed with the recorded music business, and I hope that I will be talking to many of you to get your opinions. I’m very much looking forward to the opportunity to talk to you further about my perspective on EMI, and to listen to what you all have to say.

 

Best wishes

 

Roger Faxon 

EMI Group Chief Executive 

 

 

And here’s the press release:

18 June 2010

 

EMI TO REPOSITION ITSELF AS A COMPREHENSIVE RIGHTS MANAGEMENT COMPANY SERVING ARTISTS AND SONGWRITERS WORLDWIDE

ROGER FAXON APPOINTED EMI GROUP CHIEF EXECUTIVE

 

Following the recent successful fundraising for EMI Group from the Terra Firma funds and the clear expression of support for the business, EMI Group is pleased to announce the results of its strategic review into how EMI Recorded Music and EMI Music Publishing could best work together to maximise the value of the rights it represents on behalf of its artists and songwriters.  More music is being used than ever before, despite the continued decline in global music revenues. As a result, the management structure of EMI is being changed to enable the company to reposition itself as a comprehensive rights management company that can take full advantage of all global opportunities in all markets for music.  This will maximise the experience and skills which exist within both EMI Recorded Music and EMI Music Publishing under one global head. 

EMI Group is therefore delighted to announce that Roger Faxon has been appointed as Group Chief Executive.  He has been Chairman and Chief Executive of EMI Music Publishing since 2007 and, in this new position, will lead EMI Recorded Music as well as continuing to be responsible for the Publishing business.  Charles Allen formerly non-Executive Chairman of EMI Recorded Music will become an adviser to EMI and its shareholder, Terra Firma.

Stephen Alexander will become Chairman of Maltby Capital, the holding company of EMI.  Stephen has been a director of Maltby Capital for the past 18 months and was formerly an operational Managing Director of Terra Firma.  He has been involved in various aspects of EMI since its acquisition by Terra Firma in 2007 and, in particular, for the past two years, he has worked closely with Roger Faxon at EMI Music Publishing.  Lord Birt, formerly Chairman of Maltby Capital, will move on to other Terra Firma assignments, focusing on acquisitions and strategy, whilst continuing to represent Terra Firma on the Board of Infinis.

 


 

 

Stephen Alexander said:

 

“Having worked closely with Roger for a considerable time, I know that his leadership of the entire business will be of huge benefit to EMI’s artists, employees and investors.  In particular, his appointment as Group Chief Executive will allow all EMI’s undoubted skills and resources to be implemented to maximum effect as the company continues to develop its new music, catalogue and publishing businesses.”

 

Under Roger Faxon, EMI Music Publishing has continued to be the leading publisher of popular music in the world.  Last December, Billboard magazine named EMI the top US publisher of the year for the 12th consecutive time.  EMI was named Publisher of the Year at the ASCAP Pop Music Awards, the 8th consecutive year that EMI has won the award and the 16th time in the Awards’ 27-year history. In the UK, EMI was named Music Week’s Publisher of the Year for the 14th consecutive year.

During Charles Allen’s chairmanship of EMI Recorded Music it has achieved an incredible transformation in both earnings and hits.  Market share is increasing for the first time in years and profitability is three times what it was back in 2007.  Additionally, Charles has been instrumental in putting together the plans that enabled the finance to be raised for EMI Group to move forward as an independent company with a strong future.  EMI would like to thank him for a job well done.

Lord Birt’s skilful leadership of EMI Group has enabled it to not only make progress operationally and financially but also to meet the requirements of its debt package in very challenging circumstances.

Roger Faxon is a hugely accomplished music executive, who has spent the last thirty years working across multiple industries in the creative sector. As executive vice president/COO for LUCASFILM Ltd, he guided the financial and operational affairs of George Lucas’s company, including the motion pictures Raiders of the Lost Ark, Return of the Jedi, and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. He founded movie and TV production business the Mount Company in 1984, producing motion pictures including Frantic, Bull Durham and Tequila Sunrise, before moving to Tri-Star and Columbia Pictures, leading the studio’s marketing, distribution, business affairs, physical production and finance departments.

