Background to the Music Industry!

The Music Industry is dominated by 4 trans-national corporations

•  Universal/AOL-Time Warner
•  Sony/BMG
•  Warner Bros
•  EMI

These are known as ‘The Majors’

 Most majors also own, or licence, a string of smaller subsidiary companies in order to reach different kinds of audiences in different kinds of genre.

These companies are known as ‘Major-Independents’ and are operated under the “loose-tight” approach.

The Majors also exclusively distribute their own global product. They also distribute for their ‘Major Independents’ and other ‘True Independents’

.Finally, there are a huge number of small companies with little or no financial connection to the majors.

These companies often concentrate on a small number of artists, within specialised niches in the industry. These are known as ‘true independents’.

Most record companies organise themselves internally into several key areas:

•  Artists and Repertoire (A&R)
•  Marketing/Artist Development
•  Promotions
•  Legal
•  Financial

The industry as a whole has a complex relationship with a number of different media. 

To be successful and artist must receive exposure via Radio, TV, Print media, Film, New Media. The co-ordinated simultaneous use of these media is known in the industry as a ‘Cross-Media marketing Campaign’.

   This relationship is ‘symbiotic’.