Warner Music Group
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| Warner Music Group | |
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| Type | Public (NYSE: WMG) |
|---|---|
| Founded | Spin-off from Time Warner Music publishing founded 1929; Record division founded 1958 |
| Headquarters | New York, New York, USA |
| Key people | Edgar Bronfman, Jr., Chairman & CEO |
| Industry | Music & Entertainment |
| Revenue |  $3.502 Billion (USD; 2006) |
| Net income |  $169.0 Million (USD; 2006) |
| Employees | 4,000 (2006) |
| Website | Warner Music |
Warner Music Group (WMG) is one of the four major record labels.
Warner Music Group also has a publishing arm, Warner Chappell Music which dates back to 1929, when Jack Warner, president of Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc., founded Music Publishers Holding Company (“MPHC”) to acquire music copyrights as a means of providing inexpensive music for films. Amongst the historic compositions in which the publishing rights are controlled by WMG are the works of Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. Its printed music operation, Warner Bros. Publications, was sold to Alfred Publishing on June 1, 2005.
WMG's roots in what became Time Warner date back to the founding of Warner Bros. Records as a division of the Warner Bros. movie studio in 1958. After Warner Bros. became Warner Bros.-Seven Arts in 1967, it purchased Atlantic Records, now WMG's oldest label. When its successor Kinney National Company bought Elektra Records in 1970 and then became Warner Communications in 1972, it assembled the three labels into a group then known as WEA (Warner-Elektra-Atlantic); that name was also used as a label outside the U.S. (WMG's current logo is the former Warner Communications logo.) Warner Communications eventually merged with Time Inc. to form Time Warner.
Time Warner sold the company in 2004 to a group of investors led by Edgar Bronfman, Jr. for $2.6 billion. Time Warner was reportedly attempting to reduce its debt load. This spinoff was completed on February 27, 2004.
In the 2004 transition to independent ownership, WMG hired record industry heavyweight Lyor Cohen from Universal Music Group to attempt to reduce cost and increase performance.
On May 3, 2006, WMG apparently rejected a buyout offer from EMI[1]. Then WMG offered to buy EMI and they also rejected the offer. The two companies are still in talks about potential merger. The headquarters are located at 75 Rockefeller Plaza, New York City, NY, USA.
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[edit] List of Warner labels
Warner Music Group's labels include:
- The Atlantic Records Group
- 143 Records—founded in 1994 by David Foster.
- Atlantic Records—founded in 1947 by Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson.
- Bad Boy Records—founded in 1993 by Sean "Diddy" Combs.
- Elektra Records—founded in 1950 by Jac Holzman.
- Independent Label Group
- Asylum Records—founded in 1971 by David Geffen.
- Cordless Recordings
- East West Records—founded in 1955 (today serves as an umbrella label for various "indie" labels.)
- Rhino Entertainment Company.
- Atco Records
- Rhino Records
- Rhino Home Video
- Warner Custom Products
- Warner Music Group Soundtracks
- WMG Film, Television & Commercial Licensing
- Ryko Corporation
- Rykodisc Records & subsidiary labels.
- Ryko Distribution
- Warner Bros. Records, Inc.
- Warner Bros. Records—launched by Warner Bros. Pictures in 1958.
- Blacksmith Records—founded by Talib Kweli in 2005.
- Maverick Records—founded by Freddy DeMann and Madonna in 1991.
- Nonesuch Records—founded by Jac Holzman in 1964.
- Reprise Records—founded by Frank Sinatra in 1960
- Ruffnation Records
- Sire Records—founded by founded by Seymour Stein in 1966.
- Warner Jazz
- Warner Nashville
- Warner Western
- Word Entertainment
- Word Label Group
- Word Records, a Christian music group founded 1951
- Squint Entertainment
- Word Publishing
- Word Distribution
- Word Music
- Word Label Group
- Warner Music International
- Warner Music UK
- London Records (originally the U.S. label for Decca)
- 679 Recordings
- 1967 Ltd
- Must Destroy Records (distribution)
- The Beats (labels deal)
- WSM (warner.esp)
- Warner Music Gallo Africa
- Gallo Record Company—the largest South African record label
- RPM Records
- Warner Music Australia
- Warner Music UK
[edit] Independent record labels distributed by Warner Music Group
- Lightyear Entertainment
- Sub Pop
- New Line Records
- Green label records
- SaraBellum Records (formerly)
[edit] Trivia
- Warner Music Group is the only one of the Big Four label groups that does not trace its roots back to the pre-1900 labels Columbia Records and Berliner Gramophone. Those U.S. labels' British licensees merged to become EMI in 1931; then in 2004, the successors to the original labels merged to form Sony BMG Music Entertainment. Universal Music Group's oldest label, Deutsche Grammophon, was founded in 1898 as the German licensee of Berliner Gramophone. In contrast, all of WMG's major labels were founded after World War II.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
