OBSERVER VS. SOUND WAREHOUSE-ROUND TWO

MEDIA Those skittish folks at Sound Warehouse are at it again. In January, the stores once again stopped distributing the Dallas Observer. The music giant has kicked the tabloid out before, but then it was for purely puritanical reasons-Sound Warehouse honchos objected to the paper’s 1-900 sextalk ads. (Sound Warehouse also refused to sell the last album by smut-rappers 2 Live Crew.) Each time, though, customer demand forced the company to make amends and provide space for the Observer.

This time money, not morality, is behind the decision to boot the paper. Seems that Best Buy, an electronics/video/music chain, has been taking out large advertisements in the Observer, touting low prices on CDs and cassettes-some of them lower than Sound Warehouse can afford to match.

“They got tired of customers going up to their employees and saying, ’Hey, why should I buy this tape here when I can get it there for less?’” says an Observerstaffer. So Sound Warehouse told the paper to pick up its racks and issued an ultimatum: Quit taking Best Buy’s ads or lose a major distributor. The Observer refused.

Sound Warehouse officials didn’t return repeated phone calls from D Magazine, but the Observer is still trying to mend fences. The circulation of the weekly dipped during early January, but the Observer’s circulation director says distribution has since picked up to its previous level-although the Sound Warehouse ads have gotten smaller.