France Export Handbook
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Pop/Rock
In the tough period faced by the record industry, the artists promotion, in particular the groups in
development’s promotion, turns out more determinant than ever. The French music press may not do too
well, rock and pop music are still broadly featured, and even if journalists dedicate more space to the major
companies’ artists, they still review independent productions quite often. We cannot say that the commercial
radios are working the same way. Besides the imperatives of profitability, the French radios are governed by alaw on the radio quota which imposes, since February 1994, 40 % of French-speaking music to be aired.Nevertheless, in this difficult context, some famous stations continue to support artists in development and ingeneral, try to maintain a variety of genres.1.2 T
HE RECORDS
While some of the music industry’s functions such as the promotion, the concerts production, etc. mostly
succeeded in getting by during the crisis, the main actors of the music market, that is record labels anddistributors, are undergoing a very tough period. Due to the impossibility to maintain their workforce, or tocontinue to support artists selling less than in the past or to financial obligations, the major companies keepcomplaining and are heavily laying off. The independent record labels, less sensitive to the fluctuation of the
market, because used to tighten their costs, but pushed aside from the sector’s new sources of incomes (phone
rings, legal downloading, etc.), were seriously shaken too by the sales decrease observed for the last two years.You add to this the increasing pressure exercised by specialized stores and the large-scale distribution on therecord professionals of the disc and it seems that the French market in 2004 does not constitute a friendlyenvironment for developing young talent of the European pop/rock scene. But as on one hand, France wasalways a difficult territory to conquer, and as on the other hand, the periods of crisis generally open newperspectives, it might be the right time to try to impose an artist in the hexagon.1.2.1 The major companiesThe French major companies do not directly sign a group which is already in the catalog of their subsidiary in
the band’s country of origin. But even in this la
st scenario, obtaining that the group would be in deed
"marketed" by the major company in question, that is classified among its international releases’ priorities, is
really hard to achieve. Besides the logic focus of the big record labels on the national artists
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obviously sellingmore - who are of course French and confirmed, the size of these structures does not help foreign artists to gettheir foot in the door. In many European countries, the major companies are reasonably transparentcompanies. Their workforce is limited, and their employees, although very busy, remain available. It is notreally the case in France, where these same major companies often employ several hundreds of people, andtheir work is influenced by a strong hierarchy.In a labe
l or a foreign manager’s mission to pressure the French major company to make the effort, not only
to release a record, but also and above all to give it a chance, the independent record labels can turn out to bevery useful. Because if it is still rare that a big record label gives up its work sphere and agrees to give a part
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