— Robbie Williams is ready to deliver a new album for EMI after Guy Hands reached an accommodation with Tim Clark, the singer's manager whose comments about “plantation owner” record bosses caused a spat. “We've kissed and made up,” Clark said at Midem, the music industry's annual shindig in Cannes. “Guy is starting to understand that we are dealing with artists and the record company is there to provide the best services.” Robbie's contractual future is unclear though. “We have a 'Best of' after the new record this year,” Clark said. “Robbie is moving back to England and I imagine there will be a range of people wanting to talk to him then.”

— Roger Faxon, the man Eric Nicoli placed in charge of EMI Music Publishing, a thriving concern, rejects talk of a merger with competitor Warner/Chappell. “Do we need a huge alternative catalogue when we already have the best in the world? I don't think so,” Faxon says. The publishing company is a “standalone structure” within EMI. But he says: “Terra Firma's aim is to sell EMI as a whole or spin off separate businesses within five to seven years.” Plenty of work to do in the recorded music part of the business first.

— As Radio 2 hunts for a new controller, gossip suggests that Matthew Bannister - the man who ran Radio 1 for half of the 1990s, is in the frame. Well, people are supposed to graduate to Radio 2 in time, and he needs something more interesting to do than occasional radio presenting. Although Chris Evans, the Radio 2 DJ who left Radio 1 under Bannister's tenure, amid a dispute over whether he could have Friday mornings off, may not welcome his return. It makes the prospect quite enticing.

— Peter Williams, the numbers man at Daily Mail and General Trust, says DMGT shouldn't be blamed for failing to sell its regional newspapers to Gannett for £1 billion back in 2006. He insists that it was Gannett who walked. So it was the Americans who were smart then.

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