CHOSEN RECORD LABELBy Alice Venard

Sony Music Entertainment• Sony Music Entertainment (SME) is part of the ‘Big 3’

record labels, meaning it is part of the largest music and entertainment companies in the world.

• Sony are a huge corporation, known for being the worlds fifth conglomerate. Sony originates in Japan. After developing Sony started to expand in porudction, they not only focus on music but on electrical devices and films.

• No matter where you are in the world there will always be the presence of a Sony/Big 3 product.

• Sony is a conglomerate institution meaning that it is made up of lots of subsidiary companies.

• Sony is a major institution in the music industry and is well respected.

• Sony accounts for more than 5% of the global music market.

• However, this means that they are focused on the money rather than the music like indie labels such as XL or Rough Trade.

Vertical Integration• Sony Music Entertainment are vertically integrated. They

have Sony DADC Digital Services which is part of Sony Machine that deals with the production and distribution of Sony’s digital products

• Due to it being Vertically intergrated it means that it has it’s own ‘in house’ companies that control every stage from production to distribution. - this allows them to not have to rely on other companies.

• By doing this, Sony then receives full profit of the company.

• Sony works with digital distribution giants such as YouTube, My Play and Spotify (however they are reconsidering their partnership with the free music streaming website after their decline in sales)

• Vertically integrating has advantages like the ability to globalise in a short amount of time but free access to music can lead to piracy > peer to peer > loss of profit

Horizontal Integration• Sony is horizontal integrated meaning that the company

caters for all sorts of music audiences• Sony owns a range of labels that represent different

artists, this means that Sony can produce music for all genres.

• SyCo is Simon Cowell’s record label which represents that usually come from his reality TV shows such as Leona Lewis, One Direction and Susan Boyle

• Columbia is home to various genres and has signed artists such as Daft Punk, Beyoncé and Calvin Harris. – Adele is signed with Columbia in order to distribute her products in America