Ted Cohen (born January 6, 1949) is an American digital entertainment industry executive. Having served in senior management positions at EMI Music, Warner Bros. Records and Philips Media,[1] Cohen is currently the Managing Partner of TAG Strategic.[2]
A 40-year industry veteran, Cohen currently chairs Visionary Committee for MidemNet,[3] served on the NARAS (Grammy) Los Angeles chapter Board of Governors as well as the National Trustee Board and currently co-chairs the Grammy Technology Committee. Cohen serves on the Board of Directors for the Neil Bogart Memorial Fund, Lyricfind.com, and Music.com, and lends his time and talents to music and technology education and assistance efforts such as the Grammy In The Schools Program and MusiCares. Cohen also served two terms as the Chairman of the Mobile Entertainment Forum Americas in 2006 and 2007.[4][5]
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In 1964, Ted started hanging out at The Mike Douglas Show in Cleveland, OH. At the time, only 14 years old, he met Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys & The Byrds through the television talk show. Inspired and motivated by these artists, Cohen soon started managing bands in high school and during this time managed Eric Carmen who would later form Raspberries.[6]
In 1967, Ted moved to Ithaca, New York to attend Ithaca College and threw himself into the music scene. He promoted shows at school, worked at clubs booking bands & worked for college radio station WICB for 2 years. As a result, his grades suffered and Ted was told to go home for a semester. He managed to literally talk his way into John Carroll University in Cleveland and moved back to Ohio in summer of 1969. Within two weeks at the school, Ted was calling the shots for WJCU as Music Director for the college radio station. That very particular year, the momentous Woodstock took place in August & Ted was instrumental in promoting the festival in Ohio by giving out tickets through the then-influential radio station.[7]
In June 1970, Ted bagged his first paid industry job as Assistant Buyer at Disc Records - a 34 store national music retail chain based in Cleveland. A year later, he got hired as local record promoter at Columbia Records and moved to Cincinnati, OH. At Columbia Records, Cohen worked closely on releases by Chicago, Blood, Sweat & Tears and Boz Scaggs.
In the Fall of 1971, Ted was recruited by Warner Bros. Records under the same job profile of a local record promoter. Two years later, Ted got promoted to Director of East Coast Artist Development and relocated to Boston, MA.[8] Over the next 10 years, Ted worked closely with Alice Cooper, The Doobie Brothers, Fleetwood Mac, The Who, Van Halen, Prince, Talking Heads, Robert Palmer, The Beach Boys, The Sex Pistols, George Benson, The Pretenders, The Ramones, Roxy Music, Asia, Al Jarreau and many others.
At the suggestion of the legendary audio/video inventor Henry Kloss, Ted started attending the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Chicago in 1976 and discovered his love for technology, consumer experience, interface design and everything audio & video.[7] CES was well attended by technology pioneers and Cohen met a bunch of such innovative cutting-edge companies. Attending the 1976 Chicago CES were a very scruffy Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak, carrying with them the legendary Apple 1 computer in a brown canvas zippered case. They wandered into Kloss’s Advent suite at the Drake Hotel and demonstrated the Apple 1’s unique color graphics capability. Another such company was Atari that was acquired by Warner Communications in 1976. In 1979, Atari gifted Ted with an Atari 800 computer and a 300 baud Hayes Smartmodem. Ted was hooked!
In 1982, Warner Bros. Records creative executive Stan Cornyn asked Ted to join an innovative new media work group, a cross-division effort between Warner Bros. Records and Atari.[7] The group was led by GUI creator Alan Kay and, along with Cohen, included Voyager/Criterion founder Robert Stein & audio expert Al McPherson. The purpose of the group was to look at the inevitable interaction between the nascent personal computer & the imminent debut of the Compact Disc and CD-ROM, and their combined impact on the consumer music fan experience in the coming years.
On April 23, 1984, Cohen resigned his position at Warner Bros. Records after watching the seminal rock mockumentary This is Spinal Tap the previous night with Robert Fripp & Tony Levin from King Crimson. Having spent 10 years working with Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep, Dio and Slade, This Is Spinal Tap uniquely summarized Ted’s life on the road with bands; it was time for a change.
Ted joined Westwood One on June 1, 1984 as Head of Talent Acquisition and worked on projects for Elton John, Stevie Nicks, Foreigner & Neil Young. After a year, Ted left his job at Westwood One and joined Sandy Gallin, Morey & Associates, an artist management firm. During his tenure there, he worked with Dolly Parton, The Pointer Sisters, Neil Diamond, Donny Osmond, Paul Shaffer and America.
In 1986, Ted co-founded Cypress Records,[9] where he was instrumental in the marketing and promotion of releases from Jesse Colin Young, Kenny Rankin, Southside Johnny and the critically acclaimed Famous Blue Raincoat album from Jennifer Warnes. In 1987, he started consulting Philips Media on Interactive Media Projects for CD-i. Ted left Cypress Records in September, 1989 and joined Philips Media full time as Producer of CD-i Music titles. He went on to work on titles from The Cranberries, Santana, Dave Matthews and Soundgarden, among many others. Ted was promoted to VP of Music in 1994 and worked with Philips Media for 3 years till December 1996, when the company was slated to be phased out by the parent corporation, Philips, the staff reduced from 200+ to only 10 caretakers.[1]
Over the next 3 years, Ted Cohen worked as a digital music/media consultant for Liquid Audio, Napster, Microsoft, Amplified, Universal Studios, Rioport, Amazon, Wherehouse Music, Dreamworks Records and music.com, among others. During this period, he co-created the Webnoize Conference in Los Angeles in 1998 and MidemNet in January 2000 in Cannes, France.[1]
On May 8, 2000, Cohen joined EMI as VP of New Media and was subsequently promoted to SVP of Digital Development & Distribution. During his tenure with EMI, Ted combined his experiences in Artist Development from the early part of his career & his subsequent technology background to maximize EMI’s digital initiatives, focusing on establishing key consumer distribution partnerships, as well as asset management & the digital delivery processes. Ted was instrumental in negotiating the agreements for iTunes, Napster, Rhapsody among 100+ digital licensing deals.[1] He additionally worked on the digital marketing campaigns for Joss Stone’s first two S-Curve/Virgin albums. In May 2006, Ted resigned to return to digital entertainment consulting.[10]
Ted launched TAG Strategic on July 5, 2006. TAG's initial few clients included Gibson Guitar Corporation, Muze, EMI Music, Limewire, EyeSpot and Participant Media. Since then, TAG Strategic has gone on to work with Coca-Cola, Verizon Communications, SanDisk, Hello Music, Stream Jam, UK Trade & Investment, Buymyplaylist.com and Emblaze Mobile, among many others.[11]
TAG Strategic recently tied up with Rosenzweig & Company, the international recruitment firm led by Jay Rosenzweig, and Blue Frog as key strategic partners.[12]