McClure’s Asia Music News の読者の皆様へ
 
初秋の候、ますますご健勝のほどお喜び申し上げます。おかげ様をもちまして、私どものニュースレター並びにウェブサイトも徐々に軌道にのって参りました。これもひとえに皆様方の日頃のご愛読のおかげと感謝いたしております。
 
日本の音楽市場に関するリポート(英文）もMcClure’s Asia Music Newsのウェブサイト(www.mccluremusic.com)より、引き続きご購入のお申し込みを承っております。
 
世界第二位の市場である日本の音楽業界でビジネスをお考えの皆様にとって、正確な情報と分析は必要不可欠です。だからこそ、私の日本市場に関する正確な概説を日本の音楽業界で活躍されている方にも、海外の業界幹部の方にもお勧めいたします。
 
私は長年にわたりBillboard誌のアジア支局長として、そして現在はMcClure’s Asia Music News  を通じて日本の音楽市場の動向を発信し続けており、国内の音楽産業を熟知しています。その知識を集約し日本市場の総合的な案内書としての役割を果たすのが、この全19ページ、1万語のリポートです。
 
このリポートには以下の項目が含まれております。
 
・主要な市場データ
・デジタル・ジャパン
・著作権を取り巻く環境の変化
・レコード会社
・音楽出版社
・カラオケ市場
・レンタル市場
・音楽産業団体
・制作会社
・小売業界
・音楽メディア
・チャート
・ツアー
・日本の市場に切り込むには
 
ご購入をご希望の方は左側の”Japanese music-business overview” をクリックして下さい。
 
今後ともよろしくお願い申し上げます。
 
Steve McClure
Executive Editor
McClure's Asia Music News
steve@mccluremusic.com

PS: レポートのサンプルページ:

RECORD LABELS

One of the key distinguishing factors in the Japanese music market is the relative lack of consolidation in terms of labels; the market is divided up between more players than in other territories.

Here are SoundScan Japan’s sales-based label rankings for calendar 2008 (previous year’s position in parentheses):

1. Avex Marketing 16.1% (1)
2. Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) 13.9% (1)
2. Universal Music K.K 13.9% (3)
4. Warner Music Japan 6.2% (5)
5. EMI Music Japan 6% (4)
6. Victor Entertainment 4.7% (6)
7. Toy’s Factory 3.7% (8)
8. BMG Japan 3.1% (7)
10. Pony Canyon 2.8% (10)
10. Being 2.8% (N/A)

Avex has confounded the naysayers who said the label, which started out by importing European dance compilations in the late ’80s, wouldn’t be able to maintain the extraordinary success it enjoyed in the mid-’90s with a series of megahits produced by now-disgraced producer/songwriter Tetsuya Komuro. (In 2009 Komuro was found guilty of trying to sell copyrights he no longer owned in order to pay off the massive debts he’d accumulated as a result of his profligate lifestyle.) Under the direction of Masato “Max” Matsuura, who ousted Tom Yoda as Avex CEO in a 2004 boardroom coup, Avex has developed a solid stable of hitmaking domestic acts such as female vocalists Namie Amuro, Ayumi Hamasaki, Kumi Koda and BoA.

Like Sony, Avex has its fingers in many pies, with music-publishing, artist-management, animation and film-production operations. Avex has been paying a lot of attention to neighboring Asian markets: it has a reciprocal licensing agreement with major South Korean label/management company S.M. Entertainment, and in 2006 became the first Japanese record company to set up a subsidiary in mainland China. Unlike other major Japanese labels, Avex (whose stock is publically traded) is not part of a larger corporate group, and is thus technically an independent label. And while Yoda had (and has) a very visible public profile, Matsuura is much more of a backroom player, preferring protegees like Koda and Hamasaki to be in the limelight.

The SoundScan Japan 2008 data confirms that Sony Music Entertainment (Japan), which traces its origins to joint venture CBS/Sony (established in 1968), has lost its position as Japan’s unquestioned market leader to Avex. SMEJ still wields enormous influence and power in the Japanese music market as the core company of the Sony Music Group of companies, whose activities include music publishing, artist management, physical distribution, magazine publishing, digital-content aggregation and distribution, a music-TV channel and live-music venues. Alone among major and midranking Japanese labels, SMEJ refuses to license product to iTunes Japan, presumably because of parent company Sony Corp.’s rivalry with iTunes parent Apple Computer.

That is apparently the source of some tension between SMEJ and Sony Corp., which will be one of the challenges facing Masao Morita (son of Sony’s late co-founder, Akio Morita), who was transferred from the parent company to take over as SMEJ chairman in June 2009. While the position of chairman is often largely a powerless one at Japanese companies, Morita will likely seek to make his mark on SMEJ (of which he was CEO in 2003-04).

While SMEJ CEO Naoki Kitagawa is a genuine music fan, the company he heads is sometimes criticized for being excessively bureaucratic and slow to pick up on international music trends – a charge that is often leveled at other Japanese labels. Sony’s international roster, meanwhile, has been boosted by its takeover of BMG Japan following Sony’s global buyout of BMG.