Business News Deals Labels & Publishers

Hostess renews Sony partnership, loses Cooperative contract

By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 9 March 2011

Japanese music company Hostess, which represents numerous European independent artists and labels in the Japanese market, has announced it is renewing its partnerships with Sony, which provides some distribution and digital marketing services to the indie.

Hostess say that being able to tap into Sony’s networks has brought many benefits to the artists it represents, including increased market reach, and a joint effort in the sync domain which has scored Hostess-represented artists some lucrative deals.

Maintaining its partnership with Sony, however, has cost Hostess its relationship with UK-based indie label services business Cooperative Music which is, of course, now part of Universal. Cooperative has decided to use the distribution and marketing networks of Universal’s own Japanese division rather than to continue to work with Hostess and, therefore by association, rivals Sony.

Hostess CEO Andrew Lazonby told CMU: “Renewal of these service partnership deals [with Sony] was never in any real doubt, and with a few minor tweaks happily applied we’re very much looking forward to building on what has been a rewarding first two years working together”.

He continued: “Whilst it is a shame to have to relinquish our Cooperative contract at this time, changing our service partner in Japan was never going to be an option for Hostess and we do understand Universal Music Group International’s wish to now release it’s repertoire through it’s own company Universal Music LLC (Japan). We wish the Co-op management all the very best for their future business with Universal in Japan”.