1950s and 1960s The film studio
Warner Bros. had no record label division at the time one of its contracted actors,
Tab Hunter, scored a
No. 1 hit song in 1957 for
Dot Records, a division of rival
Paramount Pictures. In order to prevent any repetition of its actors recording for rival companies, and to also capitalize on the music business,
Warner Bros. Records was created in 1958; its original office was located above the film studio's machine shop on 3701 Warner Boulevard in
Burbank, California. In 1963, Warner purchased
Reprise Records, which had been founded by
Frank Sinatra three years earlier so that he could have more creative control over his recordings. With the Reprise acquisition, Warner gained the services of
Mo Ostin, who was mainly responsible for the success of Warner/Reprise. After Warner Bros. was sold to
Seven Arts Productions in 1967 (forming
Warner Bros.-Seven Arts), it purchased
Atlantic Records, founded in 1947 and WMG's oldest label (until WMG completed its acquisition of Parlophone in 2013), as well as its subsidiary
Atco Records. This acquisition brought
Neil Young into the company fold, initially as a member of
Buffalo Springfield. Young became one of Warner's longest-established artists, recording both as a solo artist and with groups under the Warner-owned Atlantic, Atco, and Reprise labels. Young also recorded five albums for
Geffen Records during that label's period of Warner distribution. The Geffen catalogue, now owned by
Universal Music Group, represents Young's only major recordings not under WMG ownership. Atlantic, its subsidiary
Atco Records, and its affiliate
Stax Records paved the way for Warner's rise to industry prominence. The purchase brought in Atlantic's lucrative back catalogue, which included classic recordings by
Ray Charles,
the Drifters,
the Coasters, and many more. In the mid-1960s, Atlantic/Stax released a string of landmark
soul music recordings by artists including
Booker T & the MGs,
Sam & Dave,
Wilson Pickett,
Otis Redding,
Ben E. King, and
Aretha Franklin. Ultimately, the sale led to Stax leaving Atlantic because Seven Arts Productions insisted on keeping the rights to Stax recordings. Atlantic moved decisively into rock and pop in the late 1960s and 1970s, signing major British and American acts including
Led Zeppelin,
Cream,
Crosby Stills & Nash,
Yes,
Emerson, Lake & Palmer,
Genesis,
Average White Band,
Dr. John,
King Crimson,
Bette Midler,
Roxy Music, and
Foreigner. An earlier attempt by Warner Bros. Records to create an in-house distribution arm in 1958 did not materialize. So in 1969,
Elektra Records boss
Jac Holzman approached Atlantic's
Jerry Wexler with the idea of setting up a joint distribution network for Warner, Elektra, and Atlantic. An experimental branch was established in
Southern California as a possible prototype for an expanded operation.
Atlantic exerts autonomy It was soon apparent in 1969 that Atlantic/Atco president
Ahmet Ertegun viewed Warner/Reprise president Mike Maitland as a rival. Maitland believed that, as vice-president in charge of the Warner Bros.-Seven Arts music division, he should have final say over all recording operations, and he further angered Ertegun by proposing that most of Atlantic's back-office functions (such as marketing and distribution) be combined with the existing departments at Warner/Reprise. In retrospect Ertegun clearly feared that Maitland would ultimately have more power than him, and so he moved rapidly to secure his own position and remove Maitland. Maitland had put off renegotiating the contracts of Joe Smith and Mo Ostin, the presidents of the Warner Bros. and Reprise labels, and this provided Ertegun with an effective means of undermining Maitland. When Wexler—now a major shareholder—found out about the contract issue he and Ertegun began pressuring
Eliot Hyman to get Smith and Ostin under contract, ostensibly because they were worried that the two executives might move to rival labels—and in fact Ostin had received overtures from both
MGM Records and
ABC Records. In 1969, the wisdom of Hyman's investments was proved when
Kinney National Company purchased Warner Bros.-Seven Arts for $400 million, more than eight times what Hyman had paid for Warner/Reprise and Atlantic combined. Several months later, Kinney National Company reverted Warner Bros.-Seven Arts to its original name of "Warner Bros". From the base of his family's funeral parlour business, Kinney president
Steve Ross had rapidly built the Kinney company into a profitable conglomerate with interests that included
comic publishing, the
Ashley-Famous talent agency, parking lots and cleaning services. Following the takeover, Warners' music group briefly adopted the 'umbrella' name Kinney Music, because U.S. anti-trust laws at the time prevented the three labels from trading as one. Ross was primarily focused on rebuilding the company's ailing movie division and was happy to defer to the advice of the managers of the company's record labels, since he knew that they were generating most of the group's profits. Ertegun's campaign against Maitland began in earnest that summer. Atlantic had agreed to help Warner Bros. in its efforts to establish its labels overseas, beginning with its soon-to-be-established Warner Bros. subsidiary in Australia, but when Warner executive Phil Rose arrived in Australia, he discovered that just one week earlier Atlantic had signed a new four-year distribution deal with a rival local label,
Festival Records (owned by
Rupert Murdoch's
News Limited). Mike Maitland complained bitterly to Kinney executive
