The era is over. Album sales are diminished so there really is no need for another single. A single is used as a promotional tool so with SNF, SOM, and the willie duet plus other stuff we don't know about Carrie is filled with promo.
Miranda doesn't really get that extra stuff so she needs a single on the radio more so than Carrie does.
All that is absolutely true.
And it is likely the frame of mind Sony was in while deciding what to do. (also, its very likely that these type of plans were made qhite a while ago, we don't actually know how many singles they originally planned for the era.)
But with all that, it really comes down to strategy and what you think will best serve your company.
And I guess if I were the head of sony, and I was sitting down in a meeting with the bean counters and the marketers and the "profit forecasters", I would still be inclined to lean toward Carrie making the company more money over the next 3 months, especially with a single selling on itunes which is pure profit, than canning that project and taking financing money and putting it into two different projects by another one of our singers who's album is basically dead and has been for months, and whos duet is going to sell records for a competing label.
From a business standpoint there is no way for me to wrap my brain around it. And I am interested to know what model they are using to make a decission like this.
I guess it would be one thing to know that the BA Era is shutting down. That is what it is and I will assume the numbers have been crunched that that is the way it goes. They sold all the product they figure they can to still have a healthy profit from the whole era.
But to know that money is being spent to keep another era alive, that has been depressed for months, and to know that more money is being spent on the same artist for a completely outside project, now it starts to seem odd.
Not odd that you would cut your loses on a project like BA and close it down.
But very odd that you would take profit money and spend it on a project like 4TR that has been dead for a while. Plus promoting another labels project for the sole purpose of promoting your artist.
IF that is not hetching your bets for award season, I don't know what is.
And if that is not limiting the first project from award consideration, I don't know what is.
I am thinking purely from a business model, and I can not disagree more with how they are choosing to sepnd money.
If its not favortism, what is it?