The free covermount Prince CD on July 10 lifted sales of the Daily Mirror by 334,000 compared to the previous Saturday, according to the publisher of the U.K. tabloid.
The Daily Record, the sister paper in Scotland, boosted its sales by 45,000 on the day it included the new Prince album “20Ten” with the paper.
Trinity Mirror declined to reveal the July 3 sales of the papers. But the most recent figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) showed an average sale for the Daily Mirror of 1,238,000 in May. On that basis, the Prince CD boosted sales of the Daily Mirror by 27% to 1,572,000.
The Daily Record’s average sale in May was 329,000. So on those figures the increase in Scotland was 14% – suggesting that Prince is less popular north of the border.
This deal was not a first, though. The Mail on Sunday did a similar giveaway for Prince’s “Planet Earth” album in July 2007 during his residency at London’s O2 Arena. That resulted in a sales boost similar to the Daily Mirror’s. The July 15, 2007 edition of the Mail on Sunday increased sales by 525,000 – 23% – to 2,801,000 compared to its average sale in June 2007. The licensing deal for the album cost around £250,000 ($378,000) and there was also a considerable promotional budget around the giveaway.
Prince’s exclusive interview with the Mirror has become one of the most read articles of the year on the website mirror.co.uk, according to publisher Trinity Mirror. In the interview, he declared that the Internet was over and that he did not wish to release new music via digital services such as iTunes.
“We are delighted with the huge response to the Prince promotion which has proved to be a successful sampling opportunity for both titles,” said Mark Hollinshead, managing director of Trinity Mirror Nationals, in a statement. “This was also a great example of our editorial and commercial teams working closely together which resulted in the most effective way for Prince to reach his legion of U.K. fans.”
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A Batman comic bought for $1,200 could sell for over $400,000 in an August 5-7 auction at Heritage Auction Galleries. The CGC Certified VF-7.5 Detective #27 was bought by college student in Hawaii in 1974 at a bookstore. He later tracked down the woman who had sold the comic to the bookstore and found out that she had bought it off a local newsstand in 1939, before Hawaii was even a state. The comic book is in an unrestored condition and has had just these two owners.
Earlier this year, Heritage sold another comic book documenting Batman’s first appearance for $1,075,000. That blockbuster price brought forward the anonymous consignor of this most recent version. He plans to use the proceeds to help pay for his son’s college education. “We think this could become just the second comic to top $400,000 at auction,” said Ed Jaster, Vice President of Heritage Auctions.
Prince: ‘The Internet Is Over’
By Andre Paine, London
Prince has given what has been billed as his first U.K. newspaper interview in a decade as part of a deal for his new album, “20Ten.”
The Daily Mirror will give the album away July 10 as a free CD with the paper, while European deals have also been struck with Rolling Stone Germany and a Belgian newspaper (Billboard.biz, June 29).
In the interview, Prince outlines his anti-Internet stance. Naturally his comments have been widely circulated via the Internet.
“The Internet is completely over,” Prince told the Mirror. “I don’t see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won’t pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they can’t get it.”
He added: “The Internet’s like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated.”
Prince is not a fan of digital devices, either. “All these computers and digital gadgets are no good,” he said. “They just fill your head with numbers and that cant be good for you.”
Prince does not intend “20Ten” to get a download release in addition to the free CD distribution with newspapers and magazines. He has also shut down his official website and does not plan to license new music to download stores or subscription services.
A U.S. distribution deal for the album has yet to be confirmed. The record has been linked with Warner Bros.
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This may be unseemly to say, but it’s sadly true: Michael Jackson might be worth more dead than alive. Thanks in part to a lucrative new record deal with Sony Music that extends through 2017 and the most successful concert film of all time, Billboard estimates that MJ Inc. has generated at least $1 billion in revenue in the year following his death. Through interviews with industry experts and our own number-crunching, Billboard examines the various music-based revenue streams that have flowed into the Jackson estate in the past 12 months.
Value: $429 million
Since his death, Jackson has sold approximately 9 million albums in the United States, while the Jackson 5 and the Jacksons have sold about 800,000 units, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Outside the States, Jackson’s album sales for the past year stand at around 24 million units. Based on a blended worldwide retail sales price of $11.62 ($12.30 per unit less mechanical royalties), Billboard estimates that Jackson’s album catalog generated about $383 million in sales.
On the digital side, Jackson’s songs have generated 12.9 million track downloads in the United States in the past 12 months, according to SoundScan. Based on those figures, Billboard estimates that the total number of worldwide downloads is about 26.5 million units, with a value of $34 million (net of mechanical royalties).
Jackson’s ringtone sales totaled 1.5 million last year in the States, with the bulk coming after his death. Digital ringtones sales worldwide are about twice that stateside, which brings Jackson’s global ringtone tally to 3 million. At $2 per unit, ringtone revenue was about $5 million last year (net of mechanical royalties).
Monies generated from subscription services and digital performance royalties typically amount to about one-third that of mobile revenue, so Jackson’s catalog probably generated about $2 million from those streams.
U.S. digital performance royalties represent about 13% of the revenue generated by single track downloads. Applying that rate to global track sales, Jackson’s recording catalog generated another $4.5 million from global digital performances.
