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md
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*ABBA*?!?!
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Feb 3 01:51 UTC 2000 |
This is from http://www.eonline.com/ If anyone has heard
any further details, do tell.
"In perhaps the largest rejection in history, '70s Swedish
pop group ABBA has turned down a $1 billion offer to
reunite after 17 years.
"'It's a hell of a lot of money to say no to, but we decided
it wasn't for us,' Benny Andersson, ex-leader of the
four-member group, told Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet today.
"The staggering offer came from an American-British consortium
that reportedly wanted the group to reunite for 100 concerts
and cash in on a recent revival of several of their hits.
(Currently, the teen band A-Teens has covered 'Mamma Mia' and
'Gimme Gimme' and a musical based on several songs is a hit in
London's West End.)"
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| 22 responses total. |
beeswing
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response 1 of 22:
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Feb 3 02:23 UTC 2000 |
Abba came up twice in conversation today... weird.
We had all the 8-tracks, I had an Abba folder I took to school...
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mcnally
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response 2 of 22:
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Feb 3 02:39 UTC 2000 |
That makes *no* sense.
Each of those 100 concers would have to produce, on average, ten million
dollars in order to even recoup the amount that the band would make, let
alone make any money for the investors.
Or to put it another way, if the band were able to clear $10 profit per
fan, they'd have to perform for one hundred million fans to reach the
break-even point for the investors.
Either the details of the offer have been completely screwed up by the
reporter or the offer was bullshit to begin with, but there's no way ABBA,
popular or talented as they may be, could be worth $1,000,000,000.
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cmcgee
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response 3 of 22:
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Feb 3 03:12 UTC 2000 |
Or the "million, billion" issue has been confused by the difference between
US "million, billion" conventions, and continental "million, billion"
conventions.
(In the US a million is, I think 1,000 times 1,000. In Europe, a million is
100,000 times 1,000) Or some such thing.
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mdw
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response 4 of 22:
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Feb 3 08:13 UTC 2000 |
I believe million is actually the same in europe & england (at least).
It's billion where the difference begins - the british say "thousand
million" where we say billion, & the british "billion" is our trillion.
I may have this all wrong, but I think the table goes something like:
sci us uk
1e3 thousand thousand
1e6 million million
1e9 billion thousand million
1e12 trillion billion
1e15 quadrillion thousand billion
1e18 quintillion trillion
In the rest of europe, the rules change per-language; in french, "mille"
is our thousand, and french "cent" is our "100".
Presuambly, the ABBA investors were also thinking of record, tv, and
radio deals. How much money did madonna make on her last big world
tour?
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mcnally
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response 5 of 22:
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Feb 3 08:47 UTC 2000 |
not even *close* to a billion dollars.
let's assume that each fan buys a $50 concert ticket, a $20 video,
a $15 CD, and watches so much television and listens to so much radio
that the promoters can get $20 in advertising, for a total revenue of
$100 per ultra-fan and that all of that revenue is pure profit --
assumptions which are clearly ludicrous. You'd still need 10 *million*
such ultra-fans to hit the break-even point.
The numbers aren't remotely plausible.. Top-grossing musical acts
like R.E.M., U2, etc, can pull in grosses that are in the multiple tens
of millions of dollars on a packaged worldwide tour (including videos,
t-shirts, CDs, concert tickets, pay-per-view, etc..) but a billion is
so far from that that something is just wrong about the story in #0.
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gypsi
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response 6 of 22:
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Feb 3 14:05 UTC 2000 |
Well, some of them were married to each other, and the girls from Abba have
new husbands...or something along those lines. Whatever. Anyway, they said
it just wasn't for them.
I would play 100 concerts in a band of my ex-boyfriends for a billion dollars.
I mean, really... =)
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johnnie
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response 7 of 22:
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Feb 3 14:58 UTC 2000 |
Perhaps they're all so utterly wealthy already that there's nothing left
to buy. A person can use only so many mansions.
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krj
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response 8 of 22:
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Feb 3 16:19 UTC 2000 |
((( winter agora #115 <---> music #232 )))
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aruba
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response 9 of 22:
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Feb 3 17:46 UTC 2000 |
the rumor, when Abba was popular, was that they were Sweden's second-largest
industry, right behind Volvo. Or that they were ahead of Volvo, depending
on who was telling the rumor.
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jor
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response 10 of 22:
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Feb 3 17:49 UTC 2000 |
I *just* heard this on the radio.
The announcer seemd to be saying "billion",
but he didn't articulate it clearly to differentiate
from "million".
We need Carl Sagan back.
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scott
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response 11 of 22:
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Feb 3 17:59 UTC 2000 |
Perhaps the offer really was for a billion, but ABBA members wisely did the
math and realized they probably wouldn't get paid what they were promised.
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krj
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response 12 of 22:
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Feb 3 18:22 UTC 2000 |
From the website of Abba's record company, cached on google:
"ABBA were second only to Volvo as Sweden's biggest export
earners for several years..."
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