As if to respond to recent reports in Billboard and from Reuters that tricky artist and employee contract clauses were throwing a spanner in the works at EMI where chief Guy Hands is busy trying to sack 2000 people, the major restructured its US radio promotion operations yesterday, and showed several plugging types the door.
According to Billboard, among those to go were Virgin Records VP Promotion Dave Reynolds, Virgin Direction Of Promotion Operations Jordan Rosenblatt, several plugging assistants in the major's LA offices, and regional reps in Boston, Chicago and Florida. The trade mag also cite sources as saying that the Capitol Records VP Promotion Greg Thomson, formerly of Universal's Island Def Jam, has been promoted to corporate level and will lead all the major's US wide promotion operations, except, for some reason, for EMI Christian, possibly because God doesn't like him.
As previously reported, Hands has said he will cut 2000 jobs at EMI - a third of his staff - in the first half of the year as part of his radical overhaul of the music firm. The original plan was to have the restructure done and dusted before the summer, though some are reporting that the downsizing is behind schedule, though EMI say everything is proceeding as planned.