EMI Group have confirmed that former Warner Music boss **Roger
Ames** has been recruited on a consulting basis to act as a senior adviser, although the major record company gave little away as to what his role will be. Their statement said simply: "Former
Warner Music Group Chairman and CEO Roger Ames has been appointed as a senior advisor to EMI Music by its chairman and CEO, **Alain
Levy, and Vice Chairman, David Munns**."
Word has it Ames will work with EMI in a worldwide A&R role, however much of the talk following the announcement centred not on what he will do for the label on a day to day basis, but on what his appointment might imply about EMI's mindset regarding merging with Warner Music.
While at Warner, Ames was proactive in his attempts to shape some kind of a merger between the two majors, but those efforts came to a halt when the major's parent company, Time Warner, sold the business to a consortium of private investors led by **Edgar
Bronfman Jnr**. With Bronfman taking the top job at Warner post acquisition, Ames was slowly sidelined out of the company, although he is thought to have parted on good terms with the major's top guard.
While neither EMI nor Warner will officially admit that they are considering approaching the other regarding a merger, rumour has it such a venture has been high up on Bronfman Jnr's priority list ever since he took over and that negotiations may begin between the two companies once Warner has completed its pending share sale.
The logic for such a merger is that EMI and Warner are both now dwarfed by their main competitors - Universal and SonyBMG.
Music business consultant Barry Massarsky told Reuters yesterday:
"There's no doubt that you will see a reattempt to couple
Warner and EMI. They are both facing tremendous competitive pressures from Universal and SonyBMG and they need firepower to collectively compete in the market. Having Roger on board at EMI represents a de facto integration of thinking. He has the benefit of both perspectives."
Which is great news, because we know how much CMU Daily readers love label merger news - it's a particular favourite of one of our sub-editors who gets to proof every story. And there'd be a lot of stories because any merger would be a long drawn out affair given that the two majors would need to win the support of European competition officials for any such merger, and the independent sector will lobby EU officials hard in opposition to any more consolidation in the music sector.