Ted Ashley, but to no avail – by this time Ertegun was poised to make his move against Maitland.As he had with Hyman, Ertegun urged Steve Ross to extend Mo Ostin and Joe Smith's contracts, a recommendation Ross was happy to accept. Ostin however had received overtures from other companies (including the aforementioned offers from MGM and ABC) and when he met with Ertegun in January 1970 and was offered Maitland's job, he was unwilling to re-sign immediately. In response, Ertegun broadly hinted that Maitland's days were numbered and that he, Ertegun, was about to take over the recording division. Unlike the Warner/Reprise executives, Atlantic's execs the Ertegun brothers (Ahmet and Neshui) and Wexler owned stock in Kinney. Ostin was understandably concerned that, if he accepted the position, the Warner Bros. staff would feel that he had stabbed Maitland in the back, but his attorney convinced him that Maitland's departure was inevitable, regardless of whether or not he accepted the post (succinctly advising him, "Don't be a schmuck"). On Sunday January 25, Ted Ashley went to Maitland's house to tell him he had been dismissed, and Maitland declined the offer of a job at the movie studio. One week later, Mo Ostin was named as the new President of Warner Bros. Records, with Joe Smith as his executive vice-president. Ertegun nominally remained the head of Atlantic, but since both Ostin and Smith owed their new positions to him, Ertegun was now the
de facto head of the Warner music division. Ertegun was given the formal title of executive vice-president-Music Group. The same year, the group established its first overseas offices in Canada and Australia. By that time the "Seven Arts" moniker was dropped from the Warner Bros. name. Warner Bros. also founded the
Casablanca Records subsidiary, headed by
Neil Bogart; but several years later Casablanca became independent from Warner Bros.
Warner-Elektra-Atlantic and worldwide distribution With the Elektra acquisition, the next step was forming an in-house distribution arm for the co-owned labels. By this time, Warner-Reprise's frustrations with its current distributors had reached breaking point; Joe Smith (then executive vice-president of Warner Bros.) recalled that the
Grateful Dead were becoming a major act but the distributor was constantly out of stock of their albums. These circumstances facilitated the full establishment of the group's in-house distribution arm, initially called Kinney Record Group International. By late 1972, US anti-trust laws had changed and the company was renamed
Warner-Elektra-Atlantic, WEA for short, which was renamed Warner Music in 1991 (the word "group" was added after the formation of
AOL Time Warner in 2001). WEA was an early champion of
heavy metal rock music. Several such bands, including three major British pioneers
Led Zeppelin,
Black Sabbath, and
Deep Purple, were all signed to WEA's labels, at least in the United States. Among the earliest American metal acts to be signed to WEA were
Alice Cooper,
Montrose, and
Van Halen. Up to this point the Kinney-owned record companies had relied on licensing deals with overseas record labels to manufacture, distribute and promote its products in other countries; concurrent with the establishment of its new distribution arm, the company now began establishing subsidiaries in the other major markets, beginning with the creation of Warner Bros. Records Australia in 1970, soon followed by branch offices in the UK, Europe and Japan. In July 1971, the new in-house distribution company was incorporated as Warner-Elektra-Atlantic Distributing Corp. (WEA) and branch offices were established in eight major US cities; Joel Friedman a one-time
Billboard writer who had been the head of Warner's advertising/merchandising division in its early years, was appointed to head WEA's US domestic division, and Ahmet Ertegun's brother
Nesuhi was appointed to oversee its international operations. Neshui Ertegun, originally a Turkish native like his brother, displayed a global perspective and independence from its U.S. counterpart by successfully promoting international acts in their target markets worldwide. Ertegun headed WEA International until his retirement in 1987. A
de facto committee of three senior marketing executives—Dave Glew from Atlantic, Ed Rosenblatt from Warner Bros. and Mel Posner from Elektra—oversaw the integration of each label's marketing and distribution through the new division, On July 1, 1971, following the pattern set by similar joint ventures in Canada and Australia, the Warner labels entered into a partnership with the British arm of
CBS Records to press and distribute Warner-Reprise product in the United Kingdom, although this was undertaken as a cooperative venture rather than a formally incorporated business partnership. The
Billboard article that reported the new arrangement also noted that, despite their intense competition in the US market, CBS continued to press Warner-Reprise recordings in the US. However the new UK arrangement was a major blow to Warner's previous British manufacturer
Pye Records, for whom Warner-Reprise had been their largest account. With the scheduled addition of the UK rights to the Atlantic catalogue, which would revert to Kinney in early 1972,
Billboard predicted that the Warner-CBS partnership would have a 25–30% share of the UK music market. In April 1971, thanks mainly to the influence of Ahmet Ertegun, the Kinney group announced a major coup with its acquisition of the worldwide rights to
the Rolling Stones' new label
Rolling Stones Records, following the expiration of the band's contract with
British Decca (then separate from the American label) and the acrimonious end to their business relationship with their former manager
Allen Klein. Under the terms of the deal, Atlantic subsidiary
Atco would distribute the Stones' recordings in the US, with other territories mainly handled by Warner Bros. international divisions. One of Kinney's wisest investments was
Fleetwood Mac. The band signed with Reprise in the early 1970s after relocating to the US, and the label supported the group through numerous lineup changes and several lean years during which the band's records sold relatively poorly, although they remained a popular concert attraction. Ironically, after the group's transfer to Warner Bros. in 1975 and the recruitment of new members
Lindsey Buckingham and
Stevie Nicks, the group scored a major international hit with the single "Rhiannon" and consolidated with the best selling albums
Fleetwood Mac,
Rumours and
Tusk.
