http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/6558540/walmart_wants_10_cds

Wal-Mart pays about $12 for a hit CD. They sell them for $9.72 to attract customers. They're tired of that. And they're doing something about it: they're demanding that the labels sell them CDs at a low enough price to make that $9.72 retail price profitable. The implicit threat: if the labels don't, Wal-Mart will stop carrying their music. And that's a big threat. Wal-Mart alone is 20% of the labels' sales every year, but music CDs are only 2% of Wal-Mart's sales. Wal-Mart could drop CDs entirely and devote the space to more profitable DVDs and video games and actually come out ahead. The labels essentially have absolutely no leverage here, and this isn't a position they're used to being in.

Sorry, record labels, you ain't gettin' no sympathy from me.

Current Mood: bored