With those executive tensions over at SonyBMG having possibly reached some kind of closure, US industry website HitsDailyDouble has turned its attention to stresses at the top of Warner Music. It claims that the London based Warner Music International chief Paul-Rene Albertini has been fired in a dispute with over all Warner Music Group boss Lyor Cohen, despite the international division doing really rather well in the last year (so much so Albertini was paid a reported $4 million dollar bonus).
The website says the Albertini/Cohen dispute might have something to do with one James Blunt. He's doing rather well internationally at the moment (as you'll see a few stories down), and HDD say Cohen is trying his best to take credit for that success. This is despite the fact that Blunt was originally signed by former Warner exec Sylvia Rhone, then running Warner division Elektra. Cohen and Warner top man Edgar Bronfman Jnr fired Rhone and closed down Elektra, and apparently dropped Blunt at the same time. He was then later signed by the UK bit of Warner's Atlantic Records and, with the help of Albertini's International division, the rest is history. Which is possibly why certain Warner execs won't appreciate Cohen claiming too much credit for the James Blunt success story.
Either way, the Albertini fallout is likely to further stresses at the top of Warner in the US where the well respected chief of the group's Warner Bros Records division, Tom Whalley, is said to be losing patience with Cohen, and Bronfman's continuing support for him. Interesting times ahead, perhaps.