BMG have begun a global restructure which will reduce the autonomy of the group’s operations in each individual country – supposedly to allow the label to work more easily with artists on a global scale. The company will now consist of four main bits – the very corporate sounding ‘labels group’, ‘territory management’, ‘corporate centre’ and ‘chairman’s office’.
As far as we can make out the chairman’s office will handle global marketing, communication and strategy development, the corporate centre will handle all the dull legal and admin stuff, territory management will look after logistical matters in each region, while labels group will release the music.
The labels group will in turn be split into five divisions – Arista, RCA, Jive/Zomba, RLG Nashville and BMG Music Publishing. This confirms that Jive/Zomba – formerly the biggest most commercial independent label in the world which BMG took over completely last year – will remain autonomous on an A&R level, for the time being at least.
It’s not completely clear yet what the restructuring at the top level will mean for BMG’s operations in the UK. The UK company restructured here sometime ago so that all but A&R departments worked on a group wide basis (prior to that press teams and the likes were assigned to either RCA or Arista). But the word restructuring is often accompanied by the word downsizing so who knows, some room may yet be made at BMG’s Fulham HQ so those Zomba people can move in.
Those BMG / EMI merger rumours are rife again – past mergers have been blocked by EU officials on competition grounds but when a court ruled last year that the travel industry could consolidate into three major players (a move which the EU also initially blocked) some in the music industry reckoned a precedent had been set that would make a major label merger in the music industry hard to block. But, following the Zomba takeover, BMG is less likely to get the go ahead for an EMI takeover that Warners, who have also considered a merger in the past. But some reckon the latest BMG restructure might allow the company to form a “formal business relationship” with EMI with many of the benefits of merger, but sidestepping competition legislation. We’ll see…