People keep asking me, often with an inappropriately excitable glint in their eye, when the big cull is going to happen at EMI. As much previously reported, the major's chief, Guy Hands, has said he'll cut a third of the company's workforce in the first half of this year, and it is assumed that almost all those cuts will come from recorded music, with an especially high portion from its staff-heavy UK operations. While there have been some cuts on the edges already, and much moving around at the senior exec level, the big redundancies, which are expected to occur overnight, are yet to happen, and the first half of 2008 is fast running out.
Whether yesterday's EMI news is an indication the big cull is getting closer I don't know, but it was almost dramatic. The main news story of the day involved Ferdy Unger-Hamilton, who heads up Virgin UK, and whose role at the major was seemingly secured last month when it was announced that Virgin would remain one of the company's two frontline divisions in the UK (along with Parlophone, putting a question mark over the future of the major's other two frontline divisions EMI and Angel).
But yesterday it was confirmed Unger-Hamilton had quit. Given his departure follows the major's announcement last month that he would be playing a role in the all-new EMI, and given that the company hasn't officially commented on his decision to leave (no "great contribution to the firm" quote from Hands), he might be quitting in protest at the way the record company's restructuring is being managed.
As it was revealed that Unger-Hamilton quit, Music Week also revealed that Terry Felgate and Mark Collen, who headed up the now defunct EMI Records and Angel divisions, and who were said to be "considering other positions" when it was announced their divisions would go, have left the major. Given the departure of EMI UK chief Tony Wadsworth earlier in the year, that means that pretty much every senior exec from the UK bit of the major has now gone - with the exception of Parlophone's Miles Leonard who, as far as I'm aware, is still commuting to Brook Green each morning.
Unger-Hamilton wasn't the only senior departure from EMI confirmed by Music Week yesterday. They also reported that Senior VP Commercial Mike McMahon has left - his role will be taken over by VP Business Development Matthew Crosswaite.
And that, I think, is it for now. But I suspect we'll be leading with more EMI cuts in the coming month - I sense the axe may be about to drop bigtime.