Warner Communications (1972–1990) Due to a financial scandal involving price fixing in its parking operations, Kinney National spun off its non-entertainment assets in 1972 (as
National Kinney Corporation) and changed its name to
Warner Communications Inc. In 1972, the Warner group acquired another rich prize,
David Geffen's
Asylum Records. The $7 million purchase brought in several acts that proved crucial to WEA's subsequent success, including
Linda Ronstadt,
the Eagles,
Jackson Browne,
Joni Mitchell, and later
Warren Zevon. On the downside, however, it was rumored that Warner was soon concerned about its possible liability under the California State Labor Code because of Geffen's questionable status as both the manager of most of the Asylum acts and the head of the record label to which they were signed. The sale included the Asylum Records label and its recordings, as well as Geffen's lucrative music publishing assets and the interests in the royalties of some of the artists managed by Geffen and partner
Elliot Roberts. Geffen accepted a five-year contract with WCI and turned over his 75% share in the Geffen-Roberts management company to Roberts and Warner paid Geffen and Roberts 121,952 common shares worth $4,750,000 at the time of the sale, plus $400,000 in cash and a further $1.6 million in promissory notes convertible to common stock. Although it seemed a lucrative deal at the time, Geffen soon had reason to regret it. Uncharacteristically, he had greatly underestimated the value of his assets—within Asylum's first year as a Warner subsidiary, albums by
Linda Ronstadt and
the Eagles alone had earned more than the entire value of the Asylum sale. Geffen's discomfort was compounded by the fact that, within six months of the sale, the value of his volatile Warner shares had plummeted from $4.5 million to just $800,000. He appealed to Steve Ross to intervene, and as part of a make-good deal, Ross agreed to pay him the difference in the share value over five years. Acting on Jac Holzman's suggestion that Kinney should take Asylum from Atlantic and merge it with Elektra, Ross then appointed Geffen to run the new combined label. In 1977, Warner Bros. Music, led by president Ed Silvers, formed Pacific Records for their composers and distributed (appropriately) by
Atlantic Records.
Alan O'Day was the first artist signed to the label, and the first release was "
Undercover Angel". The song, which he described as a "nocturnal novelette", was released in February 1977. Within a few months it had become No. 1 in the country, and has sold approximately two million copies. It was also a hit in Australia, reaching No. 9 on the Australian Singles Chart. "Undercover Angel" also landed O'Day in an exclusive club as one of only a handful of writers/performers to pen a No. 1 hit for themselves and a No. 1 for another artist. New signings in the late 1970s placed WEA in a strong position for the 1980s. A deal with
Seymour Stein's
Sire Records label (which Warner Bros. Records later took over) brought in several major
punk rock and
new wave acts including
the Pretenders,
the Ramones and
Talking Heads and, most importantly, rising star
Madonna; Elektra signed
the Cars and Warner Bros. signed
Prince, giving WEA several of the biggest-selling acts of the decade. WEA's labels also distributed a number of otherwise independent labels. For example, Warner Bros. distributed
Straight Records,
DiscReet Records,
Bizarre Records,
Bearsville Records, and
Geffen Records (the latter was sold to
MCA in 1990). Atlantic Records distributed
Swan Song Records. In 1975, WEA scored a major coup by signing a distribution agreement with
Island Records, which only covered the United States and select other countries. For the next 14 years (initially with Warner Bros. until 1982, then with Atlantic afterward), WEA would distribute such artists as
Bob Marley,
U2,
Robert Palmer,
Anthrax, and
Tom Waits. This relationship ended when Island was sold to
PolyGram in 1989.
