Music Firms Are Right to Focus on Sales

I must comment on the letter by Ralph Humphrey [“Recording Industry Seems to Care Only About Money,” Letters, Feb. 4] in which he derides record companies for having as their only concern whether or not their artists are selling enough records rather than releasing good music that may not have the same sales potential.

Mr. Humphrey, companies need to make money to grow and survive. Since the beginning of music as an industry, the large companies have remained a driving force of entertainment and pop culture solely because they continue to release big-selling records. Interscope, Geffen, Sony, Capitol and the others rely on hit records for their survival. If the company didn’t think an artist could be a success, it wouldn’t release his or her records. End of story. This is not a phenomenon limited to the music business. Large, consumer-focused companies are large because they sell lots of their products to consumers.

As you state, “what gets put on the radio is based on some record exec’s idea of what may be a big seller.” That, Mr. Humphrey, is the reason they are record executives and not, say, rocket engineers. In the same way that Steve Jobs, as Apple’s chief executive, had the idea the iMac could be a big seller, or Volkswagen executives had the idea that a redesigned Beetle could be a big seller.

When I last checked, record companies were not nonprofit agencies. They exist to make money. Too many people are forgetting that fact and trying to take advantage of these important culture leaders. But don’t even get me started on Napster.

JEFF MATLOW

President, SaulGoodMan Inc.

Culver City