| CMU Directory: What is a major label? |
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What record companies do...
The music industry is traditionally structured around the record companies - the companies who record music and sell it to the general public. A record company covers the costs of recording, pressing, distributing and marketing albums for all the acts they sign, making their money back by taking a proportion of any income generated by record sales and the royalty fees that are charged every time one of their recordings is used commercially (played on a radio station, used in an advert, featured on a film soundtrack etc etc). People generally distinguish between two types of record companies - major and independent. This page deals with the former.
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What makes a major record company 'major'...
The so called major record companies are those that were historically owned by one of the major entertainment groups; a major entertainment group being a conglomerate with interests in a number of different kinds of entertainment companies like film studios, TV networks, book and magazine publishers, video game makers and consumer electronic firms.
However, only two of the four major record companies still fulfill that definition - Universal Music, which is owned by Vivendi (which has interests in TV, film, video game and tel co companies), and SonyBMG, which is owned by two such conglomerates, Sony Corp (which has interests TV, film, video game and consumer electronics companies) and Bertelsmann (which has interests in TV, magazine and book publishing).
Warner Music has no parent company, being partly owned by a consortium led by its Chairman, Edgar Bronfman Jr, and partly publicly owned. EMI is owned by Terra Firma which, while also owning drinks and cinema companies, is not considering an major entertainment group.
So these days the major record companies are basically those in which Vivendi, Sony Corp, Bertelsmann, Warner Music or Terra Firma have at least a 50% stake. Which means there are four major record companies - the Universal Music Group, SonyBMG Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI Group.
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Music publishing and other operations
Three of the four major record companies - Universal, Warner and EMI - also own music publishing companies, which sign and invest in songwriters and composers, and which make money by taking a cut of any revenues generated by recordings of their songs, and by charging a royalty whenever those songs are performed or are played on TV or radio. SonyBMG does not own a music publishing company, though one of its parent companies, Sony Corp, owns Sony/ATV Music Publishing, which is also considered a 'major music publisher'.
Generally a major music publishing company will operate completely independently from the the major record company it shares ownership with.
Obviously many artists these days are both recording artists and songwriters, which means they will have a deal with both a record company and a music publishing company. However, these are separate deals, and generally an artist who has a recording deal with one record company would not sign a publishing deal with that firm's sister publishing company, instead having a publishing contract with a different major publisher or an independent publishing company.
We mention the major's publishing businesses in our UK major label profiles here, and there is a separate section on music publishing here.
Some major record companies are also now moving into other areas of music, especially merchandising, touring and artist management, though this is a relatively new trend brought about by the fact these areas are now proving more profitable than record sales.
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Record companies and record labels
You will find people use the terms 'record company' and 'record label' to mean the same thing, though you could argue there is a difference. Each of the major record companies consist of a number of divisions, and each artist signed to a company will be assigned to a specific division. You could say the overall company is the 'record company' and each division is a 'record label'. So SonyBMG is a record company, and its divisions, Columbia, RCA, Epic etc are labels.
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Primary and secondary labels
Each division, or label, will have their own A&R teams, and may have specific genre specialisms. Generally there are two kinds of label in each major record company, the big ones and the small ones - we call them the 'primary labels' and the 'secondary labels'.
The primary labels are generally the older more established labels who have the largest, and often more mainstream, rosters. The secondary labels are smaller, newer and can sometimes exist for the promotion of just one band (in fact some secondary labels are set up mainly to satisfy the ego of one particular artist, and really only exist as a logo on that artist's releases - in practical terms they are really signed to another primary or secondary label).
Some secondary labels only really consist of an A&R team and all marketing and distribution will be done by one of the primary labels, or by a central marketing team that market releases from numerous (maybe even all) labels from across a record company.
Other secondary labels operate autonomously from the primary labels. Some secondary labels act so autonomously you might think they are, in fact, an independent record label (and sometimes that's what they want you to believe!). That can be especially true if a secondary label began life as an independent but was then bought by a major - often when that happens the former indie will initially carry on as before despite being owned by the major, though invariably they will eventually become less autonomous.
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The global dimension
Generally speaking most secondary labels will only really operate in one country, and when their artists' albums are released in other territories they will be handled by one of the primary labels in those territories, or by a department that specifically deals with 'international releases'.
Actually, many of the primary labels only really operate in one country also, meaning that while an artist may be signed to one record company globally, they will be released by different subsidiary labels in different territories. Confusingly some primary labels in different countries have the same names but different rosters. So, there is an Island Records in the UK and an Island Records in the US, both owned by Universal Music. Keane are signed to Island UK, but are released by Universal's Interscope label in the US, The Killers are signed to Island US, but are released by Universal's Vertigo label in the UK.
Confused? Yeah, you should be.
To make it even more confusing, every so often major record companies restructure and as a result some of the secondary labels may be closed down. Artists on those labels' rosters are either dropped or moved to other labels within the group.
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Record labels online
Some of the major record companies have central websites for all the artists on all their labels' rosters, others have separate websites for each of their primary labels. Secondary labels sometimes have their own site, or rely on their group or primary label sites for exposure. Where a secondary label is not based in the UK they may have a website in their home country, but rely on a central website in the UK. So now you know.
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Media contacts
If you are a media person looking for information about a major label artist the starting point is finding out which record label they are signed to and then calling or emailing the PR or promotions department at that label. Press contacts are given in our directory here (the major labels are on a grey background).
Secondary labels often do not have their own PR or promotions department, so you would need to contact the PR or promotions department of the primary label they are affiliated to (some of these affiliations are given in our guide to the major labels here).
If the artist is signed to a major label outside the UK, generally the right media contact will be in a PR or promotions department at a label owned by the same parent company in the UK - so Eminem is signed to Universal's Interscope in the US, the UK media contact is at Universal's Polydor over here (some of these US to UK links are explained in our guide to the major labels here).
Remember, major record labels generally have separate departments to deal with newspapers and magazines (PR) and radio and TV (promotions or plugging). They also often hire the services of PR and promotions agencies to handle the media on certain (sometimes all) releases. More details about all this nonsense is given in our guide to PR and promotions agencies here.
