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Warner
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overview
Warner Music is an international recording and music publishing
group. It was established in 2003 when the Time Warner
conglomerate - discussed in detail here
- sold its record and music publishing arm to a consortium
led by Edgar Bronfman Jr.
This page covers -
 the
group
Warner Music Group (WMG) operates internationally and
is essentially structured as three units - recording,
licensing and publishing.
WMG labels included Atlantic, Bad Boy, Elektra, Lava,
Maverick, Nonesuch, Reprise, Rhino, Sire, Warner Bros.
and Word.
WMG's Warner Music International operates through 37 affiliates
and numerous licensees in over 50 countries.
WMG's publishing arm - Warner/Chappell Music - is one
of the 'big three' music publishers, with a catalogue
of over one million copyrights worldwide.
history
Warner Music traces its origins to the Chappell music
publishing house - established to print, distribute and
licence scores and lyrics - and to record companies acquired
by the Warner Bros film and comic publishing group.
The Warner Bros studio entered
the music business in 1930 with acquisition of Brunswick
Records and four music publishers for US $28 million.
Those operations were sold by the end of the decade. Warner
Bros. Records was launched in 1958, gaining attention
for a 1960 deal with the Everly Brothers - supposedly
the first million dollar record contract. In 1963 it acquired
Reprise Records, founded by Frank Sinatra in 1960. In
1967 Jack Warner sold his stake in Warners - and thus
control of the group (inc Warner Bros. Records and Reprise
Records) - to Seven Arts Productions for around US$95
million.
Seven Arts (rebadged as Warner-Seven Arts) purchased Atlantic
Records in 1967 and in 1969 was acquired by Kinney National,
the comics, talent agency, parking-lot, cleaning and funeral
parlour conglomerate. Kinney acquired Elektra records
(founded by Jac Holzman in 1950) for US$10 million in
1970, subsequently sanitising its scandal-plagued image
by rebadging itself as Warner Communications. The group's
music operations were reorganised under the Warner Elektra
Asylum (WEA) banner and later formed part of the Time
Warner - and then AOL Time Warner conglomerates.
An attempted merger of WEA with Polygram
(later absorbed by Universal
and in turn by Vivendi) was
unsuccessful and a later bid by EMI
did not proceed, with both proposals having raised concerns
among regulators in Europe and the US.
In 2003 Time Warner - suffering
from management disagreements, a sagging share after the
collapse of the dotcom bubble and uncertainty about the
future of the music business in 'the Age of Napster' -
announced the sale of its music operations to an investor
group led by Thomas
H. Lee Partners, Lexa Partners (US$150 million from
Edgar Bronfman Jr, drawing on sale of his family's stake
in Vivendi), Bain
Capital and Providence
Equity Partners. The terms provided for around US$2.6
billion in cash and other consideration, including the
option of Time Warner buying into WMG on favorable conditions.
Following establishment in 2003 the group has been downsizing,
offloading marginal or low revenue units. It has for example
started moving out of record production (particularly
in high cost locations such as the US and the Netherlands)
by closing or selling disk-pressing plants.
In 2005 it sold Warner Bros. Publications to Alfred Publishing,
founded in 1922. Miami-based Warner Bros. Publications
printed and distributed a broad selection of sheet music,
books, educational material, orchestrations and arrangements,
and tutorials. The sale excluded the print music business
of WMG's Word Music (church hymnals, choral music and
associated instrumental music).
Bronfman, Lee, Bain and Providence Equity are understood
to have recouped their investment by May 2006 through
dividends, refinancings and Warner's flotation in May
2005.
In 2006 EMI and Warner Music engaged in a bizarre, bitter
takeover battle with each rejecting an unwelcome US$4.6bn
bid from the other. EMI announced that it had rejected
an offer to be acquired by Warner Music, its smaller rival,
calling the proposal "wholly unacceptable" and
increasing its offer for Warner Music. That offer was
in turn rebuffed.
labels
The group's labels include -
The
Atlantic Group
Atlantic Classics
Atlantic Jazz
Atlantic Nashville
Atlantic Theater
Big Beat
Blackground
Breaking
Curb
Igloo
Lava
Mesa/Bluemoon
Modern
1 43
Rhino Records
Elektra Entertainment Group
Elektra
EastWest
Asylum
Elektra/Sire
Warner Brothers Records
Warner Brothers
Warner Nashville
Warner Alliance
Warner Resound
Warner Sunset
Reprise
Reprise Nashville
American Recordings
Giant
Maverick
Revolution
Qwest
Warner Music International
WEA Telegram
East West ZTT
Coalition
CGD East West
China
Continential
DRO East West
Erato
Fazer
Finlandia
Magneoton
MCM
Nonesuch
Teldec
publishing
Warner/Chappell
Music (publishing company)
other
WEA
Inc. (sales, distribution and manufacturing)
Ivy
Hill Corporation (printing and packaging)
studies
For pointers to works on the prehistory of Warner Music
see the profiles on Time Warner
and Vivendi.
Items of interest include Expensive habits: The dark
side of the music industry (London: Faber 1986) by
Simon Garfield and Fredric Dannen's Hit Men: Power
Brokers & Fast Money Inside The Music Business
(New York: Vintage 1991), an acerbic expose of fine times
among the contemporary music business. Norman Lebrecht's
When The Music Stops (New York: Simon & Schuster
1996) and Maestros, Masterpieces & Madness: The
Secret Life and Shameful Death of the Classical Record
Industry (London: Allen Lane 2007) provide a similar
account of classical music recording.
Works on Edgar Bronfman Jr and his family, such as The
Bronfmans: The Rise and Fall of the House of Seagram
(New York: St Martins Press 2006) by Nicholas Faith, are
highlighted here.
Tom King's David Geffen: A Biography Of New Hollywood
(London: Hutchinson 2000) suggests that while industry
structures have changed - more independent production
for example - the personalities haven't. Stephen Singular's
The Rise & Rise of David Geffen (New York:
Birch Lane 1997) is less substantial.
There is a gentler portrait of Geffen in John Seabrook's
Nowbrow: The Culture of Marketing, the Marketing of
Culture (Knopf: New York 2000), much hyped but largely
devoted to angst about whether the author should wear
a t-shirt with his tailored suit and whether Tina Brown
really is the Wicked Witch
of the West.
For Atlantic see Music Man: Ahmet Ertegun, Atlantic
Records, & the Triumph of Rock 'n' Roll (New York:
Norton 1990) by Dorothy Wade & Justine Picardie and
Making Tracks: Atlantic Records and the Growth of a
Multi-Billion-Dollar Industry (London: Panther 1975)
by Charlie Gillett.
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page (Warner Music landmarks)
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