Crazy Hood Publicist Discusses PoweR Girls

The prepress for PoweR Girls was uniformly bad and the show itself may not have met expectations for audience numbers. Though folks were heaping scorn on Lizzie Grubman, I received a different take from Rokky, a publicist for Miami-based Crazy Hood Productions. She stated:

"The premiere of MTV’s latest reality show on Lizzie Grubman’s PR firm was less than fascinating to say the least. While the show was a fair representation of one type of function a publicist serves, it barely scratched the surface. As a publicist and an admirer of Lizzie it bothered me to see her job belittled by these four fluff girls. The job of a publicist involves so much more leg work and grind. Even a well connected person like Lizzie needs to put in much more work than MTV let on."

"The Ja Rule piece was humorous but again no depth, it seemed more like a plug for his new album. I would like to see the phone calls, the ass kissing, and the negotiations, basically the nitty gritty. But honestly, if you would like to delve into the life of Public Relations this isn’t the show for you. This show is about four hormonal twenty somethings with short skirts."

Maybe MTV should have marketed it as "four hormonal twenty somethings with short skirts", because there's a big market for that sort of thing! In any case, Lizzie should be glad to know she has some supporters among hip hop publicists.

Warner Music Group Files for IPO

Warner Music Group is planning to go public and has filed with the SEC for a possible $750 million IPO.  Since being taken private last year, Edgar Bronfman Jr. and co. have initiated deep cuts in spending while aggressively repaying investors in a manner that many have questioned, according to the LA Times (reg req), because they may be undermining the future for short term gains.

To cut costs "they have eliminated 1,600 positions, pared wages, slashed investments in new artists, shut offices and quadrupled employees' health insurance premiums."  Standard & Poor's recently lowered Warner Music's outlook from "stable" to "negative" because of rewards to management.

Events: SXSW, CTIA WIRELESS, MobileMusiCon, US Indie

SXSW has begun in Austin, TX with the Film & Interactive Conferences. The Music part starts Wednesday while all those UT students are on spring break making 6th St. a much more fun stretch of clubs than usual. SXSW is mostly an indie rock kind of scene, but there are always great hip hop acts worth checking out though Scarface has already canceled.

P. Diddy will deliver a keynote address on Day One of CTIA WIRELESS 2005 which begins today in New Orleans. Steve Largent, CTIA President and CEO will supposedly be blogging from the conference. KolBlog and MocoNews.net will also be blogging from CTIA WIRELESS 2005.

MobileMusiCon LA happens in May and will include Mobile Music Awards.

The 2005 US Indie hopes to bring independent bands and filmmakers together in Beaumont, TX in August.

Recent Ringtone News

Versaly recently announced that Sir Mix-A-Lot's ringtone Pick Up The Phone has sold over 500,000 copies.

Magix is releasing ringtone making software later this month, though there's nothing about it on their website. The release says it will be priced at $19.99, same as Xingtone. And, just like Xingtone, it's further indication that the rosy future projections of research firms regarding revenue growth in the ringtone market are a bit overoptimistic. However, some research firms are anticipating lower prices.

Levi's Europe has a mix your own "RingTune" competition in progress.

Newsweek has yet another ringtone overview but at least they hit a lot of the high points plus they offer some sample tones and a recent Billboard ringtone chart dominated by hip hop, as always. Not bad, except for misspelling Lil Jon.