Nipper the dog – he’s the one listening to His Master’s Voice – was adopted as the trademark for EMI’s forerunner in 1900. The original picture, by Francis Barraud, was bought for £100 and still hangs at EMI’s headquarters – making it one of its best-performing assets – even though the trademark is these days used by the retailer HMV.

Once under common ownership, the record company and retailer are independent, sharing only ownership of the picture. However, their separate development is not turning out as expected. HMV, after all a mere shop, was a dog doomed to die as music purchasing went digital.

But listen to Guy Hands this week. As the new owner of EMI, intent on making savings, he has an interest in talking down the state of the company to justify the mass redundancies he has announced. But the problem is that it is way too easy to say the CD is dead and that the future of music is digital when the facts tell a different story.

Go along the high street to HMV and what’s up? HMV increased CD unit sales by 2 per cent in the Christmas period. Yes, the market was down by 8 per cent, but HMVwas able to buck the trend because it offered a better retail experience than a supermarket for the music lover. Passionate shop owners can make a difference because, unlike with baked beans, price is not the only incentive when buying music. Ensuring that there is a wide catalogue and the opportunity to listen, rather than just look at chaotic shelves, is a help.

It is not only HMV that can show there is life in the CD, if it is handled well. While EMI twists and turns – and a potential acquisition of music group Chrysalis would be just another twist that changes little – others seem to have fewer problems. It may be wearying to talk again about Universal, home to Amy Winehouse, Mika and Take That, but in 2007 its British CD business grew.

Universal is surprisingly reticent about talking up the prospects for the industry publicly, but its frustration is that struggling companies – such as EMI – bleat about how the industry is changing merely because they are struggling to find hits. Only Simon Cowell can match Universal commercially, with the help of The X Factor, SonyBMG and Leona Lewis.

Universal’s recorded music arm has 29 Brit nominations, EMI a meagre seven. There is the problem, and the solution, for Hands. If he needs to do anything, it is to change those figures.

It would be all well and good inventing, say, a telepathic music distribution system, but if there is nothing people want to listen to, then there would be little point. And to add to his troubles, Hands appears to have made a poor start when it comes it dealing with the talent. Radiohead may be difficult – they repeatedly refused to sign contract extensions with EMI long before he came along – but his failure to find a way of working with them is damaging, not least because many aspiring bands admire Thom Yorke and his colleagues.

Hands can argue that no act accounts for even 1 per cent of revenue. Sir Paul McCartney, who was on his way out when the venture capitalist arrived, probably accounted for only 300,000 sales a year across his entire catalogue since the end of the Beatles. One old hand recalled that EMI might as well have sent out each new Macca release with a £10 note on the cover, they were losing so much to keep him. And even Radiohead’s bestselling days (OK Computer) may be behind them. In Rainbows has probably notched up sales of only a little more than 300,000 worldwide after its CD release this month.

Yet none of this is enough. Contrast Hands’s performance with Edgar Bronfman’s takeover of Warner Music. Even though Linkin Park objected to the profits Bronfman and his backers made from the flotation of the company (those were the days), the band was placated eventually and this year released one of America’s bestselling albums. Even Madonna, who, like Mick Jagger, is acutely aware of her value, stayed loyal for a time. Jagger, though, seems ready to head for the door – unless Hands wants to offer him really silly money. Pay up, or lose the Stones? EMI can lose either way.

Yet, it would be better still if EMI could start promoting some of the releases it has to come; whether from Moby, The Kooks, Hot Chip or Goldfrapp – all fantastic talents – does not matter. It is just possible that in that list lies the real saviour of EMI. Perhaps Hands should at least talk them up as well as digital, unless the moneyman fears looking a fool discussing bands he knows little about, in which case he needs somebody else as chief executive sooner rather than later. The CD may not yet be dead, but if EMI wants to avoid barking for the last time, its owners need to make clear that they value music, too.

The Press Complaints Commission does not accept complaints from third parties but that isn't stopping people phoning in.

Complaints rose by a third last year to 4,340 — hardly Channel 4 levels — but the trend is clear enough. Two stories drove the growth. One, about the depiction of Jordan's disabled son on a sticker in Heat magazine, was revealed by The Times, but what they both had in common was that they were covered only online.

If newspapers were once like a club, in which readers of other titles had little interest, internet availability makes a parallel with television channels more apt. It is easier for the digital mob to hear about something deemed to be outrageous, read it online and complain to the PCC, whereas buying the offending newspaper would be too much trouble. That means that, at some point, a newspaper will print something that will produce a Celebrity Big Brother-size avalanche of complaints. Beware.

dan.sabbagh@thetimes.co.uk

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