 

After a period helming auction house Sotheby’s European operations, Faxon moved to EMI Music in 1994 to lead worldwide strategy development, and has spent the last 16 years working in various senior management roles across the business. He was appointed Chairman and CEO of EMI Music Publishing, the world’s leading publisher of popular music, in 2007.


 

 

Roger Faxon said:

“I am delighted and honoured to become Group Chief Executive of EMI, and to be given the responsibility for leading one of the greatest music brands in the world. There is incredible talent and expertise within both EMI Music Publishing and EMI Music, as has been demonstrated by their recent performance. I believe that the two divisions working in concert with one another as a global rights management business, can and will deliver for the artists and songwriters that we are privileged to work with now and in the future.”

Charles Allen said:

“I have really enjoyed my time at EMI, leading a team that has transformed the business over the last few years creating top line growth, share growth and profit growth as well as delivering new hits and a strong performance from our catalogue business.  I’m delighted to have played a part in securing the investment in the Group by our shareholders.  It gives us a firm platform for future growth.  This repositioning and restructuring will benefit our artists and I’m delighted that EMI will be led by an experienced, music industry veteran.  The whole EMI Group and its artists will benefit from having one Chief Executive and I look forward to supporting Roger and his colleagues.”

Lord Birt said:

 

“It has been a pleasure to work with EMI, and in particular with Recorded Music, since its purchase by Terra Firma three years ago. The turnaround – and the improvement in the profitability of the business – has been remarkable. I am delighted to see Roger become Group Chief Executive. He is a tireless and consummate music industry professional, whom I have learnt greatly to respect. He and Stephen form the ideal leadership to take EMI through the next phase of its necessary transformation.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

The hedgetrimmers who own what was once the flagship of the music industry have appointed yet another corp-speak soundbite to head the ailing giant. His name is Roger Faxon and he comes from the music-publishing side, which he will merge with the recording business.

He seems to think it’s all about brand, but judge for yourselves. I attach his golden hello letter to fellow executives, along with the press release.

If there are any bookmakers out there, you might like to give me odds on how long before Faxon Faxoff. Tenure at the top of EMI since Terra Firma took over averages around two years.

Among those presently being moved on are John Birt, former boss of the BBC, and Charles Allen, cultural wrecker of ITV.

 

—————————————————-

Here’s Faxon’s fax-on:

 

Dear All,

 

I wanted to reach out to all of you following the announcement earlier today of my appointment to the position of EMI Group Chief Executive.  As I said in the press release (attached here), it is a real honour to be working with you all and to be given the responsibility of leading the operations of what I believe to be one of the greatest music brands in the world. I am excited about the challenge of leading the company in the next phase of its long history.

 

I have worked with many of you in my role as Chairman and CEO of EMI Music Publishing for the last three years, and for those of you who are not so familiar with me, I’ve held a number of roles across EMI Music, EMI Music Publishing and EMI Group in more than 16 years with the company. This is a business that I know well, and one which I believe can make a real difference for the artists and writers that we are all privileged to represent.

 

My goal is to build a Global Rights Management Business that draws on the expertise and talents of everyone across the entirety of both divisions. I believe that the two businesses, working in concert with one another, sharing the same values, pursuing a coordinated strategy can and will deliver for our artists and songwriters no matter what challenges we face.  

 

That new business needs to be built on some principles that I believe are fundamental to achieving success in this rapidly changing marketplace:

 

  • We must be unswervingly focused on championing our artist community, and providing them with the help they need to achieve their maximum potential.

 

  • The commitment to discovering and promoting new music is absolutely essential to the future growth of the company.

 

  • We need to recognize the power and importance of the extraordinary catalogue of recordings we represent, and as we do that we need to respect the creative contribution of all the talented artists who made those recordings.

 

  • We have to be passionate about providing world-class service and services to the many and varied music users and retailers across the globe. We need to be the most trusted and effective partner to them, while also providing fans with the products that they demand.

 

  • It is vital that we constantly work to enhance the skills of staff in the pursuit of excellence across all parts of the business, if we are to provide artists with the service that they deserve.

 

  • We must cultivate a culture of cooperation that will enable us to work better and more effectively across different geographies, functions and divisions. By offering a broader set of services to our artists, and a broader set of rights to our clients, we will be able to build a new look EMI that better reflects the way that music is created and consumed, and that delivers more for the talented people we represent.  