1980s A name-only unit appearing exclusively next to copyright statements, WEA International Inc., was created in early 1982, to handle distribution of all Warner Bros., Elektra, and Atlantic (all these namings accounting for the initials in the title "
WEA") releases for international countries. A proposed 1983 international merger between
PolyGram and WEA was forbidden by both the US
Federal Trade Commission and
West Germany's cartel office, so PolyGram's half-owner
Philips then purchased a further 40% of the company from its partner
Siemens, and bought the remaining shares in 1987. The same year, PolyGram divested its film and publishing operations, closed
PolyGram Pictures and sold
Chappell Music to Warner for US$275 million. In 1976, Warner gained a brief early lead in digital media when it purchased the
Atari computer company. WCI also blazed the trail in visual music with
MTV, which it created and co-owned in partnership with
American Express as
Warner-Amex (which also ran the company's cable television systems, including the interactive TV experiment
QUBE, which MTV spun-off from). By 1984, however, Warner rapidly divested many of these recent acquisitions, including Atari,
The Franklin Mint,
Panavision,
MTV Networks and a cosmetics business; this was due in large part to the
1983 video game crash, which Atari had played a central role in, and the resulting loss of profits and investor confidence (Warner-Amex's cable system expansion also contributed to Warner's financial downturn). WEA formed
WEA Manufacturing in 1986. In 1988 WEA took over the German classical label
Teldec and the British
Magnet label. In 1989, it was announced that Warner Communications was to merge with
Time Inc. to form
Time Warner, a transaction that was completed in 1990. Following the merger, WEA continued acquiring independent labels, buying
CGD Records (Italy) and
MMG Records (Japan) in 1989.
1990s Through the 1990s, Time Warner was the largest media company in the world, with assets in excess of US$20 billion and annual revenues in the billions of dollars; by 1991, Warner's music labels were generating sales valued at more than US$3 billion, with operating profits of $550 million, and by 1995, its music division dominated the US music industry with a 22% share of the domestic market. Acquisitions and corporate changes within the Warner group of labels continued after the Time Warner merger in 1990, WEA purchased French label
Carrere Records, in 1992 it bought the leading French classical label
Erato, and in 1993, it bought the Spanish
DRO Records, Hungary's Magneoton label, the Swedish Telegram Records, Brazil's
Continental Records and Finnish label Fazer Musiikki. WEA was renamed Warner Music in 1991. Time Warner became Time Warner Entertainment in 1992. Atlantic launched two new subsidiary labels in the early 1990s:
East West Records and
Interscope Records. In 1995, East West absorbed Atco Records and was eventually folded into Elektra Records. In 1996, after causing much controversy, Interscope was purchased by
MCA Music Entertainment. During 1992, Warner Music faced one of the most serious public-relations crises in its history when a major controversy erupted over the provocative Warner Bros. recording "
Cop Killer" from the self-titled album by
Body Count, a
heavy metal/
rap fusion band led by
Ice-T. Unfortunately for Warner, the song (which mentioned the
Rodney King case) was issued just before the controversial acquittal of the police charged with King's beating, which sparked the
1992 Los Angeles Riots and the confluence of events put the song under the national spotlight. Complaints escalated over the summer—conservative police associations called for a boycott of Time Warner products, politicians including President
George H. W. Bush denounced the label for releasing the song, Warner executives received death threats, Time Warner stockholders threatened to pull out of the company and the New Zealand police commissioner unsuccessfully tried to have the record banned there. Although Ice-T later voluntarily reissued
Body Count without "Cop Killer", the furor seriously rattled Warner Music and in January 1993 the label made an undisclosed deal releasing Ice-T from his contract and returning the
Body Count master tapes to him. Also in 1992, the
Rhino Records label signed a distribution agreement with Atlantic Records and Time Warner Entertainment bought a 50% stake in the Rhino Records label. The distribution agreement allowed Rhino to begin reissuing recordings from Atlantic's back catalogue. In 1994, Canadian beverage giant
Seagram bought a 14.5% stake in Time Warner, and the Warner publishing division — now called
Warner/Chappell Music – acquired CPP/Belwin, becoming the world's largest owner of song copyrights and the world's largest publisher of printed music. In 1996, Time Warner Entertainment made another dramatic expansion of its media holdings, taking over the
Turner Broadcasting System, which by then included the Turner cable TV network,
CNN and the screen production houses
Castle Rock Entertainment and
New Line Cinema, acquisitions that brought huge profits into the Warner Group thanks to content assets like
Seinfeld and the highly successful
The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. By the early 1990s, senior Warner staff like Ostin and Waronker had remained in their positions for several decades—a highly unusual situation in the American music industry—but the death of Steve Ross destabilized the Time Warner hierarchy, and over the next few years the music group was increasingly disrupted by internal power struggles, leading to a string of major executive upheavals in 1994–95, which
