Parent Companies And The Music Industry

The music industry is structured by a 4 major companies auch as Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Group, Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group. These companies also own lots of smaller sub-labels, for example Columbia records which is owned by sony and they have signed Ted Wallerstein, BMG which is also owned by sony. Also there are independent labels that are not owned by any of the 4 record labels for example MMG (Mayback Music), Young Money and Cash Money are all independent record labels.

Sony own the majority of the music industry. This is benificial for them because they will make more profit and they will become more know this will also mean that artist will want to come to their record label. This is effective because the Sony company will gain profit and also they keep a good reprtation in the industry.

Sub-labels are controlled by a major compaines for example Columbia is a sub-label company owned by Sony. They may have more financial input put into the label because they are funded by a major label. Therefor they have more money to promote their artists and bigger budgets to launch new artists. Independent companies may find it harder to promote an artist because the sub-labels have the financial backing of the majors.

They may have less money to spend on launching an artist. The artists may be less known with only a few making it big in the popular music chart, such as Rick Ross. Because he owns his own music label which is called MMG (Mayback Music) and isn't know in the music charts. The artists tend to be seen as less manufactured and focus more on music than image. The fans respect the independent labels because they are seen to be more musically credible than artists signed to major labels.