ANNUAL ADDRESS BY DR EDMUND LAM,
CEO & DIRECTOR/COMPASS & CHAIRMAN/ CISAC (ASIA PACIFIC)
AT 11th COMPASS AWARDS PRESENTATION
AT RAFFLES CITY CONVENTION CENTRE ON 21 MAY 2006
Our family size is about to exceed 900 members. We are an organisation with a very diverse membership – members are from the different music genres (pop, jazz, classical, new-age, folk) and language groups (Malay, English, Chinese). We also have members who earn all their living from music, some who earn a bit of their living from it, and others who earn nothing from it but are brilliant musicians. Despite such diversity and disparity, we are one strong and united organisation. All members of COMPASS should be proud of it and I humbly salute all of you here tonight.
With unity and strength, our royalty collections have also crossed the $10M mark last year to about $10.3M after slightly more than 11% growth over previous year. Our expenditure has also declined healthily. Our overall administrative commission rate at 16% is very competitive at international level.
New media has become a new source of revenue although it is still insignificant ?about 2% last year. It is anticipated to become a major income stream in the near future. The online distribution of music is taking shape in Singapore with the continued proliferation of various digital devices (example Creative Zen, iPod). COMPASS together with six major music publishers have jointly set up a one-stop centre within COMPASS to license musical works for digital distribution. The joint licensing scheme will make it more efficient for content providers to clear copyright and at the same time serve the interest of right-holders who want their content disseminated as widely as possible.
However, there is a growing concern on the evolving attitude of the ‘iPod’ generation. A team of music psychologists in the UK has been researching how people relate to music. They conclude that the development of mass media in the last century which resulted in music becoming much more widely and readily available led music to lose its aesthetic value ?in other words, it became viewed as a commodity that is produced, distributed and consumed just like any other. Rapid technological change has led to greater levels of music accessibility and choice. This has arguably led to a rather passive attitude towards music heard in everyday life. The iPod generation may take music for granted and no longer appreciate it.
The Board has not neglected corporate governance which continued to strengthen on all fronts with proper checks and balances. There are in place three external auditors for fulfilling various requirements ?external financial accounts auditor, Code of Conduct auditor, and the ISO 9000 external auditor, once we obtain our external certification before year end. We also have in place a proper a dispute and complaint mechanism to speedily and objectively manage complaints and grievances of members and the general public. We will not be relentless in responding to the rapid environmental changes. We will be regularly getting feedback and review our work processes so that we can continually maintain the quality of our services to our music users and members.
Tonight, our membership gathers together for the eleventh time in our history to present awards for hitting the popular charts and also distinguished personalities within the music industry for their achievements and contributions. I would like to express our heartiest congratulations to all deserving winners and recipients. The highlight of this year’s presentation is the “COMPASS Meritorious Award” to honour two distinguished individuals for devoting their life to identifying, developing, and nurturing many outstanding musicians under their mentorship. They truly deserve our commendation. They made us think that more needs to be done to identify and encourage young talent. We must be able to do more talent-spotting within our industry, just like in sport. We cannot just leave it to chance.
Now, on behalf of the membership, I would like once again thank our guest-of-honour, Mr Chan, for his presence in gracing the occasion. I’m sure our team will give us an enjoyable evening of good entertainment. Last but not least my sincere appreciation to all of tonight’s performers, artistes, backstage and technical staff, music writers of musical works to be performed tonight, event advisor – our Director Mel Ferdinands, and my always-reliable PR manager Rachel for putting all the things together. You all are just great and lovely people. Thank you.
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