While I don’t like to see a business struggle, as a business owner myself, I don’t feel sorry for Starbucks. They were just plain greedy. Boutique coffee shops offer free Internet and Starbucks charges, boutique coffee shops also play Sirius or XM radio while Starbucks played hillbilly music and /or would only play music they were paid to play, most of which, nobody wanted to hear then they started selling CDs, ‘yes, I’ll take one of those with my cup of mud.’ Now they are trying to clean up the mess and it might be too late. Dunkin Donuts, McDonalds and Caribou have come to stake their claim in the gourmet cofee business and Starbucks has some serious damage control to do.
Starbucks Corp Thursday took a major step back from its music and book business by hand ing over day-to-day management of its year-old music label to Concord Music Group. The company is now making a concerted effort to contain costs and rejuvenate its coffee shop business. The restructuring of Starbucks Entertainment, the small but profitable unit that oversees the chain’s music and book sales, comes a little more than a year after the company unveiled its Hear Music label with great fanfare.
Ken Lombard, who oversaw Starbucks’ music unit for much of its existence, is also leaving the company. Paul McCartney was the first artist to release an album under the Hear Music label, which has since also released CDs by Joni Mitchell and James Taylor, among others. Starbucks’ influence as a music retail outlet has grown rapidly in recent years, posting perhaps its biggest hit with the Ray Charles album “Genius Loves Company,” which it co-produced with Concord Records.
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