Fear At The Top: Heath Johns, BMG Australia & New Zealand

“Say you have an artist and they’re doing a $50,000 development deal, and the publisher signs that deal without a real strategy of how they’re going to create opportunities for that writer. Some publishers, I think it’s fair to say, we will go out and collect the revenues that that artist or that writer generates off their own steam, and they don’t necessarily add anything to that process.

“Sometimes you look at it and think ‘Well hang on a second, if this passive publisher is willing to offer $50,000 and do nothing, then if we actually have objectives and we have a really compelling international network. And we have opportunities like BMG’s SoundLab camps, and a track record of international sync opportunity, then [we could] value it at $70,000.’

“The thing is it’s a safer bet at $70,000 for BMG than a more passive competitor at $50,000, because we actually have the necessary means to plug that rata into, for me I’ve never been worried about a publishing advance at BMG.”

CEO of Seventh Street Media Luke Girgis interviews heads of companies in the music industry about how they got to where they are, as well as all the mistakes they’ve made, and what they’ve learned from running their hugely successful companies.

In Episode #3 of Fear At The Top, Girgis interviews Heath Johns, Managing Director of BMG Australia and New Zealand. Johns discusses why he believes the music industry is broken, his local plans for the company,  and what he sees as BMG’s biggest point of difference.

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