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Jon Satterley (30) has been in the record business over 10 years. Getting a foot in the door as a shop assistant at Melbourne's legendary Greville Records in 1988, he has been involved in nearly all aspects of the business of music since. Working part-time at said store, as well as Missing Link record store in the early nineties, Jon completed a Law Degree with Honours and Arts Degree at Melbourne University in 1993. Abandoning his attempt at a Masters of Law, Jon adopted Siren Records (now Siren Entertainment), as his music industry home, initially as a box packer and later as their Local Distribution Manager.
In 1995 Jon applied for the job of 'General Manager of an international record label' (as it read in the local paper). To his amazement, the gig was offered to him and he found himself running the Australian office of the international record label, Roadrunner Records. Initially based within the bowels of Shock Records, who were the distributors of Roadrunner at the time, Jon had only one other staffer, and was handed a box of papers and told : 'go be the general manager'.
Switch to 2000. Roadrunner Records Australia has its own impressive base in Brunswick, Victoria. Jon is the Managing Director. There is now a staff of eight and Sony Music distributes the label. Turnover has multiplied over 350%. The company has been transformed into a multi-million dollar business. As well as its traditional record company activities, Roadrunner publishes Outsider Magazine, Australia's only glossy hard music magazine, and operates Metalshop, one of the country's most popular music websites. Roadrunner also owns a database of over 30,000 individuals, all who have bought one of the label's CDs over the past four years - a formidable marketing tool.
In Jon's words : 'I'm tired of hearing these dot.com upstarts predicting the death of the music industry. We're traveling very nicely at the moment. The music we specialize in (metal/rock) has enormous, universal appeal. It's just a matter of time before the mainstream industry understands what we have known for a long time. Only problem is, we might have to share the pie we currently own!'
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