John wrote:rockinrebel wrote:John wrote:rockinrebel wrote:I'm guessing that Sony were offered the tape and decided that it wasnt commercially viable, or that it would need to be part of a larger project sometime in the future.
The pre orders for the overpriced, cheap looking MRS release will be flying in as we speak, and yet Sony could have done the same thing, more tastefully and at a cheaper price.
A missed opportunity...
It wasn't viable for Sony to do it.
This is what we are told, but why?
What was stopping them from doing exactly what MRS have just done?
I'm not getting the impression that people were asking silly money for this recording. Rather, just looking for the best way to make it available to the fans.
Sony can press 3 disc sets which retail for as little as £5 (The Real Elvis series for example). So, even if we discount the vinyl, a budget priced CD release was surely a possibility.
It wasn't worth their while. Sony is a big corporation. Something like would have to jump through several hoops to get the green light, and to release it on its own, I'm pretty sure wouldn't have had much, if any, commercial value. If they could have attached it to a larger project, and maybe they will in time, it could have happened, but as it stands, it's not worth it.
Have you heard the recording? Seriously, it's not enough to get Sony excited about Elvis. It's not enough to get me excited about Elvis.
MRS, or other small companies can turn this around quickly and cater to the market more easily. Sony is too big and clunky to do something like this.
Again, we are often told this, and yet it is not unusual for large record companies to put out limited, niche market products. Record Store Day releases spring to mind, for example.
Yes, I've heard the recording, and whilst I find it very insightful, I agree that it has limited appeal outside of the fan base. However, given recent mainstream sales, that fan base doesn't appear to be much bigger than the core FTD audience now.
Therefore, despite the limitations of the recording, sales would most likely have been comparable, and depending on the price, possibly better to those of MRS.
Let's say 5,000 people are prepared to pay £30 each for this recording on 7" vinyl. If it was half the price - which is pretty much the going rate for mainstream releases of this kind now, or it was available on CD for less than £10, would that not have made it even more appealing to collectors?
Then factor in Sony's production costs as opposed to those of MRS. For me that seems viable, but perhaps they are only interested in selling us expensive box sets and CD / book projects now...
