Perez Hilton has a blog (www.perezhilton.com) that draws obscene things on celebrity photo's. This sounds pretty lame but a lot of people think he's hilarious and many go to his site on a regular basis....over 1 million a month actually. He is also known from time to time to mention bands he's found, and it's now a known fact that the bands he mentions get a lot more attention and exposure from the music buying public after he has mentioned them on his blog.
So Warner Music Group has offered to make Perez Hilton (real name Mario Lavandeira) an A&R rep, because he has "an ear" for great music.
That's horse shit.
Any 12 year old with headphones has an "ear" for great music. Now, from the view of Warner Music Group, how could they get their artists instant marketing with basically instant results without spending a TON of money? Warner Music Group could BUY www.perezhilton.com, for a few million based on the number of unique visits the site gets each month, knowing full well that a few years down the line the sites integrity will be shot because of how aggressive Warner will be in pushing it's artists via the site, OR they could do this:
HIRE Perez Hilton to "scout" bands and push the ones he's likes via his site for a yearly salary(projected to be $100,000) plus anything the band might make on the back end. This way, Warner Music Group only pays $100,000 to get some marketing to over 12,000,000 people a year, who are interested in new music via this site. This also allows Warner to pull out when the site stops producing the results they need. For Perez Hilton, he can still keep his site and own and operate it, but he'll get paid $100,000 a year to do it, plus any other revenue he was bringing in before.
Smart business move?
For Warner Music Group: Yes.
For PerezHilton.com: No.
Hey Universal, my blog gets anywhere from 20-50 views daily, and I happen to have a great ear for music...Let's talk.
