Strategy in TECH...
Canada’s The Lenbrook Group announced today that it has spun off its digital media and content-related businesses as a separate unit, independent of its hardware brands. The new unit will be known as The Lenbrook Media Group and is to be headed by former MQA Ltd. CEO Mike Jbara.
Spotify Technology, S.A. announced that it will lay off approximately 1,500 employees, or about 17% of its entire staff. The company says the cuts are necessary to adjust operations for a very different operating environment than it anticipated when it built staff to drive growth in 2020 during the pandemic.
These are not its first layoffs in 2023…
Some of you may know that I health walk most mornings. I am always listening to something during these walks, which average 2-3 miles a day. Often, I’m listening to music. (Did you know that I was formerly a professional musician?) But I also listen to several different podcasts, and today I want to share with you one that I enjoy and I think you will too. That podcast is Audio Unleashed.
Well it’s the time of Auld Lang Syne as we say farewell to 2022 and look forward with anxious anticipation for 2023. It was a consequential year of stories for our industry in 2022, and we’ll go over the top stories on Strata-gee this year.
By now, data clearly shows that vinyl record sales here in the U.S. have been growing steadily for more than a decade. When initially detected, many thought it was simply a fad… They thought that at first CDs…and then digital downloads…and finally digital streaming would supplant vinyl. Now we know that is just not the case and that vinyl is continuing to grow in importance again to the music industry.
Think this is just a U.S. phenomenon? Think again! A report by the Nikkei in Japan notes the dramatic growth of vinyl sales there, as well.
Emerald Expositions (NYSE: EEX), the national B2B trade show company that owns CEDIA Expo, CE Pro, and Commercial Integrator surprised the industry at the recent CEDIA Expo 2022 by abruptly announcing that next year they will be “co-locating” a show for commercial integrators at the same time and in the same facility. Reaction to this announcement was…to put it mildly…mixed. Is Emerald trying to imitate the Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) show – an event for both residential and commercial businesses – by launching an ISUS (Integrated Systems United States) event??
Do you wonder why there was a mixed reaction to Emerald’s move? Read on…
It’s a remarkable event when someone can claim a legitimate first. In all my years in this crazy Tech business, those firsts are getting fewer and further between. But Emerald Expositions, owner of the CEDIA Expo trade show can claim a legitimate first that I have never seen before from any show. They gave the cold shoulder to any media organization not named CE Pro.
Usually, shows want good media relations across the board with happy media writing positive stories and building an upbeat buzz about their event. Not Emerald…they are quite satisfied to help just one media outlet to run positive stories about their event…their very own CE Pro.
In the latest research on the smart audio market, analysts see clear progress in the expansion of voice technology both in terms of the growing number of devices containing it, and the expanding uses to which voice control is being used. While much of the results of this latest survey are specific to smart speakers, this version goes well beyond that to looking at voice in all sorts of devices.
Emerald Holding Inc., the parent company of Emerald Expositions, a division that owns the CEDIA Expo trade show and CEPro media, announced its results for the first quarter of its fiscal 2022 year today – and these results clearly showed a strong rebound from the last two COVID-19 impacted years. With both revenues and earnings showing substantial increases, Emerald’s President and CEO Hervé Sedkey stated that “…we are in the midst of a robust recovery.”
In the latest report from the music world, we learned two surprising facts: First, for the first time in 17-years, retail sales of physical compact discs actually increased. And second, for the first time since 1991, vinyl records are the most popular physical media format. It’s big news and much of the media – even mainstream news outlets like CNN – reported on this development. It appears to be part of a surprising swing by consumers back to physical media, as sales of vinyl records in 2021 saw a stunning year-over-year increase of 51.4% – the biggest increase of ANY format, physical or streaming.
What the heck is going on here?
