By Mark Callaghan, AMPAL General Manager

Things continue apace at AMPAL. Having recently undertaken a major update of the AMPAL website - www.ampal.com.au - attention has now shifted to the collection of industry financial statistics.

The collection of industry statistical data is of vital importance to all music publishers – in dealing with and lobbying government, in assessing trends within our business and in highlighting the value of music publishing when dealing with potential business partners.

There have been some changes to the layout of the survey this year, which should yield more meaningful results and allow a greater ability to ascertain trends in different areas of the music publishing business. To that end, AMPAL members are asked to provide figures for the past 3 years, which will allow us to get a head start on historical data under more clearly defined categories. Of course, all financial information provided by members will be treated with the strictest confidence and no company’s individual figures will be released. Rather, the financial data will be collated by AMPAL’s auditors at KPMG and only the industry wide total will be released, broken down into the various income streams.

I urge all members to please fill in and return the statistical survey as soon as possible.

All AMPAL members are invited to hear Domenic Carosa of destra Entertainment talk on ‘Music, Media and destra’ on Thursday 2nd August at Tiger Sound in Neutral Bay (thanks to J Albert & Son). This promises to be a very interesting evening with Domenic giving his views on present and future developments in the music business and particularly at destra, the dynamic company he heads up. Please contact me at mark@ampal.com.au if you have not yet received your invitation.