The New York Times described as "a virtual civil war". The central conflict was between Mo Ostin and Warner Music Group chairman Robert Morgado, who had joined the Warner group in the late 1980s. Because of his political background (he had been the chief-of-staff to former New York governor
Hugh L. Carey) and his lack of music industry experience — especially compared to the widely revered Ostin—Morgado was viewed as an outsider at Warner. Nevertheless, he gained favour with Ross and Levin and was promoted in 1985 to oversee the Warner international music division after helping the company slash costs in its computer game sector. The following year he re-joined Ostin and son Michael as joint head of the newly launched
DreamWorks label. Beginning in August 1994, Morgado alienated Morris by his clumsy handling of Warner's relationship with
Interscope Records, the successful label founded by
Ted Field and
Jimmy Iovine and part-owned by Warner. Morgado had resisted making a decision about increasing the Warner stake in Interscope, which encouraged other companies to make overtures to the label; in response, Morgado threatened to send cease-and-desist notices to executives at several record companies, demanding that they stop approaching Interscope with buyout offers, a move that reportedly infuriated Iovine. Morgado gave in to the demand that Morris be granted autonomy to run the North American operations and he was forced to upgrade Morris's position from chief operating officer to Chief Executive of Warner Music Group (US); Morris promptly named
Danny Goldberg, former president of Atlantic Records, to run WBR in defiance of Morgado, who had a different candidate in mind and Levin also reduced Morgado's power to oversee Warner's mail-order record club division and its international operations. The power struggle between Morgado and Morris reached a dramatic climax in May 1995 when Morgado was asked to resign by Gerald Levin, following a welter of complaints from executives at the three major Warner Music labels, who said that Morgado was undermining Morris's authority and damaging Warner's reputation among performers. Lewinter subsequently sued Warner Music for wrongful termination. Despite early success with
Dr. Dre and
Snoop Dogg, and Morris's decision to increase Warner's stake to 50%, by the mid-1990s
Interscope Records was being seen as a liability for the Warner group. Time Warner's board and investors had already been bruised by the damaging 1992 "
Cop Killer" controversy and now they were faced with renewed criticism about the
gangsta rap genre, in which Interscope's associate imprint
Death Row Records was a key label. In mid-1995, Time Warner refused to distribute the Interscope album
Dogg Food by
Tha Dogg Pound, forcing the label to seek outside distribution, and late in the year TW sold its stake in Death Row back to co-owners
Jimmy Iovine and Ted Field and soon after it sold off its share in Interscope to
MCA Music Entertainment. The upheaval at Warner was beneficial to its rivals, who picked up valuable executives who had left Warner. Goldberg moved over to
Mercury Records; Morris joined
MCA Music Entertainment Group and led its reorganization into
Universal Music Group, now the world's largest record company. In November 1995, Fuchs was himself sacked by Levin, leaving the company with a reported US$60 million "
golden parachute", and Time Warner co-chairmen
Robert A. Daly and
Terry Semel took over the running of the music division. In 1998, Seagram boss
Edgar Bronfman Jr. held talks aimed at merging Seagram's Universal Music, headed by Morris, with the venerable British recording company
EMI, but the discussions came to nothing; Bronfman then oversaw Universal's takeover by
Vivendi. WEA meanwhile continued to expand its publishing empire, buying a 90% stake in the Italian recording and music publishing group Nuova
Fonit Cetra. Also in 1998, Time Warner Entertainment bought the remaining 50% of the Rhino Records label they did not own. The Rhino Records retail store in Los Angeles was not included. Rhino then began reissuing the back catalogues of the Warner/Reprise and Elektra/Asylum labels. In 1999, Rhino launched Rhino Handmade, which released limited-edition reissues of lesser-known but still-significant recordings from the WEA labels.
2000s , scion of the Canadian-based
Bronfman family, took control of WMG in 2004. In 2000,
Time Warner Entertainment merged with leading American
internet service provider AOL to create
AOL Time Warner, a new business entity. The new conglomerate again tried (and failed) to acquire EMI, and subsequent discussions about the takeover of
BMG stalled, with Bertelsmann eventually offloading BMG into a joint venture with
Sony. In 2002, AOL Time Warner further consolidated its hold over the publishing industry, buying 50% of music publisher Deston Songs from
Edel AG. By the early 2000s, however, the effects of the
dot-com crash had eroded AOL's profits and stock value, and with expected synergies between AOL and Time Warner never materializing, the Time Warner board sidelined its under-performing partner by dropping
AOL from its business name and reverting to TimeWarner. As a result of the
CD price fixing issue, a settlement was reached in 2002 involving the music publishers and distributors
Sony Music, WMG,
Bertelsmann Music Group,
EMI Music, and
Universal Music. In restitution for
price fixing they agreed to pay a $67.4 million fine and distribute $75.7 million in CDs to public and non-profit groups but admitted no wrongdoing. , formerly used as the logo of
