Amid drastic drop-offs in CD sales, the major labels have discovered new sources of revenue -- by looking in their basements. Sony BMG recently launched Icon Collectibles, a line of rare photos from the label's archives, with candid, unpublished shots of artists from Miles Davis to Bob Dylan, and Warner label Rhino Entertainment just started selling reproductions of concert posters for bands like the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane.
“The downturn caused everyone to say, 'What assets do we have that we're not taking advantage of?' “ says John Ingrassia, the head of Sony BMG's catalog division. Ingrassia started exploring the Sony BMG archives, three stories beneath the label's Manhattan headquarters. There he found rows and rows of binders with thousands of photos -- from a young Bob Dylan rehearsing in Carnegie Hall to Billie Holiday recording Lady in Satin in 1957. Soon afterward, Sony BMG started up Icon Collectibles, selling limited-edition prints of dozens of those images for between $300 and $1,700.
Rhino, a label that specializes in reissues of classic rock, recently bought the rights to the Family Dog archive, a collection of psychedelic concert posters from the San Francisco scene, and has begun selling reprints of 17 of them. “We'd been looking for ways to expand our core businesses," says Rhino executive vice president Gregg Goldman. “It's partially to offset the challenges in the physical market with the expertise we have."
Selling artwork will never be a primary business for the labels -- Ingrassia hopes Icon Collectibles will reach $1 million in revenue in the next year or two -- but in a struggling industry, duplicating archived photos can produce solid revenue without any expense. “Given the fact that the retail prices on the photographs are high, there is enough margin there for a record company -- if they're careful in how they choose and how they market the photographs -- to make money," says Peter Blachley, owner of New York gallery Morrison Hotel, which kicked off an exhibit of the Sony BMG photos in July. “There is a business there."
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