NEW YORK—Less than halfway through EMI Records’ music premium promotion with McDonald’s, approximately 4.5 million CDs and cassettes have been sold, according to the fast -food chain and the record company. Originally slated to end Sept. 22, the promotion has been extended to Sept. 28.

Garth Brooks, one of four artists participating in the program00and the spokesman for the promotion–has seen the biggest results, both in sales at McDonald’s and retail sales of his catalog. As of Sept. 13, more than 2 million copies of “The Garth Brooks Collection,” featuring 10 of the singer’s favorite non-single cuts from his five albums, have been sold through the restaurant. Additionally, all five of Brooks’ albums (not including his Christmas album) climb Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart this week, as do three of his albums on The Billboard 200. The promotion, which involves 9,500 McDonald’s restaurants, started Sept. 2.

The other artists involved in the national promotion also are seeing strong numbers at McDonald’s. According to the EMI Records Group, Tina Turner’s greatest hits package has surpassed the 1 million-unit mark, Elton John’s collection of hits and classic album cuts is bumping up against the million mark, and Roxette’s 10-song sampler from its forthcoming “Crash! Boom! Bang!” album has sold more than 400,000 copies. The CDs sell for $5.99, and cassettes for $3.99, with the purchase of a meal at McDonald’s (Billboard, July 23). One dollar from the sale of each album goes to Ronald McDonald Children’s Charities.

“I’m real happy at selling about a million a week, but it’s like everything else in my career: Don’t confuse happiness with being satisfied,” says Brooks. “We wanted to shoot for a million a week, but I’d be happier if it were 3 or 4 million a week.”

Turner’s manager, Roger Davies, says Turner is thrilled about her figures. “The main reason we did this project was for the charity. She’s raised $1 million in this first 10 days. And EMI is very confident that Tina will do over 2 million units.”

According to EMI Records Group North America chairman/CEO Charles Koppelman, “The promotion has accomplished up to this point what I thought it would accomplish, and I’m sure we’re going to sell a tremendous amount more. But more importantly than that, it isn’t just how many units are we going to sell, but the awareness of the artists in the program. My purpose for using an artist such as Roxette in this promotion is that here in the U.S. they are not as well known as in the rest of the world. I felt that by the association with McDonald’s and the other artists, that would change.”

Although music retailers have been unhappy about the McDonald’s promotion in general, many of them have been irate over the Roxette title, which is the only collection available at the restaurant that contains previously unreleased material. The Roxette album, with five additional tracks, goes to retail Oct. 4 at full price (Billboard, Sept. 10).

Robert Thorne, Roxette’s attorney worldwide, agrees with Koppelman that the group has gotten an incredible amount of exposure from the promotion. Despite some vociferous objections from retailers, Thorne believes that retail ultimately will benefit from the campaign. “We feel that the McDonald’s program will prove to be promotional, and not competitive [with retail],” he says. “An analogy would be direct telemarketing sales for any entertainment product. It has been demonstrated that in many instances, you didn’t deplete the retail market, but you encouraged it by advertising the product.”

And Thorne adopts the adage that there is no such thing as bad press. “Look at the $25 million ad campaign, plus all the millions worth of free ink Roxette has gotten,” he says. “It’s better to be talked about than not, and it’s better to be associated with Garth, Elton, and Tina than not … The goal is to stimulate awareness and demand for the [new] album going into the Christmas selling season.”

In conjunction with the promotion, Cerna offered retailers deep discounts on catalog titles by the participating artists. Additionally, there is a bounceback coupon in each of the McDonald’s albums, good for a discount on back titles by the acts, redeemable at Musicland outlets and that chain’s Sam Goody and On Cue stores. The Minneapolis-based Musicland web has a total of 1,294 stores.

Koppelman says it is too soon to measure the effect of the bounceback coupon. Musicland had no comment on the promotion.

Other retailers that bought into the discounted catalog were experiencing varying degrees of sales increases. David Lang, president of nine-store, New Jersey-based Compact Disc World, says his stores have seen a major increase in the Elton John titles. “Elton John’s greatest hits package hit top 20 in some of our stores, and was top 40 all over,” he says. He notes that the stores are also seeing “slight” increases on Turner and Brooks titles.

“We sold a few extra pieces, particularly on Garth Brooks, but nothing to get real excited about,” says Sandy Bean, VP of advertising at the 37-store Harmony House Records & Tapes chain, based in Troy, Mich.

Although none of Turner’s albums have resurfaced on the charts, Davies says EMI has told him that it is seeing a 10% increase in her catalog sales, a number it is pleased with this early in the promotion.

Koppelman predicts that all of the albums in the McDonald’s promotion will sell. The food chain purchased 12 million–15 million copies of the four titles.

Other than Roxette’s expanded album, Koppelman does not know if any of the titles will be repackaged for retail. Similarly, Brooks says, “I do not know the answer to that question yet. I’d have to look at our contract and see what we’re able to do.” Davies says that Turner’s project will definitely not show up at retail, since she is already represented by more complete greatest hits packages.

SENSITIVE TO RETAIL

Although the program’s participants say there is nothing in the promotion they would change, they are sympathetic to retail’s concerns. Both Brooks and Davies say that if it were not for the charity angle, they would not have taken part.

The promotion “takes away from retail,” says Davies. “It’s not that [Turner] really [needs] it: We just finished a successful tour and had a successful movie and album. We’re always worried about overexposure. The charity element is the reason we did it.” He adds that Turner was adamant about not giving McDonald’s any material not already available at retail.

Brooks has nothing but praise for the way McDonald’s has handled the promotion, but adds, “As wonderful a ground as this has been to launch product, I wouldn’t have done it if it weren’t for the charity. McDonald’s didn’t come to me in 1989, like [the rackjobbers] Handleman and Leiberman, and court me and have me do in-stores. I believe in trying to take care of those people who take care of you.”

A spokesperson for John says that what is most pleasing to the artist is that, in addition to the money raised for RMCC, PolyGram has pledged $150,000 from its profits from the sale of John’s collection to the singer’s AIDS foundation. John is the only non-Cema artist involved in the deal. According to Koppelman, McDonald’s officials specifically requested John’s involvement, so EMI made a deal with PolyGram to use some of the singer’s older material.

Although the artists did not donate their albums, all took substantial royalty cuts because of the charity involved. Koppelman had no comment on how much he expects EMI Records Group to make on the promotion.