Osenberg leaves Qualiton; New PR Venture Ahead

Osenberg leaves Qualiton; New PR Venture Ahead

David Osenberg Last Monday, Qualiton parted ways with David Osenberg, who served as the distributor’s National Director of Publicity and Promotions and Director of Classical Labels. The shift has industry watchers anticipating the next move each will make. For Qualiton’s part, National Sales Manager Angela Cuciniello assures that the position has not been eliminated and… Read more »

Written By

Molly Sheridan



David Osenberg

Last Monday, Qualiton parted ways with David Osenberg, who served as the distributor’s National Director of Publicity and Promotions and Director of Classical Labels. The shift has industry watchers anticipating the next move each will make.

For Qualiton’s part, National Sales Manager Angela Cuciniello assures that the position has not been eliminated and that interviews to replace Osenberg are in process. “We have every intention to continue publicity and promotion of our releases in the same fashion that we have been, so there really is no change in the way we’re going to continue to promoting our product. We’ve just made a change in our staff,” she says.

Osenberg explains that the split was mainly due to a personality conflict that grew too difficult to manage in the context of the family run business, but acknowledges that he has also been looking to start up his own business venture promoting the discs put out by small labels that can’t afford their own PR. In the face of the current industry-wide economic and recognition problems, Osenberg hopes to help counteract that through strategic media distribution.

“What a lot of distributors don’t do, or don’t do in the way they did, was to get the recordings out to the media,” Osenberg says, hinting at his own frustrations with Qualiton’s philosophies. “In defense, mainly it’s a cost issue. Sales are horrible, retail has gone through the floor especially for classical music, and to be honest, not a lot of media coverage results.”

Still, Osenberg stresses the importance of getting attention for the discs for the industry as a whole, and that means getting to the media. “There are a lot of really good vibrant classical radio stations in the country that would program the discs and there are reviewers who would regularly try to write reviews of them despite the problems with their editors and space,” Osenberg says. He also points out that publications like American Record Guide and Fanfare reviewed everything that was sent to them (perhaps because they were getting less from other distributors).

Not that anyone is expecting a review or airplay to cause millions to put down the latest Aguilera and pick up the latest Feldman. But it is exposure and you never know how that will affect a person’s purchasing decision.

“I think if things are going to turn around it’s going to take a combination of everybody,” Osenberg reasons. “It’s going to take labels realizing that they have to put out things that are of interest, not duplicating repertoire and not putting out superfluous discs. And for distributors it takes a lot of creativity, new thought on how to do stuff rather than just shove it into the record stores and just hope they don’t return it.”

For European labels without the resources or the contacts to mail to U.S. media outlets and even for small American labels that lack the PR machine of the majors, Osenberg hopes to fill that void in the industry. Where the majors are set up to push something if they think it needs pushing, the independents often can’t keep up. “The smaller labels are really passionate about what they do and they need exposure in a market this size, but it’s very hard for them to get that. Though some might say it makes no difference in sales, and though that might be a reality, the small labels really feel it’s important for people to hear their discs or see a review of it somewhere.”

Part of that push may involve a special focus on American repertoire from labels like Naxos, Mode, and New World. “I think that’s an area that really needs some work,” Osenberg notes. “There’s some great American music being written now, and the amount that it’s played and reviewed is probably not proportional to what it should be.”

So Osenberg is currently setting up a service that will make sure those discs get in the right hands. So far, the labels he’s contacted have been enthusiastic supporters of the venture. “I’m trying to be of a service to these labels on the U.S. market because I know from doing it for years who will play what, what radio station will program what, what critic will actually take the disc and write something. I try and work with the people who actually offer results. A lot of the labels are really small. Their own media contacts are sometimes way out of date and they’re mailing to radio stations that switched to country nine months ago.”

Osenberg boils it down to this: “If these discs don’t get any exposure, there’s no chance. With some exposure, there’s a chance. I think a lot of these small independent labels, they just want a chance.”