Another Shark in the Food Chain? ...

Another Shark in the Food Chain? The Big 4

Prof Snyder's Music Biz News by AI Music and Music Industry Educator, Jeff Snyder

Episode notes

For the last 14 years, the Big 3, the holy trinity SONY, WMG, and UMG have dominated the music industry, devouring all of the other labels, and scooping up music catalogs.

BMG, once a major label itself, though seemingly disappeared, has been kept alive by its parent company Bertlesmann, and it has sprung back to life joining with the old jazz label, Concord.

Both have been on a feeding frenzy of music catalogs owning 4.3 million songs, enough to claim a spot with the Big 3 labels ....(BMG would prefer to be considered the king of indies).

Though the headlines have broadcast the merger and the major shift with the Big 4, most haven't noticed that BMG is just a small part of the Bertelsmann empire, that with the merger owns Penguin Random House, the largest book publisher, 10,000 plays and musicals including Hamilton and Roger ... 

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Keywords
music businessrecord labelBMGBertlesman Music GroupMusic CatalogrkoBig 3major record labelmusic mergerconcord