HOME WEB NEWS IMAGES CLASSIFIEDS YELLOW PAGESPOLLS - SURVEYS WIKI COUNTRIES PHOTOS US UK INDIA
Cities Stocks Weather Movies Coupons Travel Blogs Health Horoscope Maps ASIA EUROPE Classifieds Yellow Pages
|
| Universal Music Group | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | Subsidiary of Vivendi |
| Founded | 1934 (as Decca Records USA) 1990 (MCA Music Entertainment Group formed) 1996 (first UMG incarnation) 1998 (second UMG incarnation) |
| Headquarters | Santa Monica, California and Broadway, New York, United States |
| Key people | Doug Morris: CEO Lucian Grainge: Chairman and CEO UMG International |
| Industry | Music entertainment |
| Revenue | ▼€4.989 billion (2005) |
| Net income | ▲€480 million (2005) |
| Parent |  Vivendi |
| Website | http://www.universalmusic.com |
Universal Music Group (UMG) is the largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry. With a 25.5% market share, it is one of the Big Four record labels. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Vivendi; Universal Studios, the movie studio, was sold in part to NBC, which itself is part of GE.
UMG\'s record labels have many of the world\'s biggest artistsUniversal Music Group - Artists including Def Leppard, The Killers, Mary J. Blige, Mariah Carey, Janet Jackson, Gym Class Heroes, Enrique Iglesias, Oasis, Bon Jovi, Queens of the Stone Age, Falco, Elton John, Eminem, Tupac Shakur, Guns N\' Roses, Dr. Dre, 50 Cent, Akon, Reba McEntire, Sheena Easton, Diana Ross,Barry White, Luciano Pavarotti, Rammstein, U2, the Black Eyed Peas, Nelly Furtado, Wu-Tang Clan, George Strait, Gwen Stefani, Grace Jones, The Mars Volta, Rihanna, Kanye West, Ashanti, Mims and Fergie. UMG now owns the largest music publishing business in the world, the Universal Music Publishing Group, (after their acquisition of BMG Music Publishing in June 2007).
Vivendi\'s headquarters are in Paris, France. In the United States, UMG is located in Santa Monica, California, and New York City, New York along with Universal Music Group Nashville; in the UK the group has a number of offices in London and Romford.
For history prior to 1996, see MCA Records.
"Universal Music" was once the music company attached to film studio Universal Pictures. Its origins go back to the formation of the American branch of Decca Records in 1934. MCA Inc. bought American Decca in 1962. The present organization was formed when its parent company Seagram purchased PolyGram and merged it with Universal Music Group in 1998. However, the name first appeared in 1996 when MCA Music Entertainment Group was renamed Universal Music Group.
With the 2004 acquisition of Vivendi\'s Vivendi Universal Entertainment by General Electric\'s NBC, Universal Music Group was separated entirely from its film studio namesake for the first time.
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.
On September 6 2006 it was announced that Universal Music will purchase BMG Music Publishing (to become Universal Music Publishing Group), for €1.63 billion ($2.1 billion), subject to regulatory approval.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5319050.stm
Universal Music Group owns, or has a joint share in, a large number of record labels, including:
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. Garrity, Brian (2006-05-11). UMG Settles With Spitzer. Mediaweek. Retrieved on 2006-07-05.
On November 4, 2007 Nokia announced that it had made a contract with Universal about a revolutionary program that enables people to buy a Nokia device with a year of unlimited access to millions of tracks from a range of great artists - past, present and future. Once the year is complete, customers can keep all their music without having to worry about it disappearing when their subscription is over. The downloaded tracks will have substantial limitations, according to information released by the companies. The downloads can only be played on the Nokia device and PC, and not an iPod.
In September 2007, Universal came up with an innovative way of tackling music piracy by "paying the pirates", beginning with tracks from will.i.am (will.i.am Music Group). If the pilot scheme is a success it is likely to be rolled out for Universal\'s entire music portfolio.Pay-per-listen innovation from Black Eyed Peas man (thelondonpaper)
In December 2007, pop sensation Colbie Caillat inadverdently announced that The Universal Music Group recently enacted a new policy on MySpace.com that will reduce all songs from artists within The Universal Music Group to 90 seconds. [1]
In December 2007 The Label announced a deal with imeem which allows users of the social network to listen to any track from Universal\'s catalogue for free with a portion of the advertising generated by the music being shared with the record labelhttp://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gqp7ASUPylhmS0K0wIrttzm3Kn8gD8TECHJG0. Two weeks after the deal was announced Michael Robertson speculated on the secret terms of the deal and argued that ultimately this was a bad deal for imeem. This speculation lead to a flame war on the Pho digital media email list as imeem representatives denied his claims and dismissed his theories as unfounded.http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/daily-brief/2007/12/21/digital-music-war-gets-dirtier
On January 7, 2008 UMG had announced that the IMF channel would be going off the air as the music group had sold the channel to another network dedicated to showcases of the fine arts. As of January 9, 2008, Channel 157 on Dish Network had officially become Ovation TV.http://live.marketclusters.com/cl2/view/2008/01/07/universal_music_sells_music_channel_to_ovation/
UMG continues to target individual users using any video that contains any music they own, regardless of context.
UMG\'s law suit against stage6.com cited as possible reason for the closure of this site on 28/02/08. Thus ending easily accessible, high quality, streaming video on the internet for now...[citation needed]
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia
