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Podcast: Music Ally Focus
Episode: Music Ally Focus #29: UK’s competition regulator is concerned by Sony Music / AWAL merger – is the government firing a warning shot at major labels?
Description: Music Ally's Stuart Dredge and Joe Sparrow talk over the shock news that the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has announced that Sony Music’s $430m acquisition of distributor AWAL from Kobalt “raises competition concerns”, and gave the major label a five-day deadline to respond. If those responses do not satisfy the regulator, it will launch a deeper ‘phase two’ investigation of the deal. Stu and Joe discuss why this has happened, what the responses of various connected parties were – and if this, combined with the UK's recent parliamentary inquiry into music streaming, means that major labels are facing an u...