Company: Warner Music Group

Founders: N/A; Warner Music Group is the result of the music recording arm created by the Warner Bros. movie studio.

Industry: Music Recording and Publishing

History:

Warner Music Group (WMG) is currently one of the largest recording companies in the world. It operates its business through two fundamental operations: Recorded Music and Music Publishing. The Recorded Music component primarily consists of the discovery and development of artists as well as the related marketing and licensing of songs produced by these musicians. Warner Music Group’s Music Publishing operations, on the other hand, owns and controls rights to more than a million musical compositions.

As with the other major recording companies, WMG started as a branch of a movie studio. The Warner Bros. movie studio launched the label in 1958 as a means of releasing the soundtracks associated with their films. At that time, the timing for launching a record label was great because of the growing popularity of rock n’ roll and pop music genres. It didn’t take a long time for Warner Music Group to be successful in the music scene.

The late 1960s and early 1970s were significant periods for the company. Within those time spans, it acquired the Atlantic Records label, which at the time was making it big in the jazz and R&B music industry. Shortly after this huge step, WMG expanded again when they bought Elektra Records.

In the late 1980s, another big change happened when WMG merged with Time Corporation, giving birth to media conglomerate Time Warner. However, Time Warner sold the company in 2004 to a group of investors. Thus, contrary to common belief, Time Warner no longer has ownership over Warner Music Group.

Nevertheless, the recording company still does business as Warner Music Group and has 37 affiliates and numerous licenses in over 50 countries all over the world. With a catalog of over one million song copyrights, WMG remains one of the leading music publishers in the history of the music industry.

Leadership:

Edgar Bronfman, Jr. – Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Mark Ansorge – Executive Vice President, Human Resources and Chief Compliance Officer