BBC buys Lonely Planet.... unfair, they cry!

The news that the BBC had bought up Lonely Planet, the famous travel guide publisher, brought out the expected cries of anguish from commercial publishers. The Financial Times asked how a BBC-owned Lonely Planet would make a contribution to "the cultural life of the UK", supposing that to be the remit of the BBC, while the Conservative party reaction was that the BBC was "nationalising" a publisher.

The Lonely Planet purchase may have escaped even louder cries of Unfair! from the private sector because its HQ is in Australia and it was controlled privately by its founders. Competing with Lonely Planet in guides to budget, independent travel are Let's Go, the Harvard-based grandaddy of backpacker advice (founded 1960), the Rough Guides and Time Out.

Low-cost flights have fuelled the demand for guidebooks which tell you where to stay and eat on a budget, although green-aware young people are worrying about the extra low-cost flights and, in some cases, about how the budget guides prevent travellers from contributing much cash to their destinations, often poorer countries.

The deal certainly has tantalising implications for the leisure side of UK media. Lonely Planet was actually bought by BBC Worldwide, a commercial subsidiary of the publicly-funded Corporation. The BBC is paid for by the Television Licence Fee, effectively a form of taxation to support public-service broadcasting; the latest government review means that the Fee will continue until at least 2016, taking the BBC well into the new digital era of broadcasting as a tax-subsidised corporation.

BBC Worldwide had sales of £810m in 2006/07, generating handsome profits of £111m, and there is no doubt that the BBC has benefited from its public television and radio franchise in launching into other media and entertainment markets (video, music, books, magazines etc). The Worldwide arm is believed to have several hundred million Pounds to spend and is likely to focus its investment on digital media, particularly online products. The BBC's main website is already one of the first ports of call for surfing the Web in the UK, with highly rated news and sports pages.

Lonely Planet may have been a pioneer among travellers researching their trips before setting off but independent "reviewing" has flourished, even for package holiday and luxury hotel users. TripAdvisor is the main player but sites like Holidays Uncovered tell you where to go for the best (or worst) karaoke nights and, in one case, which hotel to avoid because of the wild dogs running around the hotel gardens....

Photo source: lvivlviv.com

EMI and Warner: what's in a label?

Anyone who grew up in the Glory Days of vinyl will remember how resonant record labels could be: Sinatra's Capitol Years, The Beatles on Parlophone then their own Apple label, Bob Marley on Island, the rubber-stamp of Motown for so many stars, the joyful soul of Stax and so on.

Labels may have reached their PR climax in 1977 when Johnnie Rotten signed off the Sex Pistols "Never Mind the Bollocks" LP with a song mocking EMI and A&M, both labels which failed to cope with the maelstrom of punk. But EMI won in the end, buying the label on which the Pistols actually recorded, Virgin Records, in 1992.

By the early 1990s, much of the romance of being signed to a particular famous label was gone for young musicians. EMI and the three other global majors (Universal, Warner, Sony BMG) have swallowed up dozens of labels which once stood proudly for independence (or an attitude). EMI alone owns the likes of Parlophone, Capitol, Virgin, Chrysalis and Mute. The need for labels is only recognised in miniscule writing and logos on the CD and cover of the Beatles 2006 compilation, "Love". "Parlophone is a Capitol music label." "Marketed and distributed by EMI".

Labels lost importance as records and cassettes gave way to CD, and downloading now turns the concept of a physical label - if not the idea of a small, independent production company - into a recording industry dinosaur. Selective downloading of individual tracks, combined with the almighty iPod/iTunes system, is also undermining the whole idea of producing "singles" or "albums" which need labels. When you make up your own playlist (or your personal compilation album) you are effectively creating your own, personal music label.

So it's become a struggle to make money out of music, at least enough to keep a multinational ticking over. Hence the label-swallowing and mega-mergers that have produced just four majors:

• Universal Music Group - leader with 25% of the world music market, labels include MCA, Polygram, Decca, Motown and Island). UMG is part of the French media group, Vivendi Universal.

• Sony BMG - over 20% market share, product of a 2004 joint venture (still under investigation: see below) between Sony and Bertelsmann. Famous labels include RCA, CBS, Epic and Rough Trade but Sony Music or Sony BMG are increasingly used.

• Warner Music Group bought out the music division of Time Warner in 2003 (just as UMG is now separate from Universal Studios). Historic labels under WMG include Atlantic, Elektra and Asylum (label for The Eagles in the 1970s: their first hits compilation is the top-selling album of all time.)

• EMI - UK-based although a USA major through Capitol since the 1960s.

The four majors could become three if Warner and EMI can get round to merging, a possibility since the early 2000s but one which seems some way off in early 2007. The problem is that the European Commission (plus the US government) would have to agree to a merger, and the Commission is spending the first half of 2007 investigating whether the 2004 Sony-BMG merger was legal after all.