Jedward's label-hopping matters little

They’re no longer with Sony, and apparently are now signing to Universal. But record sales matter little to the Jedward juggernaut

ANOTHER WEEK, another Jedward story. News that the band’s record deal with Sony Music has come to an abrupt end after just one single does not reflect too well at first glance on the brothers Grimes.

It also presented the duo’s many detractors with ample opportunity to have yet another pop at them.

However, the news is unlikely to keep either the twins or their manager, Louis Walsh, awake at night. There is plenty of proof that the Jedward phenomenon does not really need a record deal to keep it going.

Their forthcoming debut Irish tour has been one of the fastest-selling tours of the year. At a time when ticket sales for many shows are sluggish, there are 27 mostly sold-out Jedward shows scheduled nationwide for April, including eight in the capital, and the demand seems to be there for more.

Veteran promoter Peter Aiken has expressed his “surprise” at the box-office reaction to the twins.

As long as the phenomenon continues, there are plenty of brands happy to follow the example of Vodafone and Arnotts, two companies who have associated themselves with the twins.

Even if they weren’t signing to Universal (more of which below), the absence of a record contract would be unlikely to stymie their nascent TV career either. It’s worth recalling that Ant and Dec, the TV presenters whose career path the Grimes brothers have probably studied most closely, had a spell as pop stars, but it didn’t last long.

Unlike such X Factorluminaries as Leona Lewis or Will Young, the Grimeses were never going to be just singing for their supper.

Perhaps the most puzzling aspect of this entire episode is the role of Sony Music. It’s unlikely that even the most deluded record label executive would commit to a Jedward record deal on musical grounds alone. It was always going to be about trying to tap into the Jedward sensation.

Yet despite investing time and money in an extensive sales and marketing campaign, the label has seemingly walked away after just one single.

While the band signed a much-publicised deal with Sony Music in January in the wake of their X Factorrun, the terms of that deal were never disclosed.

Record deals are complex beasts. When a band signs a deal, the hype will often be about a “€1 million deal”. The truth, however, is not so glamorous. Record deals are usually based on “options” in favour of the label, which decides after each album release whether to take up the option on the band’s next release.

Any huge advance figure mentioned in the media is usually the total amount the band would receive should all the options in their contract be taken up.

In the case of Jedward, it may well have been just a deal for one single, with options for future releases and albums dependant on the performance of that release.

As that single, Under Pressure, did not go to No 1 as Sony hoped, and seeing as the duo have probably not spent the recent months writing chart-topping new material, the label has now chosen not to pursue its relationship with the act any further.

A label such as Sony would probably not sign a novelty act such as Jedward to an albums deal, especially at a time when the record industry is in dire trouble due to falling revenues, diminished sales and changes in consumer buying habits.

But it’s also difficult to see what Sony hoped to achieve from a one-off single, even if that was the nature of the deal in the first place. As Walsh and the duo know, the cash is elsewhere and a singles deal was never going to unlock those revenue streams for the label.

In order to do that, Sony would have had to sign Jedward to a “360-degree deal”. These deals see the label take a stake in all the act’s activities, from live gigs to merchandise sales. The business plan for a 360-degree deal does not involve dropping the act after one single.

The real winners in all of this are, of course, Team Jedward. A bullish Walsh was already talking up a new deal with Universal for the twins. There’s little concrete information as of yet about which Universal label has “snapped up” the pair – or, indeed, the terms of that deal.

Regardless, the real success of this is that it keeps Jedward in the public eye. The momentum around the tour, TV career and merchandise can continue. A canny operator like Walsh knows that without such publicity, Jedward would really be yesterday’s Crystal Swing.