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EMI: Radiohead demanded £10 million deal
Radiohead’s former record label revealed the label split with the band for demanding ‘an extraordinary amount of money’, which new EMI boss Guy Hands refused to pay. According to The Times, Radiohead walked out of EMI in the autumn after Guy Hands rejected a deal with the band that would have cost the record company more than £10 million.
The massive demand is far greater than had been thought. Radiohead had been offered a £3 million advance by Mr Hands for their latest album, but wanted more. An EMI spokesman said last night: “Radiohead were demanding an extraordinary amount of money and we did not believe that our other artists should have to subsidise their gains.”
The band’s management hit back, saying that it believed that more high-profile artists could abandon EMI. It accused Mr Hands of not negotiating seriously. Radiohead wanted EMI to hand over at least some of the copyrights to their catalogue of albums such as OK Computer, a demand that would have devalued EMI’s recorded music catalogue and cost the British music major millions in future earnings.
Giving Radiohead the rights to their last two albums would have presented EMI with a £4 million loss. It is believed that the band was also seeking a guaranteed £3 million EMI budget on international marketing for the new album, although their management does not accept this figure.
Guy Hands’s brief personal negotiations with Radiohead’s management came in the first weeks after Terra Firma, his private equity firm, took over EMI in a £2.1 billion deal.
Bryce Edge, Radiohead manager, told The Times: “We couldn’t move ahead with EMI because Guy Hands irrevocably refused to discuss the catalogue in any meaningful way. We sold 25 million records and we have the moral rights over those six albums. We wanted a say in how they are exploited in the future. We were not seeking a big advance payment, or a guaranteed marketing spend as discussions never got that far.”
Mr Edge hinted that more big names were set to leave EMI. Artists are upset that record companies still deduct “packaging costs” from royalty payments on digital downloads, which require no packaging.
Radiohead declined further discussions when their demand for control over their back catalogue was rebuffed. The six albums cannot be prised from EMI’s control for the 50-year period allowed by copyright law.
Radiohead’s original EMI contract also had no facility for digital sales, so it would not receive royalties through sales from the iTunes store. “It’s no surprise that artists are throwing their arms up in the air,” Mr Edge said.
Radiohead are charging £42.50 for next year’s UK tour, more than Prince’s shows at the O2 arena in London. Mr Edge said: “We don’t want to go on tour and lose money. It is expensive to put on the quality [of] show people expect. It is a comparable price to artists of a similar stature.”
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Make A Comment: ( 29 so far )
29 Responses to “EMI: Radiohead demanded £10 million deal”
superfunk
December 29th, 2007
ENI Bad!
What?
December 29th, 2007
F*** YOU GUY HANDS, you immoral bastard! Go trip in a ditch! Radiohead was right to have not signed with EMI again, they don’t deserve to be mistreated this way.
rice
December 29th, 2007
And “what?”, it’s EMI, not ENI.
rice
December 29th, 2007
Oh, I guess EMI didn’t want to deprive the obviously struggling Robbie Williams of his £80,000,000 contract.
So Radiohead isn’t worth 1/8th of Robbie Williams? Hah - EMI sucks and they’ve made that clearer and clearer in how they’ve dealt with this Radiohead situation. Absolutely mind-boggling.
Luke
December 29th, 2007
REM got 80 Million Dollar for 5 albums back then. So what´s the point, EMI? 
The Radio Doc
December 29th, 2007
god, i would love to sue EMI myself if i was able to and was able to take them down…fuck them, trying to make radiohead look bad, when they are the ones selling the awful boxset, and trying to get publicity…damn…assholes
hpgirl
December 29th, 2007
In what way shape or form has EMI ever mistreated Radiohead? You fanboys are nuts
Ihearcolors
December 29th, 2007
no better example of the morality of thepiratebay.org can i find
shaerk
December 29th, 2007
And I’m no apologist for record labels I assure you
Ihearcolors
December 29th, 2007
fuck emi. they’re losing the best musicians they’ve ever had.
JKidA37
December 29th, 2007
seriously. they’re horrible. funny that this guy gives such a bold testimonial after EMI radiohead discboxes received such a negative responding.
JKidA37
December 29th, 2007
As long as there is still quality in their music, wanting to share their talents after so many years, giving some high quality Discboxes… I’m sticking with Radiohead. Still, EMI got them recognized and still made a legit business sell. Thank you EMI for making Radiohead available and also for turning them down. That way when they do tour it won’t cost $100’s as well as letting Radiohead take a more artist creative flow. It is a win win situation for me. Thank you Radiohead for the concert you have done for us and the many Other Artist Tracks you do so beautifully.
Raymond Swartz
December 29th, 2007
Parlaphone used to be one of the good guys who stuck with artists for a while, let them develop. Which is more than can be said for other major labels who tended to drop bands as soon as their first album flopped. Hence parlaphone gave us Blur and Radiohead. If they’d been signed to Mercury or Island they would have been dropped after Pablo Honey and Leisure respectively.