Warner Bros. Entertainment, now used as the corporate logo of Warner Music Group Looking to reduce its debt load from the AOL merger, Time Warner — the corporate successor to the original Time Warner Entertainment— sold Warner Music Group in 2004 to a group of investors led by
Edgar Bronfman Jr. for US$2.6 billion. This spinoff was completed on February 27, 2004. In the 2004 transition to independent ownership, WMG hired record industry heavyweight
Lyor Cohen from
Universal Music Group (the result of the merger between the PolyGram and MCA label families) to attempt to reduce cost and increase performance. Time Warner (now Warner Bros. Discovery) no longer retains any ownership in WMG, though it had the option to reacquire up to 20% of WMG for three years following the closing of the transaction. WMG did, however, have a royalty-free license to use the Warner Bros. shield for 15 years, as well as the old Warner Communications logo as WMG's main logo. With the expiration of the royalty-free license in May 2019, Warner Bros. Records (which became separate from the eponymous film studio after the spinoff) was renamed Warner Records and a new logo was introduced to replace the WB shield. No longer a subsidiary of Time Warner, WMG began cutting costs by offloading loss-making or low-earning divisions. Like its rival EMI, Warner reacted to the growth of the digital music market by making a historic change, moving out of record production by closing or selling off disc-pressing plants, particularly in territories such as the US and the Netherlands, where production costs are high. The US manufacturing operations were sold to
Cinram in 2003, before the purchase from Time Warner. In 2005, the Miami-based Warner Bros. Publications, which printed and distributed a broad selection of sheet music, books, educational material, orchestrations, arrangements and tutorials, was sold to
Alfred Music Publishing, although the sale excluded the print music business of WMG's Word Music (church hymnals, choral music and associated instrumental music). On May 3, 2006, WMG apparently rejected a buyout offer from
EMI. Then WMG offered to buy
EMI and it also rejected the offer. In August 2007, EMI was purchased by
Terra Firma Capital Partners. Talk of a possible WMG acquisition of EMI was fanned once again in 2009 after WMG executed a bond offering for $1.1 billion, which brought to light WMG's relatively strong financial position, which was contrasted with the weakened and debt-laden state of EMI. The same year WMG acquired
Rykodisc and
Roadrunner Records. In September 2006, after pulling its content from the service earlier in the year, WMG entered into a new licensing deal with the video streaming service
YouTube. Under the deal, WMG would be able to handle advertising sales for its artists' music videos on the service (as well as monetize user-created videos that include WMG-owned recordings) and partake in revenue sharing with YouTube, and also collaborate with YouTube on building a "premium" user experience for its content and associated channels. On December 27, 2007, Warner announced that it would sell
digital music without
digital rights management through
AmazonMP3, making it the third major label to do so. In 2008,
The New York Times reported that WMG's
Atlantic Records became the first major record label to generate more than half of its music sales in the U.S. from digital products. In 2010,
Fast Company magazine detailed the company's transformation efforts in its recorded music division, where it has redefined the relationships it has with artists and diversified its revenue streams through its expansion into growing areas of the music business. In 2008, WMG and several other major labels made investments in the new
music streaming service Spotify. Due to licensing deal negotiations between Google and WMG in 2008, music video content licensed by WMG was removed from YouTube. In 2009, it was announced that the companies had reached a deal, and videos would be re-added to YouTube. As of 2017, WMG had extended its deal with YouTube. In 2009, Warner Music took over its South-East Asian and Korean distribution of EMI audio and video products, including newer domestic releases, which was announced in September 2008. The two companies already enjoyed a successful partnership in India, the Middle East and North Africa, where EMI marketed and distributed Warner Music's physical product from 2005.
2010s , founder of
Access Industries, purchased WMG in 2011. WMG formed a partnership with
MTV Networks in June 2010 that allowed MTVN to exclusively sell ads on WMG's premium content; in turn, views of WMG videos would be counted as views for MTVN. In May 2011, WMG announced its sale to
Access Industries, a
conglomerate controlled by Soviet-born billionaire
Len Blavatnik, for US$3.3 billion in cash. The price represented $8.25 a share; a 34% premium over the six-month-before average price, and a 4% premium over the day-before price. Overall, this was a drop of over 70% since 2007. According to the
Wall Street Journal, the deal ended a three-month sale process in which as many as 10 bidders, including Los Angeles-based brothers
Tom and
Alec Gores, and
Sony Corp. vied for the company. Blavatnik was a shareholder and former board member of WMG at the time of the purchase announcement. The purchase was completed on July 20, 2011, and the company became private. In August 2011,
Stephen Cooper became CEO of Warner Music Group replacing
Edgar Bronfman Jr., who became chairman of the company. Bronfman Jr. stepped down as chairman of the company on January 31, 2012.
