View from City Road: Thorn EMI is a tempting prize

Sir Colin Southgate, chairman of Thorn EMI, may not know a Blind Lemon from Smashing Pumpkins (both are American pop stars, m'lud), but he is adamant that his company is not going to leap aboard the 'multi-media' bandwagon careering through the frontiers of entertainment, hi-fi equipment and films.

Thorn EMI may not get the choice. If the company's rental and music divisions are ever demerged and its unattractive defence, security and electronic ticketing are sold off, the music side, one of the world's top four after the purchase of Virgin Music in March last year, must be a tempting target.

Three years ago the Japanese companies Sony and Matsushita, drawing inspiration from Phillips Electronics' relationship with Polygram, decided that owning software - music and film - was essential to bringing new hardware - consumer electronics products - to market.

Owning record companies got round the problems of licensing and copyright that always crop up with new audio products in an industry renowned as a paradise for lawyers.

Sony bought CBS, while Matsushita picked off MCA. Along with Polygram the two have gone into film while Time Warner went further and spread out into cable television. The battle for Paramount has carried the argument further still.

Sir Colin is not convinced. He wants to see Thorn EMI continuing in its role as a pure owner of software and intellectual property, happy to sell its wares to all comers at a commercial price.

Will hardware makers really benefit in the long run from pushing their own software products to the exclusion of others - for that surely is the point of owning software?

Some indication of how things might unravel on the multi-media front came with George Michael's litigation against Sony, dragging the music industry's dirty linen into the public domain by claiming the rights to his back catalogue.

But if he fails, EMI/Virgin's independence could be a tempting prize whether Sir Colin likes it or not.