 

I know that many of these principles are as important to you as they are to me, and certainly they have played a big part in the work we have done to deliver growth at EMI Music Publishing over the last few years.

 

EMI Music has achieved some notable successes recently – all against a remarkably testing and trying corporate backdrop. The change in leadership being announced today is designed to build on that success to forge an EMI that is ideally positioned to deliver for the people that matter most – our artists.

 

Over the next few weeks and months, I’ll be getting up to speed with the recorded music business, and I hope that I will be talking to many of you to get your opinions. I’m very much looking forward to the opportunity to talk to you further about my perspective on EMI, and to listen to what you all have to say.

 

Best wishes

 

Roger Faxon 

EMI Group Chief Executive 

 

 

And here’s the press release:

18 June 2010

 

EMI TO REPOSITION ITSELF AS A COMPREHENSIVE RIGHTS MANAGEMENT COMPANY SERVING ARTISTS AND SONGWRITERS WORLDWIDE

ROGER FAXON APPOINTED EMI GROUP CHIEF EXECUTIVE

 

Following the recent successful fundraising for EMI Group from the Terra Firma funds and the clear expression of support for the business, EMI Group is pleased to announce the results of its strategic review into how EMI Recorded Music and EMI Music Publishing could best work together to maximise the value of the rights it represents on behalf of its artists and songwriters.  More music is being used than ever before, despite the continued decline in global music revenues. As a result, the management structure of EMI is being changed to enable the company to reposition itself as a comprehensive rights management company that can take full advantage of all global opportunities in all markets for music.  This will maximise the experience and skills which exist within both EMI Recorded Music and EMI Music Publishing under one global head. 

EMI Group is therefore delighted to announce that Roger Faxon has been appointed as Group Chief Executive.  He has been Chairman and Chief Executive of EMI Music Publishing since 2007 and, in this new position, will lead EMI Recorded Music as well as continuing to be responsible for the Publishing business.  Charles Allen formerly non-Executive Chairman of EMI Recorded Music will become an adviser to EMI and its shareholder, Terra Firma.

Stephen Alexander will become Chairman of Maltby Capital, the holding company of EMI.  Stephen has been a director of Maltby Capital for the past 18 months and was formerly an operational Managing Director of Terra Firma.  He has been involved in various aspects of EMI since its acquisition by Terra Firma in 2007 and, in particular, for the past two years, he has worked closely with Roger Faxon at EMI Music Publishing.  Lord Birt, formerly Chairman of Maltby Capital, will move on to other Terra Firma assignments, focusing on acquisitions and strategy, whilst continuing to represent Terra Firma on the Board of Infinis.

 


 

 

Stephen Alexander said:

 

“Having worked closely with Roger for a considerable time, I know that his leadership of the entire business will be of huge benefit to EMI’s artists, employees and investors.  In particular, his appointment as Group Chief Executive will allow all EMI’s undoubted skills and resources to be implemented to maximum effect as the company continues to develop its new music, catalogue and publishing businesses.”

 

Under Roger Faxon, EMI Music Publishing has continued to be the leading publisher of popular music in the world.  Last December, Billboard magazine named EMI the top US publisher of the year for the 12th consecutive time.  EMI was named Publisher of the Year at the ASCAP Pop Music Awards, the 8th consecutive year that EMI has won the award and the 16th time in the Awards’ 27-year history. In the UK, EMI was named Music Week’s Publisher of the Year for the 14th consecutive year.

During Charles Allen’s chairmanship of EMI Recorded Music it has achieved an incredible transformation in both earnings and hits.  Market share is increasing for the first time in years and profitability is three times what it was back in 2007.  Additionally, Charles has been instrumental in putting together the plans that enabled the finance to be raised for EMI Group to move forward as an independent company with a strong future.  EMI would like to thank him for a job well done.

Lord Birt’s skilful leadership of EMI Group has enabled it to not only make progress operationally and financially but also to meet the requirements of its debt package in very challenging circumstances.

