The company was founded in 1997 by
Scott Cohen and
Richard Gottehrer in
New York City. In early 2003, the Orchard was bought by Dimensional Associates. Danny Stein, the CEO of Dimensional Associates, was appointed Executive Chairman, and Greg Scholl left management consulting firm McKinsey & Company to become The Orchard's CEO, changing its strategy and operating model and building a new management team. In 2009, Scholl accepted a position as president, Local Integrated Media at
NBCUniversal and Brad Navin was appointed CEO. In 2012,
Sony acquired a majority stake of 51% in the company in a cash and equity deal with an estimated total valuation of $100 million. In 2015, the remaining equity in the company was acquired by
Sony Music Entertainment for over $200 million. IODA had relationships with major mobile and online download retailers including
iTunes,
eMusic,
Rhapsody, and
Amazon.com. On July 1, 2009,
Sony Music Entertainment and IODA announced their global strategic partnership to leverage combined worldwide online retail distribution networks and complementary technologies to support independent labels and music rightsholders. On March 5, 2012, Sony acquired the remaining stake of IODA. The company's operations were merged with the Orchard.
YouTube The Orchard's YouTube
multi-channel network had more than 1,000 channels across the globe and uses technology, built in-house, called B.A.C.O.N. (Bulk Automated Claiming on The Orchard Network) to crawl, claim and track YouTube videos to monetize for their clients. It was ranked 7th in the U.S. in July 2014.
Owned labels The Orchard owns the catalogues of
TVT Records, Premium Latin Music (home to
Aventura),
Blind Pig Records,
Frenchkiss Records,
Shrapnel Records, and
Music of the World.
Film distribution In 2019, the Orchard Film was sold and renamed
1091 Media.
BalconyTV The Orchard acquired Balcony TV, an online music channel that featured acoustic performances on balconies around the world, in 2014. == References ==