The BIG four

Who are the Big Four?

• In the late 19th and 20th century the music industry was dominated by the publishers of sheet music. By mid-century records had supplanted sheet music as the largest player in the music business. Since 2000 sales of recorded music have dropped dramatically whilst live music has increased in importance.

• There are four main record lables which dominate the music market; Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and EMI smaller companies exist within all of these major groups.

• Between them they own about 84% of the music industry.

EMI

• The EMI group is the third biggest major company in music sales. Key artists which are under the EMI label are;

• The Beatles

• Coldplay

• Gorillaz

• Rolling Stones

• Robbie Williams

• In 2007 EMI was acquired by leading private equity partnership, Terra Firma making EMI the only privately owned music company. =]

EMI

• 2007 2008 2009 2010Revenue 1,808 1,458 1,569 1,651

Overheads (445) (402) (399) (392)

Total Loss (287) (451) (1,567) (512)

• By looking at these figures I have noticed that even though the amount the company has loss is lowering there is still a significant loss this has changed in the music industry this could be due to illegal downloads.

UNIVERSAL• The universal music group sells more music than any other major label.

They accounted for 25% of the market in 2005, according to IFPI. The group’s well-known lable imprints include Geffen, Interscope, Island, Motown, and Universal. Key artists are:

• Black Eyed Peas

• Mariah Crey

• 50 Cent

• Gwen Stefani

• Kayne West

SONY MUSIC

• Sony BMG Music Entertainment is the second biggest major record label in music sales. They accounted for 21.5% of the market in 2005. The company’s well-known label imprints include Arista, Columbia, Epic, J, Jive and RCA. Key artists are:

• Kelly Clarkson

• Alicia Keys

• Kings of Leon

• Britney Spears

• Sony Music Entertainment is now 100% owned by Sony Corporation of America.

• Simon Cowell owns SYCO, a sony owned record label. As he generates much of his own profit from shows like ‘X Factor’, SYCO accounted for 40 % of Sony Music’s overall profit in 2006 and 70% in 2008

Warner Music Group - WMG• The WMG is the fourth major record label in music sales. They accounted for

11.3% of the market in 2005. The group’s well-known label imprints include Asylum, Atlantic, Lava, Reprise, Rhino, and Warner Bros. Key artists are:

• Green Day• Madonna• Alanis Morissette• My Chemical Romance• Eric ClaptonThe WMG currently trades and is Structures in three main units: recording,

licensing and publishing.The company was formed in 2004 when it spuns off from Time Warner, and as a

result, Time Warner no longer retains any ownership. Once free of Time Warner WMG began cutting costs by offloading loss-making or low earning divisions.

Like its rival EMI, Warner reacted to the growth of the digital music market by making historic change. In 2004 WMG became one of the first music companysto aggressively building a number of music based services which would enhance the growth of an artists career. Today they work with artists in the way of artist management, merchandising, touring, fan clubs, VIP tickets