Distribution

Distribution is the process of getting products out to buyers. "More than any other factor, the ability of a label to distribute its records defines its rank in the industry"(Industry 2). While many artists produce professional, well recorded disks, only a fair percentage are played once or twice on the radio. The majority "get no further than a garage or a basement, and end up just gathering dust"(2).        There are four distribution companies, BMG(BMG Distribution), EMI(Cema Distribution), Sony/Columbia(Sony Music Distribution), and Warner Brothers(WEA Corporation) (2). Even though these companies are mostly used by the majors, anyone can also use these. With a distribution deal, the distributor will take the disk and put it into stores for you(Personal Interview 1/19/98). Although major distribution companies control most of the worldwide markets, independent labels may also have the powers to distribute albums just as well as the majors(Industry 2-3).        "One of the major problems in the record business has always been collecting money from distributors. Records are sold with return privileges. This means that the store can return a large percentage of unsold product to the distributor and the distributor, in turn, can return to the record label"(Weissman 111). As record stores are slow in paying distributors, so distributors are slow in paying record companies. Sometimes, record distributors would only pay record companies quickly if they had consistent hit records. "As soon as a company went into a ‘dry spell,’ the distributor would become...reluctant to pay their bills." This happens because the distributor doesn’t care if a company stopped sending records because they’d be returned anyways. Now, the record company can’t collect the money owed nor can they get new products into stores(111).