Australian Idol winner Natalie Gauci's poor sales

THE Winner's Journey album released by Australia Idol victor Natalie Gauci is only half the album it could have been.

Much of her Idol journey - in fact, all of her performances from the popular Network Ten talent quest - has been left out of the CD/DVD package that hit music stores this week.

Rather than following in the successful footsteps of last year's Idol winner Damien Leith and release a CD of the songs she performed on Idol and a DVD featuring her Idol performances, Gauci's record company Sony/BMG made the strange decision not to include the Idol footage on the DVD.

Instead, her album comes with a DVD of an interview between her and John Foreman.

It was rumoured within music circles that a dispute between Fremantle Media, the company that produces Idol, and Sony/BMG was the reason for the missing footage.

However, Freemantle has strongly denied the suggestion, pointing out they had licensed the Idol footage to Sony/BMG and that the record company had made the decision not to include the performances on Gauci's release.

It turns out Sony/BMG is effectively asking Idol fans to pay twice to get their fill of Gauci's rise to fame, releasing a separate DVD called The Final Two featuring footage of Gauci and runner-up Matt Corby's Idol performances.

But it would seem the plan has backfired, with industry feedback suggesting Gauci's album is not selling in the same numbers as Leith's last year.

"This year we wanted to take the Winner's Journey concept a step further, with longer studio recordings of all the songs by Natalie from her Idol journey together with her thoughts and reflections from winning Idol," a Sony/BMG spokeswoman said.

source: http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22931025-5006024,00.html

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