Alumni Profile: Michael Bebel, MBA '86

Online music maestro

Michael Bebel thinks he's a lucky guy. That's because he gets to be the one to unleash Napster on the world again.

Bebel, the new president and chief operating officer of Napster, is scrambling to set Napster free by March 2004 under his latest parent company, Roxio Inc. Only this time, Napster, the popular online file-sharing service that became the bane of the record labels' existence a couple of years ago, will not really be free. Instead of letting music fans make digital copies of songs for no charge, the new Napster will likely charge subscribers about $10 a month or more to copy and play thousands of songs.

"The market is really ripe for Napster," Bebel insisted. He pointed to the early success of Apple Computer's new iTunes Music Store, which allows Macintosh users to download songs for 99 cents apiece, as a favorable sign.

Bebel should know. The 41-year-old native of Endicott has been a pioneer in the online entertainment business for more than seven years. He plunged into the business in early 1996 when he started exploring new media initiatives for his old company, Seagram's Universal Music Group. During the late 1990s and 2000, he helped create several early online music ventures, including one called GetMusic.

"I was always thinking that there were significant opportunities for, at least, marketing and promotion online," he said. "Even through the years at Seagram's, I was looking for the ability to harness people on a one-to-one level."

Most recently, Bebel ran Pressplay, one of the world's first commercial online music services. Launched two years ago as a joint venture of Universal and Sony Music Entertainment, Pressplay offers unlimited access to its bulging music files for a monthly subscription fee. Its menu includes more than 300,000 songs from all five major record labels and nearly 100 independent ones, as well as 50 pre-programmed digital radio stations. It competes against such other commercial online services as MusicNet, as well as such popular, free Napster successors as Kazaa, Morpheus and LimeWire.

Pressplay will soon morph into the new Napster, thanks to Roxio's ambitions for it and Bebel. After securing the Napster name in the company's bankruptcy auction last year, Roxio bought Pressplay for $39.5 million in cash and stock last May. Roxio Chair-CEO Chris Gorog then created a Napster division within the company and named Bebel to his new position.

Bebel is clearly thrilled to have the new executive post. "I never really knew I'd be in a position to run an online business," he marveled. "It allows me to use every skill and all my imagination."

Not surprisingly, then, Bebel is ready to face the music. While he's proud of how far Pressplay has come in two years, he believes that "Napsterizing" it will catapult it to great success because of the strength of the Napster brand. In fact, he loves to talk about the potential of the reborn Napster to transform the online entertainment business by finally establishing a solid economic model for a premium music service: "We're really talking about changing the very dynamics of the industry.

For all his enthusiasm about the field, Bebel did not set out to become an online music maestro. At Binghamton, for example, the only sign of his future calling was his early embrace of Prodigy, one of the first commercial online services. "I really didn't have a clue that I would end up in the entertainment business," he said.

In fact, before coming to Universal, Bebel held financial management and business development posts with companies in such unrelated industries as lumber products, cosmetics, soft drinks and liquor. Often, he chose firms in the midst of thorny transitions, trying either to emerge from bankruptcy, shed unprofitable business lines or move into more promising ones.

From 1989 to 1991, for instance, Bebel spent time ringing bells at Avon, helping the cosmetics firm divest such far-afield business lines as retirement villages while modernizing and upgrading its sales operations. "They were in a turnaround themselves," he said. "I like challenges like this."

Clearly, though, nothing has ever enthralled Bebel the way the online music business has. "I love what I do," he said. "It's leading edge. It's packed with every bit of challenge. . . It definitely is a major step up from lumber products.

After a stint in Los Angeles, Bebel now lives in Westfield, N.J., with his wife and three children, ages 2, 6 and 9. "It's what keeps me grounded," he said.

-- Alan Breznick '79