Bertelsmann’s Ostrowski should exit the sucky music business

Hartmut “Hart” Ostrowski is only 3 days in (U.S time) as the new CEO of German media giant Bertelsmann AG –AKA- Bertie, and surely he is combing through everything to see where the company needs to be focused. We know for sure that for Bertie, books are huge. However music may be something they need to get out of. Sure they confused us when they announced that they wanted to get back into the music publishing business after selling off their music publishing arm to Universal. But under Ostrowski, will Bertie be in the music business for long? The current state of the business can’t be looking good to Ostrowski at all. Sales are in the toilet and digital piracy continues to be at an all time high. So is Hart looking at this and is considering getting out of the business once and for all? We sure hope so. Earlier last year rumors were running wild that Bertie was seeking to sell its 50% stake in Sony-BMG, either back to their Japanese partners at Sony, or to an outside buyer. Maybe Bertie was thinking about selling at that point and floated the story themselves to see if any potential buyers would emerge, but apparently none did. Ostrowki’s focus is on internet, books and the education sector, which itself falls under books. Bertie isn’t exactly the digital player that former CEO Thomas Midelhoff was working hard to transform it into, so we can see why this would be one of his main focuses. Bertie should sell off their 50% in Sony BMG and use that money to ramp up these areas since these are strong areas for them. None of their counterparts currently have a hand in the music business, at least not a whole hand, maybe a finger tip. Big media owning record companies are so 1990s and in a way, Bertie may be stuck in that era. -SDH