Universal Music Group
Universal Music Group (UMG), formerly MCA Music Entertainment (see Music Corporation of America), is the largest business group and family of record labels in the record industry. With a 25.5% market share, it is one of the Big Four record labels. In February 2006, the group became 100% owned by French media conglomerate Vivendi SA when Vivendi purchased the last 20% from Matsushita, the group's sole owner from 1990 to 1995 and co-owner from 1995 to 2006. UMG's record labels have some of the world's biggest artists including Bon Jovi, Jay-Z, Mariah Carey, Eminem, Luciano Pavarotti, Rammstein, U2, Kanye West, and 50 Cent. It also owns one of the largest music publishing businesses of the world, the Universal Music Publishing Group.
"Universal Music" was originally the music company attached to film studio Universal Pictures; its history is long and complex [1], but the present organisation was formed when its parent company Seagram purchased PolyGram and merged it with UMG in 1998. Seagram merged with Vivendi SA in 2000 to form Vivendi Universal (now Vivendi SA).
In the United States UMG is located in Santa Monica, California, and New York City, New York
Record labels
UMG owns, or has a joint share in, a large number of record labels, including:
- Blue Thumb Records
- Brunswick Records
- Commodore Records
- Coral Records
- Decca Records (Its jazz holdings only.)
- GRP Records
- EmArcy Records
- Impulse! Records
- Verve Records
Other
- Barclay Records
- Bite Records
- Cinepoly
- Decca Records (Its classics holdings only)
- Go East Entertainment
- Hip-O Records
- Hollywood Records (Owned by The Walt Disney Company, distributed by UMVD in the United States, Canada, Mexico and the rest of Latin America only)
- Impact Records
- Isadora Records - Canadian imprint, run by Hawksley Workman
- Jazzland Records
- MCA Nashville Records
- Mercury Records
- Motor Music Records
- Nhi Le Records
- Philips Records
- Polar Music
- Polydor Records
- Radioactive Records
- RMM Records
- Stockholm Records
- Urban Records
- Universal Classics Group
- Universal Music Group Nashville
- UMTV Universal Music TV
- Universal Music Limited
- UCJ Universal Classics & Jazz
Independent labels distributed by Universal
Universal Music Group also owns local "Universal" labels in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Ireland, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Switzerland and Turkey.
Pay for play
In May 2006, an investigation led by New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer concluded with a determination that Universal bribed radio stations to play songs from Ashlee Simpson, Brian McKnight, Big Tymers, Lindsay Lohan and other performers working for Universal labels. The company paid $12 million to the state in settlement. [1]
External link
Notes
- ^ Garrity, Brian (2006-05-11). "UMG Settles With Spitzer". Mediaweek. Retrieved 2006-07-05.
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