EMI label purchase and divestment In 2013, Warner acquired longtime EMI division
Parlophone, along with
EMI Classics and some regional EMI operations, from UMG for £487 million (around $764.54 million US). This news came after reports that WMG was in talks to acquire
EMI's recorded music business, which was eventually bought by
Universal. The European Commission approved the sale in May 2013, and Warner closed the acquisition on July 1. The EMI Classics roster was absorbed into
Warner Classics and the
Virgin Classics roster was absorbed into the revived
Erato Records. In November 2013, WMG paid Universal an additional €30 million for Parlophone, following an arbitration process in respect to the original sale price. In order to accommodate a deal made with
IMPALA and the
Merlin Network when it acquired Parlophone, WMG agreed to offload over $200 million worth in catalogues to various independent labels. The labels had until February 28, 2014, to inform Warner Music of which artist catalogues they were interested in acquiring, and said artists had to approve of the divestments. By March 2015, over 140 independent labels had placed bids on over 11,000 Warner Music artists valuing $6 billion, far higher than expectations. In March 2016,
Curb Records acquired Warner Music's 80% share of
Word Entertainment, though WMG would continue to distribute the label. In April 2016, the first confirmed sale of a Warner Music artist was the back catalogue of English band
Radiohead to
XL Recordings. As of the end of May 2016, WMG had sold the catalogue of
Chrysalis Records to
Blue Raincoat Music, as well as the catalogues of ten other artists, including
Everything But the Girl,
Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel, and
Lucinda Williams. In September 2016,
Nettwerk acquired the rights to albums by
Guster and
Airbourne from Warner Music. In April 2017, Warner Music agreed to sell the independent distributor
Zebralution back to its founders. On June 1, 2017, WMG divested additional artists, including the catalogues of
Hot Chip and
Buzzcocks to
Domino Recording Company;
Tom Waits to
Anti-; and
Howard Jones,
Dinosaur Jr., and
Kim Wilde to
Cherry Red Records.
Cosmos Music Group acquired the rights to
Per Gessle and
Marie Fredriksson, while
Neil Finn's catalogue moved to his Lester Records label. On July 6, 2017,
Because Music acquired 10 French artists, most of
London Records' back catalogue, and
The Beta Band, while
Concord Music acquired albums by
Jewel,
Sérgio Mendes,
R.E.M., the
Traveling Wilburys, and several rock, blues, and jazz artists. In August 2017,
The Lemonheads and
The Groundhogs were transferred to
Fire Records. In October 2017,
Strut Records acquired albums by
Patrice Rushen and
Miriam Makeba. In November 2017,
T.I.'s catalogue was sold to
Cinq Music Group. Woah Dad! (and later
Round Hill Music) acquired over 20 catalogues, including those of
Ziggy Marley,
Estelle, and several Swedish artists. while
Believe Digital acquired the rights to
EMF and several French artists. In April 2018,
RT Industries acquired seven catalogues from WMG, including
Sugar Ray and
Fat Joe. In May 2018, New State Music acquired the catalogues of
Paul Oakenfold and
Dirty Vegas. Other winning bidders included
The Echo Label (
Thomas Dolby,
Sigue Sigue Sputnik and
Supergrass),
Nature Sounds (
Roy Ayers), The state51 Conspiracy (
Donovan),
PIAS Recordings (
Failure), Evolution Music Group (
Mr. Big),
Playground Music Scandinavia (
Olle Adolphson),
Metal Blade Records (
King Diamond),
Snapper Music (
Mansun) and its sublabel
Kscope (
Porcupine Tree), Phoenix Music International (
Lulu),
Kobalt Label Services (
HIM), and
Tommy Boy Music (which reclaimed its pre-2002 catalogue and the rights to
Brand Nubian,
Handsome Boy Modeling School's
White People,
Grand Puba, and
Club Nouveau). All the labels had to complete their deals by September 30, 2017; though a few announcements came after that date.
Expansion In October 2012, WMG became one of the last major labels to sign with Google's music service. It was also one of the last labels to reach an agreement with Spotify. In June 2013, WMG expanded into Russia by acquiring Gala Records, best known as the longtime distributor of
EMI. Later that year, Warner Music Russia agreed to locally distribute releases by
Disney Music Group and
Sony Music. Later that year, WMG closed a deal with
Clear Channel Media that saw its artists paid for terrestrial radio play for the first time. Clear Channel would get preferential rates for streaming songs through its
iHeartRadio service and other online platforms. It was believed that the agreement would put pressure on other big labels, including Sony and Universal, to reach similar deals. In 2017, WMG formed a TV and film division, Warner Music Entertainment, led by former MGM executive Charlie Cohen. In March 2020, it hired Kate Shepherd, the former head of entertainment at Ridley Scott Creative Group. This division paired with
Imagine Entertainment on a
Nat Geo limited series
Genius: Aretha, which led to a co-producing and co-financing agreement for a music slate in July 2020. In February 2022, Warner announced acquisition of controlling interest in a
South India based distribution label Divo Music.
International labels On November 14, 2013, it was determined that Warner Music's releases in the Middle East would be distributed by
Universal Music as a result of the integration of
EMI's branch in said region.
