Music video gets by with a little help from the catalog

Discount Store News, March 3, 1997 by Robert Scally

Music video sales in mass merchant outlets still march to the beat of big hit titles, but just like in other video genres, it's often catalog product that brings home the most profit.

Music video sales have been slow during the past several months, partly because of the doldrums that have gripped audio CD sales.

"It's a pretty tough business right now," said Jimmy Hire, music video buyer for Best Buy.

"I don't think the record labels are putting the kind of money behind it the way they were a few years ago."

Music video sales at Best Buy peaked about two years ago, and the genre has been hard pressed with few big hits from new artists, Hire told DSN.

Trends in the recording industry have also had an influence on the health of the music video genre, Hire said. Heavy metal going soft, the decline of rap and alternative rocks stagnation are all contributing to the weakness m music video.

I don't think the kind of bands that are hot now are necessarily the kind you need to see on video, as opposed to the early '90s when metal was hot," Hire said. "We sold a ton of metal videos in the early '90s. "

Even country music videos--always a strong seller--have been weak, he said.

"Nobody has any staying power anymore," Hire said.

Whatever reason is behind the decline, the genre is losing shelf space, Hire said.

"We are cutting back some of the assortment. It's basically rate of sale." Hire said. "If music videos can't cut it, we've got other genres of videos that are selling better, whether it be action or whatever. We're going to give them the space," Hire said.

While hit titles still drive the market, even the biggest hits need something extra to give them a boost at retail.

Several hits that have made it to the forefront of music video sales charts in recent months have had some kind of value-added promotion that has helped them stand out, such as the audio CD packaged with Bruce Springsteen's "Blood Brothers" video from Columbia and 311's major hit "311: Enlarged to Show Detail" on PolyGram, which included an audio CD with extra tracks not found on the band's other audio releases.

"311 and Springsteen's `Blood Brothers' both did tremendous numbers for us," Hire said.

Hire and some music and video industry officials agree that catalog titles represent the best hope to tide over the music video category.

"I think there's a real opportunity to promote catalog [titles]," Hire said. "If you can buy a video for $7 or $8, I think that's a little more appealing to people than a video at $17 or $18, when you can get an audio CD for $12 or $13," Hire said. "At $17 or $18, you have to be more of a die-hard fan to buy the video."

Developing a strong base of catalog sales for music video is vital to the health of the genre, said Arny Schorr, vp of Rhino Home Video.

Schorr calls catalog product, especially those video titles that have strong nostalgic appeal or that have a cult following, "the fields of dreams" of the video business.

"If you put it in front of consumers, they will buy," Schorr said. Consumers will also buy nostalgia titles and, with certain lines that have multiple titles, they will buy multiple titles, he said.

"We have an Iron Butterfly video and people said `You're out of your head, nobody's going to want it,'" Schorr said. "Every year the audio CD of Iron Butterfly's first album sells 100,000 units and we sell the video day-in and day-out."

A Jimi Hendrix concert video that Rhino released nearly a year ago stayed on the Billboard music video charts for several weeks and continues to be a consistent selling title, Schorr said.

"There are better margins in catalog, and that's true in all types of video," Schorr said. "People will in fact purchase something other than `Toy Story' or a music video from somebody hot like Alanis Morissette.

"The same consumer that's receptive to buying a catalog audio CD will also be receptive to buying a music video. The problem is they can't find it."

Rhino's strategy is to put interesting product into eye-catching packages and try to secure the best shelf position possible in the retail stores.

"The problem is that when you're selling `Independence Day' or `Toy Story' everybody's selling it cheap, so you have to sell it cheap. But nobody's going to be quite that competitive with The Monkees," Schorr said.

Rhino also repackaged episodes of the 1960s television music programs "Shindig" into a branded line priced at $10. The made-for-television rock band The Monkees remains popular on home video three decades after its first aired, he said.

"The Monkees television series is a cross-promotional television series now," Schorr said. "Everywhere we've placed it, it's sold.

"By and large we're going into grocery stores, discount stores, etc., with these," Schorr said of video lines such as Shindig and The Monkees.

Some major labels have been exploiting their catalogs, issuing whole lines of budget-priced titles.

PolyGram Video introduced a budget-priced music video line nearly two years ago, dubbed "video worth listening to for less," and has recently extended that line with titles carrying a suggested list price of $9.95, which will probably sell for $7 to $8 in most outlets.