Sony Record LabelLauren Mabbett A2 Media

Major Labels

• Clarification;• A major label is an institution in the

music industry. Over the years people have described these music labels as ‘Big’ labels. Currently there are three big labels in the industry.

A Major Label• Big Four labels/major record labels represent the

majority of the music sold, making up as much as 75% of the music market or more depending on the year.

• Artists who are signed to a Big Four record label are either signed to the central label or signed to a subsidiary of the label. For instance, a band may be signed to Sony, or they may be signed to the Sony subsidiary label Columbia Records. These subsidiary labels have their staff and usually sign their own artists and make most of their own financial decisions. However, they are answerable to the "main" company, which sets their overall budget and makes decisions like reducing staff at the subsidiary.

The Big 3• 1. Universal Music Group• 2. Sony GMB• 3. Warner Music Group• 4. EMI group

• Big 4 to Big 3; Wikipedia

• The company was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index, but faced financial troubles and $4 billion dollars in debt, leading to its acquisition by Citigroup in February 2011.[4][5] Citigroup's ownership was temporary, as it announced in November 2011 that it would sell its music arm to Vivendi's Universal Music Group for $1.9 billion, and EMI's publishing business to a Sony/ATV consortium for around $2.2 billion.

Sony• “Sony Music Entertainment UK is part of the

largest music and entertainment companies in the world. “

• Sony are a huge corporation, known for being the world’s fifth largest conglomerate. Sony first started out in Japan. After so many years developing Sony started to expand in production they not only focused on music but on making electrical devices aswell; therefore the full production process would be Sony Equipment. No matter where you are in the world Sony and its productions will have a presence in some way or another. This is a strong example of globalisation within ‘The Big 3’.

• Sony is a CONGLOMERATE INSTITUTION because it is made up of lots of subsidiary companies.

• Sony is a major institution in terms of the music industry.• Sony accounts for more than 5% of the

global music market.

Vertical Integration• Sony Music Entertainment are vertically

integrated. They have Sony DADC Digital Services which is the part of Sony Machine that deals with the production and distribution of Sony’s digital products eg; Music, Video games etc.

• Sony has it’s own ‘in house’ companies that control every stage of the production and distribution so that they don’t have to rely on any other companies.

• Doing this receives full profit for the company.

• Sony’s vertical integration is cleverly controlled as it has great advantages yet many disadvantages that can lead to a loss of profit.

• Sony not only works with other digital distribution giants such as Youtube and Apple but has it’s own companies too that collaborate with the giants.

• Vevo and My Play are two organisations owned by Sony. These give the public free access to watch all the latest videos, news and even shop on My Play.

• • There are some great advantages to vertically

integrating like the ability to globalise in a short amount of time but what does letting free access to music do to the industry? -> Piracy, Peer to Peer and loss of profit.

Horizontal Integration• Sony is also horizontally integrated meaning

that the company caters for all sorts of music audiences. • Sony owns a range of labels that represent

different artists, this meaning that Sony produce music for all sorts of genres catering for niche and mainstream audiences.

• SyCo is Simon Cowell’s company which represent artists that are generated from his tv shows, eg; Susan Boyle, Leona Lewis etc.

• Columbia is Sony’s label which represents mainstream alternative artists such as Foo Fighters, MGMT and Kasabian

• Deconstruction records represent alternative artists such as Lionrock

Social Media

• Twitter, Facebook and Myspace enables people to access the latest information from Sony Music Entertainment, watch videos from the latest music, read news and reviews aswell as hinted new artists on the scene.

• Twitter; Sony Music Global = @ SonyMusicGlobal

- 356,245 followers - 995 following - 10,818 tweets (12.56, 30/03/2014)

• Twitter; Sony Music Uk =• @sonymusicuk - 19,145 followers - 556 following - 2,539 tweets

• Facebook; Sony Music Entertainment• 1,190,670 likes• APP – over 20,000 monthly users

Sony and Synergy• Sony Pictures Entertainment is Sony’s presence

in the film industry.

• Originally a game by Konami, Sony bought the rights to Silent Hill, making the game a Playstation exclusive which sold over two million copies. Sony then made a film based on the game, knowing that the game’s existing fanbase would provide a guaranteed audience at the box office. Sony Music Entertainment also released the original soundtrack for the game.

Sony and Synergy

Sony and Synergy

Sony and Convergence

Proliferation and miniaturisation

All of Sony’s devices are increasingly small yet have a large capacity of storage, these are to compete with products from large companies such as Apple.

The company offers a range of mp3/4 players such as the A series, this is to compete with Apple Inc’s ipod. • Sony Ericsson is a subsidiary company of Sony

and offer a range of mobile phones, including the experia smartphone which incorporates mp3 and mp4 technology as well as allowing users to play Playstation games on the move (convergence).

Record Labels within Sony

Previous Affiliated Labels of Sony