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BMG and Primary Wave announce strategic alliance
By Chris Cooke | Published on Tuesday 3 September 2013
BMG this morning announced a new strategic alliance with Primary Wave Music, which will see the two companies operate a joint artist services business in North America, and BMG take an interest in Primary Wave’s publishing catalogue.
The new joint venture, to be known as BMG/Primary Wave Artist Services, will sign artists to deals similar to those already operated by the recordings side of BMG, where the artist retains rights ownership, with BMG providing investment, rights management, sync representation and other back office services. Primary Wave, which already has publishing, management and brand partnership units, will provide the marketing services element of the new business.
On the music publishing side, Primary Wave will continue to manage and market the firm’s catalogue, which includes numerous famous songs acquired since the US independent launched in 2006 through the acquisition of half of the Kurt Cobain oeuvre. The two companies will also collaborate on discovering and developing new songwriters, and administering resulting publishing rights.
Confirming the deal, BMG boss Hartwig Masuch told CMU: “The US remains the heartland of and biggest single market in the worldwide music industry. This strategic alliance with Primary Wave, one of the most respected independents in the business, gives us control of some of the greatest copyrights in popular music in one stroke, while also strengthening our marketing resources in promoting new recordings. And from the writer’s perspective, we are confident this deal will open up many new opportunities for the international exploitation of these iconic songs through our proactive BMG team”.
Meanwhile Primary Wave founder and chief Larry Mestel added: “Having worked closely with the old BMG and Bertelsmann in the past while at Arista Records, I’m looking forward to rekindling that strong working relationship and leveraging our various resources and strengths to create a powerhouse partnership that will give artists a refreshing alternative in the industry”.
