Doug Putman, the head of Canada’s Sunrise Records, has successfully rescued 100 HMV stores from administration, including (thankfully!) my local branch. Hooray! This teaches me that, although things appeared pretty bleak last week, you should never give up hope. You don't know the whole picture... what is happening behind the scenes; what might happen tomorrow.
In 2017, Sunrise Records took over 70 Canadian HMV stores after that branch of the chain collapsed. They seem to be doing pretty much the same here in the UK.
Putman says that HMV’s problems were due to them being unable to react quickly enough to the decline of CD and DVD sales. Many people have changed to downloading films and music online, but some of us still prefer to browse the shops for that special, rare find for our collection... and were quite vocal about it. And it seems that this public outcry is having an effect. Which teaches me that the voice of the public can influence decisions made by people in authority...
“Where certain stores have closed, our public have really rallied around and I credit that with some of the landlords coming back to us.” Putman said, in a recent article in The Guardian. “They can see how much support we are getting..."
"We are getting away from the corporate mentality where every store is set up the same – we have to move away from that and let each store have its own personality... I want to unlock the passion and creativity.”
Hmmm - individuality. Passion and creativity. That confirms to me something we all need in our lives. :)
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