Roger Faxon is a hugely accomplished music executive, who has spent the last thirty years working across multiple industries in the creative sector. As executive vice president/COO for LUCASFILM Ltd, he guided the financial and operational affairs of George Lucas’s company, including the motion pictures Raiders of the Lost Ark, Return of the Jedi, and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. He founded movie and TV production business the Mount Company in 1984, producing motion pictures including Frantic, Bull Durham and Tequila Sunrise, before moving to Tri-Star and Columbia Pictures, leading the studio’s marketing, distribution, business affairs, physical production and finance departments.

 

After a period helming auction house Sotheby’s European operations, Faxon moved to EMI Music in 1994 to lead worldwide strategy development, and has spent the last 16 years working in various senior management roles across the business. He was appointed Chairman and CEO of EMI Music Publishing, the world’s leading publisher of popular music, in 2007.


 

 

Roger Faxon said:

“I am delighted and honoured to become Group Chief Executive of EMI, and to be given the responsibility for leading one of the greatest music brands in the world. There is incredible talent and expertise within both EMI Music Publishing and EMI Music, as has been demonstrated by their recent performance. I believe that the two divisions working in concert with one another as a global rights management business, can and will deliver for the artists and songwriters that we are privileged to work with now and in the future.”

Charles Allen said:

“I have really enjoyed my time at EMI, leading a team that has transformed the business over the last few years creating top line growth, share growth and profit growth as well as delivering new hits and a strong performance from our catalogue business.  I’m delighted to have played a part in securing the investment in the Group by our shareholders.  It gives us a firm platform for future growth.  This repositioning and restructuring will benefit our artists and I’m delighted that EMI will be led by an experienced, music industry veteran.  The whole EMI Group and its artists will benefit from having one Chief Executive and I look forward to supporting Roger and his colleagues.”

Lord Birt said:

 

“It has been a pleasure to work with EMI, and in particular with Recorded Music, since its purchase by Terra Firma three years ago. The turnaround – and the improvement in the profitability of the business – has been remarkable. I am delighted to see Roger become Group Chief Executive. He is a tireless and consummate music industry professional, whom I have learnt greatly to respect. He and Stephen form the ideal leadership to take EMI through the next phase of its necessary transformation.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ever since Labour lost the election and started collecting the dole, its former Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw has hardly been off the BBC, day or night. Switch on PM, and there he is. Slump in the sofa at Question Time, and Ben’s back. What’s going on?

Bradshaw, an ex-BBC news reporter of no visible merit, was the most anti-BBC of the last five DCMS Secretaries, attacking the institution in venomous language, both verbal and bodily. Unpopular when he drew a BBC wage, he was roundly loathed when he wielded power.

Yet no sooner is he out of a job than the BBC are plugging his down time with chat stints. It may be that he’s the only ex-Cabinet minister not to have cancelled his pager, or that he is a little more fluent than the rest of the defeated rabble. But what is the BBC doing giving him air time? Bradshaw was a bad minister with a sack of predictable whinges about broadcasting. His party has been turfed out of office. We should hear no more of him for the next few years.

Especially now that one his pet projects, the £166 million BFI Film Centre has just been scrapped by the new Government. Spend £166 million of public money on a glorified cinema? You see what I mean by a bad minister…

Ever since Labour lost the election and started collecting the dole, its former Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw has hardly been off the BBC, day or night. Switch on PM, and there he is. Slump in the sofa at Question Time, and Ben’s back. What’s going on?

Bradshaw, an ex-BBC news reporter of no visible merit, was the most anti-BBC of the last five DCMS Secretaries, attacking the institution in venomous language, both verbal and bodily. Unpopular when he drew a BBC wage, he was roundly loathed when he wielded power.

Yet no sooner is he out of a job than the BBC are plugging his down time with chat stints. It may be that he’s the only ex-Cabinet minister not to have cancelled his pager, or that he is a little more fluent than the rest of the defeated rabble. But what is the BBC doing giving him air time? Bradshaw was a bad minister with a sack of predictable whinges about broadcasting. His party has been turfed out of office. We should hear no more of him for the next few years.

Especially now that one his pet projects, the £166 million BFI Film Centre has just been scrapped by the new Government. Spend £166 million of public money on a glorified cinema? You see what I mean by a bad minister…