PeterB
December 29th, 2007
It’s not as though Radiohead wanted pure cash, they wanted the rights to their music.
Lawrence
December 29th, 2007
‘Artists are upset that record companies still deduct “packaging costs” from royalty payments on digital downloads, which require no packaging.’ Sounds like the crazy ‘handling charge’ (£8.50 for 2 tickets) I had to pay on the tour tickets. Management don’t seem to care about that?
daveatkins
December 29th, 2007
it’s really not emi, it’s the firm Terra Firma guys, sure emi got them out there, but they didn’t change their contract to fit the time, i.e. digital music…radiohead knows emi helped them,that’s why they were sad leaving…read the recent interviews and u’ll see that, but obviously they had too since Guys Hands was being a douchebag and listening to Terra Firma rather than their best band on the label.
hpgirl
December 29th, 2007
business is business… so, whatever, I still love Radiohead. That’s the right kind of money anyway for a band that big anyway. FUCK EMI.
stinky beetle
December 29th, 2007
Radiohead’s split with EMI had to do with the band wanting more money and nothing to do with some retarded ‘think about the fans’ BS?
WHO’DATHUNK?!
NT
December 29th, 2007
UPDATES! UPDATES! THOM SPEAKS RADIOHEAD.COM….
Your Mom
December 29th, 2007
GO THOM, GO RADIOHEAD, FUCK EMI
hpgirl
December 29th, 2007
F Y I_____ if you care
for your information>>>
we did not ask for a load of cash from our old record label EMI to re- sign.
that is a L I E.
The Times in the UK should check its facts before it prints such dirt.
whAT we WANTED WAS some control over OUR WOrK and how it was used in the future by them-
that seemed REASONAblE to us,
as we cared about it a great deal.
Mr Hands was not interested.
So neither were we.
We made the sign of the cross and walked away. Sadly.
We are extremely upset that this crap is being spread about.
To bedigging up such bullshit, or more politely airing yer dirty laundry in public,
seems a very strange way for the head of an international record label to be proceeding.
On a happier note we took no ‘BRead-HEAd’ advances at all from both independent labels XL and TBD for our new record.
So judge for yourself.
AND we are really excited to be working with them. SHock!
AT least they do not behave like confused bulls in a china shop.
much love
thom
x
Thom
CheshireCatGrin
December 29th, 2007
Good to see you own the rights to the classic In Rainbows.
I hope there are many more albums to follow
Niblet
December 29th, 2007
[...] Yorke has responded to the earlier publication in The Times, where EMI’s owner Guy Hands claims Radiohead demanded 10 million pounds for [...]
Thom Yorke denies ‘Load of cash’ demand | Radiohead At Ease [In Rainbows]
December 29th, 2007
oh the drama!
imatumbler
December 29th, 2007
Radiohead are in good company, getting alienated from
EMI by the record company’s nature, which is
fundamentally breadheaded and overly possessive of
rights to artists’ music. Roy Harper and The Enid
went through this in the 70’s-80’s, and Talk Talk
in the late 80’s. The first two now sell their own
recordings independently, including old product for which
they *eventually* re-acquired the rights from EMI.
Even the EMI trick of releasing a post-contract
compilation to compete with the band’s own release is
pretty old (this happened to Talk Talk). However,
Radiohead’s move to independence
under these circumstances *is* probably the highest
profile yet, sets a heck of an example, and
may well start a bit of a stampede.
More power to them.
Now we have the WWW, bands do not
need multinational $$$-centric companies to reach
fans and market product. Multimedia corporate dinosaurs
should get used to the idea that the big meteor is
here, and the Cretaceous is just about over.
The debate about millions of $$$ versus rights to
albums just highlights the breadheadedness of EMI.
Their *only* thought on discussing possible transfer
of rights was evidently “how much would this cost us”.
Andyc
December 30th, 2007
“It is a comparable price to artists of a similar stature.” – It is a comparable price to terrible stadium acts wanting to cream the profits, and Elton John. How can this tour prove any more expensive than the Tent Tour – even with 8 years’ inflation, it would be nowhere near the price of the current tour’s tickets. Disappointing.
RobC
December 30th, 2007
hahahahah @ cheshirecatgrin. too much time on your hands.
kidt
December 31st, 2007
If you’ve ever been in the position of buying Radiohead tickets from a broker or ebay, it is clear that the market value has been much higher than face value on previous tours. It’s supply and demand, and any group would be stupid to charge artificially low prices. It seriously distorts the market, and brokers end up making much of the profit that rightfully belongs to the band. The processing fee charged by ticketmaster and their ilk is absurd, granted, but Radiohead is doing the right thing by pricing their tickets in line with market value. One thing is certain, Radiohead has always been capitalist; didn’t we all get a kick out of “you are a target market” on the cover of meeting people is easy? I laughed all the way to the cash register.
mike
January 2nd, 2008
Hell it worked out better for them in the end
I doubt EMI would be willing to do a Pay what you want method for the album.
And thats what got the album so much buzz from non-Radiohead fanatics in the first place