At the Digital Music Forum East in New York today, Thomas Hesse, President of Global Digital Bus., US Sales & Corp. Strategy at Sony (NYSE: SNE) Music Entertainment was the keynote interview, and he gave a lot of details on the company, state of the industry, and how he sees…

Music labels’ YouTube-powered music video site Vevo may have had a glitzy launch in New York on Tuesday - but on Wednesday many who hit the site for the first time found it crashing under traffic weight, and everyone outside the U.S. and Canada who hits Vevo.com is getting the…

Russian digital investment company ru-Net II has bought online music and film distribution platform Digital Access from joint owners including Warner Music Group (NYSE: WMG) and Sony (NYSE: SNE) Music Entertainment, according to Russian newspaper Kommersant, via Yakov. Digital Access was founded in 2007 with investment from Access Industries, WMG,…

Two-year old Total Music has closed up shop, Billboard.biz reports TechCrunch confirmed. The causes? Billboard.biz, citing multiple “directly involved” sources, points to continued dominance of Apple’s iTunes store, the popularity of free ad-supported music streaming services and decreased ad support—plus the increasing pressure of the economic downturn. In the end,…

Early results from Nokia’s Comes With Music service are showing that one of the more surprising demographics that are adopting the service are mothers, said Trevor Madigan, Nokia’s manger of entertainment and communities Americas for software and services. “Madigan told me at CES that it’s an “agitated” mother who’s bothered…

Play.com has signed up with all four major music labels to offer more than 3 million DRM-free tracks on its PlayDigital music download site, in a direct challenge to iTunes and Nokia’s (NYSE: NOK) Comes with Music. Consumers can now get tracks from Sony (NYSE: SNE) BMG, Warner (NYSE:WMG), Universal…

One week into its life as a fully-fledged, all-singing ad network, AOL’s (NYSE: TWX) (NYSE:TWX) Platform-A has secured a big-name client in the shape of Sony (NYSE: SNE) BMG. According to Mad.co.uk, the music industry giant is to promote the new Oasis record, Dig Out Your Soul, which the label’s…

The second-largest record company in the world is now all Sony’s. As announced in August, Bertelsmann’s 50 percent stake in *Sony* BMG has been acquired by Sony Corp (NYSE: SNE). The former joint venture is now being renamed Sony Music Entertainment – a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Corp. of…

The European Commission has cleared Sony’s (NYSE: SNE) acquisition of BMG’s 50 percent stake in their Sony-BMG JV, creating Sony Music Entertainment. The EC ruled the acquisition “would not lead to any horizontal overlaps in the music recording markets, examined at the creation of Sony BMG, as Sony has no…

On the heels of Vodafone’s new music store yesterday, O2 is itself doing a new music play of its own, and with SonyBMG the only label on board. It’s added My Play to its O2 Active portal - a service powered by Momac’s GoMedia that offers videos, full-track downloads and…

As expected, Sony Corp (NYSE: SNE). and Bertelsmann AG have reached an agreement that has Sony buying Bertelsmann’s 50 percent stake in Sony BMG for $1.2 billion (£613.8 million). The music company will be called Sony Music Entertainment Inc. and will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Corporation of…

SonyBMG swung to a big $49 million (£24 million) loss for the three months to June’s end, thanks to “continued decline in the physical music market worldwide not being fully offset by growth in digital product sales”. For an indication of how serious the problem is - in that quarter…

—SonyBMG: Another SonyBMG senior digital appointment, and another from the mobile space, right on the heels of ex-Vodafoner Graeme Ferguson’s addition as UK digital SVP - former Fox Mobile Entertainment strategy SVP Michael Paull has been named EVP, global digital business, reporting to Thomas Hesse, president of the global business…

Another music label staffing up digitally at the top, this time with a mobile track record. SonyBMG UK is hiring mobile media software maker Picsel‘s global content MD Graeme Ferguson to a new position of digital and strategic partnerships SVP, starting September (via MusicWeek). Prior to Picsel of Glasgow, Ferguson…

—SonyBMG/UMG MP3: Digital music retailer 7digital will be taking DRM-free MP3 repertoire from SonyBMG and Universal “imminently”, we can reveal. The label got MP3s from EMI last summer and says sales have grown 300 percent since it took same from Warner this March. SonyBMG had been trying in-store cards that…

At the London Calling music conference on Thursday, there was little doubt among the panel assembled to discuss the value of music on mobiles that cell phones would one day be the sole device that consumers used to access and listen to music. But what was in question was how…

In the permutations being worked out for the sale of BMG part of music label SonyBMG, Bertelsmann is looking to retain a stake in the European part of the business, reports FT, citing sources. The company is looking to sell the 50 percent stake to Japanese company Sony (NYSE: SNE),…

Finally, some meat on the bone of the “Bertelsmann wants to quit music” story. An unnamed source tells FT Deutschland the German media group wants to sell its 50 percent stake in Sony (NYSE: SNE) BMG to its JV partner for $1.5 billion within four to six weeks. It may…

Sony (NYSE: SNE) BMG is the second record label to join Nokia’s (NYSE: NOK) Comes With Music pre-bundled music initiative. At a London joint press conference, the pair said Nokia handset customers would get access to the label’s repertoire “for an entire year”. Sony BMG global digital president Thomas Hesse:…