LONDON — Tributes have been paid to British music executive Peter Scaping, a widely admired figure in the U.K. record business and former general manager of labels trade body BPI, who has died at the age of 76.
Scaping joined BPI in 1976 from Decca Records and held the post of BPI general manager — where he was responsible for day-to-day affairs — until 2000, by which time his job had grown to encompass director of development and research for the London-based organization.
Having joined BPI at a time when the demand for industry statistics was fast growing, Scaping oversaw production of the first BPI Yearbook in 1976, providing detailed analysis of U.K. record sales and consumption trends of the period.
The text became a vital reference tool for U.K. music execs and Scaping would oversee its production for the next two decades, as well as carry out year-round statistical market research. The BPI Yearbook, now renamed All About The Music, is now on its 43rd edition and continues to be an essential resource for anyone wanting to gain insight into the British recorded music business.
Scaping also played a key role in establishing the first detailed research into the U.K. music industry’s export value, helping to produce the British Invisibles report The Overseas Earnings Of The Music Industry in 1995, which demonstrated the value of the broader industry’s export power.
“I only had the opportunity to work briefly alongside Peter, early in my career, but I was struck by his charming character and his sense of fun,” current BPI chief executive Geoff Taylor says. “He was very fondly regarded as a colleague and a friend at BPI and throughout the industry.”
“[Scaping] made an important contribution at a pivotal time, as our industry began its transformation from CD to digital, and we still benefit from the legacy of his 25 years at the BPI in the shape of our highly respected BPI yearbook,” Taylor says.
“Peter was an unpretentious and very British professional whose candour and no-BS style was enormously helpful to Billboard (and many others) during the industry’s expansive years of the 1980s and ‘90s,” says Adam White, Billboard international editor-in-chief from 1989 to 2002.
Scaping is survived by his wife Julia and three children, Tim, Alison and Paul.