Sony Music India would assume distribution of WMG in India, Sri Lanka, and rest of
SAARC countries except Bangladesh. In December 2013, Warner Music began operating the wholly owned South African subsidiary after acquiring the Gallo's stakes that it did not own. In April 2014, WMG announced that it had acquired Chinese record label
Gold Typhoon. In April 2016, WMG agreed to distribute most of
BMG Rights Management's catalogue worldwide through Warner's
ADA division, though a few frontline releases would remain distributed by other labels. Around the end of May 2016, WMG acquired the Indonesian label PT Indo Semar Sakti. Warner Music UK launched
The Firepit in May 2016, a creative content division, innovation centre and recording studio located at its United Kingdom headquarters in London. On June 2, 2016, Warner Music acquired Swedish compilation label
X5 Music Group. In September 2017, one week after acquiring American rock label
Artery Recordings, WMG acquired the Dutch EDM label
Spinnin' Records. In February 2018, Warner Music launched a division in the Middle East, based in Beirut, Lebanon. Warner Music Middle East will cover 17 markets across North Africa and the Middle East. In January 2019, WMG signed a Turkish distribution deal with
Doğan Media Group, which will represent the record company for physical and digital releases. In May 2019, Warner Music Finland acquired the hip-hop label
Monsp Records. In July 2019, Warner Music Slovakia acquired Forza Music, which owned the former state-owned label
Opus Records. In February 2021, WMG purchased a minority stake in the Saudi Arabian record label
Rotana Records.
Elektra Music Group and further investments In July 2017, Warner Music acquired the concert discovery website
Songkick. In May, news media reported that Warner Music led an investment round in
Hooch, a popular subscription-lifestyle application including blockchain-based payment technology. Announced on June 18, 2018, but effective on October 1, 2018, Warner Music Group launched Elektra Music Group as a stand-alone staffed music company with the labels
Elektra Records,
Fueled By Ramen,
Low Country Sound, Black Cement, and
Roadrunner Records. A handful of major artists would transfer from Atlantic. This returned the group back to the Warner-Elektra-Atlantic (WEA) triad that had marked the original company organization for decades. On August 2, 2018, Warner Music announced that it acquired
Uproxx Media Group and its properties (except for BroBible, which will continue to publish independently) for an undisclosed sum, although Uproxx has raised around $43m (£33m) from previous investment, which provides some sense of the firm's valuation. In September 2018, WMG acquired German merchandise retailer
EMP Merchandising from
Sycamore Partners for $180 million. In October 2018, Warner Music Group announced the launch of the WMG Boost seed venture fund. Several labels of Warner Music moved into the
Los Angeles Arts District in 2019 where the company had purchased a former
Ford Motor Company assembly plant.
2020s On March 9, 2020, WMG expanded to India, creating the Warner Music India unit based in
Mumbai and handling business in other countries for the
South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation. Jay Mehta (former executive of
Sony Music India) would take change of the unit as the managing director in April. Before the division's foundation, Warner's releases were distributed in the country by
EMI/
Virgin Records (India) Pvt., and by Sony Music India since EMI's breakup. In August 2020, Warner Music acquired Tel Aviv- and New York-based IMGN Media in a deal worth approximately $100 million. In September 2020, WMG acquired the online hip-hop magazine
HipHopDX. In 2021, WMG invested an eight figure sum into global multiplayer gaming platform
Roblox. This followed WMG artist Ava Max's live performance on the platform the previous year. Warner Music Group had planned an
IPO of current investors' stock in March 2020, but withdrew its IPO just before the March 2 kick off due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. On June 3, 2020, it completed its IPO on
Nasdaq, raising almost $2 billion with a valuation of $12.75 billion, making WMG once again a publicly traded company after previously going private in 2011. Tencent already owns 10% of shares of WMG's largest competitor,
Universal Music Group, which it acquired from
Vivendi in March. Also, this makes
Sony Music the only major music company not directly owned in any percentage by a Chinese company (it is wholly owned by the Japanese conglomerate
Sony). In December 2020, WMG signed a partnership deal with
TikTok to provide music to its platform for users to use for their content. On March 8, 2022, WMG
suspended all its operations in Russia following the
Russian invasion of Ukraine. In January 2023, Stephen Cooper was succeeded by
Robert Kyncl as CEO of WMG. In July 2023, Warner Music Group formed a partnership with
Canva, the graphic design platform, to add commercial music to
Canva's asset library and enable its customers to insert music clips to their designs. Also in July 2023, WMG made a music-licensing deal with
TikTok which included licensing the Warner Recorded Music and Warner Chappell Music to the app, TikTok Music and TikTok's Commercial Music Library. In September 2023, WMG opened a new creative hub in Berlin. Later in October 2023, Warner Music Group launched a new creative hub in Amsterdam to house Benelux units and Spinnin' Records. In September 2025, the "
No Music For Genocide" boycott initiative urged Warner Music Group to suspend all of its operations in Israel in protest of the
genocide in Gaza. In November 2025, WMG launched a joint venture with artificial intelligence music venture,
Suno. As part of the settlement agreement struck between the two firms, Warner will let users create AI-generated music on Suno using the voices, names and likeness of artists who opt-in to the programme. On March 20, 2026, the company inked a first-look deal with
Netflix to make documentaries on WMG's artists. ==Arts Music==