top of page
The Big 4
There are 4 music institutions know as the ‘Big 4’ they are
Universal, Sony Music Entertainment ,Warner Music Group,EMI Group
These institutions are part of massive conglomerates that have many different platforms to branch off.
- They are the biggest
- Own by the conglomerate Vivendi
- They were founded as Decca Records USA in 1934 then in 1996 they got the name Universal Music Group.
- In 2010 they made a revenue of €4,449 million
- Have subsidiary labels such as island def jam music group, mercury records and polydor records.
- They have artist such as Justin Bieber, Jessie J, Akon, Selena Gomez, Mariah Carey, Rolling Stones, Cheryl Cole and many others.
- They are vertically integrated they produce and distribute their music and they own vevo which is an entertainment service on YouTube and their website.
- And they are also linked with spotify which are is a music website so they are able to promote their artist for free and encourage the users of the software to buy and listen to their artist song.
- They are the 2nd largest
- They are controlled by Sony Corporation of America, the United States subsidiary of Japan's Sony Corporation.
- They were founded in 1929 as American Record Corporation .
- In 2010 they made a revenue of US$ 5,672 million.
- They own subsidiary companies such as Columbia records, SyCo, RCA Records.
- They have music artist such as One Direction, Little Mix, Cher Lloyd, Chris Brown, Daddy Yankee, Ke$ha, Passion Pit, U-KISS And JLS.
- This is good because the music artist can promote Sony in their music videos and do advertisements for them.
-
They are the 4th largest music company and they are British.
-
They were founded in 1931.
-
In 2009 they had a Revenue of $1.65 billion.
-
They are associated with Beastie Boys, David Guetta, Coldplay, Dizzy Rascal, Snoop Dogg.
- They own record companies such as Galaxy records and virgin
- They are the 3rd Largest.
- They are owned by Subsidiary of Access Industries
- They were founded in 1985 as Warner Bros. Records.
- In 2008 they had a revenue loss of $3.491 Billion.
- They own record companies such as Bad Boy Records, Maybach Music Group, Asylum Records, Grand Hustle Records, Atlantic, these companies are owned by music artist that are signed to WMG, so this broadens the audience.
- They are associated with Basshunter, Bruno Mars, Diddy, Green Day, Wiz Khalifa, Kirko Bangz, T.I., Ashley Tisdale, Diggy
RESEARCH
bottom of page