Research: Institutions/ distribution channels research

Universal Music Group (UMG)

Universal Music Group is an American global music corporation which was founded in September 1934, 83 years ago. Their headquarters are in Santa Monica, California, US and they are known to be one of the "Big Three" record labels alongside Warner Music Group and Sony Music. Universal pictures were formally both Universal Studios - a film-making industry - and Universal Music Group but they only were split apart after a Japanese multinational conglomerate agreed to possess the company for $6.59 billion. The chairman and CEO of UMG is called Lucian Grainge who was born on the 29 September 1960 and became chairman in 2005. The CFO of Universal Media Group is called Boyd Muir came into the position in 2010 and together they have maintained a revenue of $1.552 billion. There is no way to be found easily by a record label, they are often quite picky and they are in a position to demand for more these days due to their billion dollar net worth. They want something that can sell to a mass audience so the creator has to be unique and mold-able in order for the company to create a star. Usually if you have a semi-large following through such things as social media (YouTube) they are more likely to offer you a label as you have already proved you are well loved and have talent.

YouTube

YouTube is a video sharing social media site which was founded in February 14 2005 by Steve Chen (born August 18, 1978), Chad Hurley (born January 24, 1977) and Jawed Karim (born October 28, 1979). Its headquarters can be found in San Bruno, California, US with its CEO Susan Wojcicki (born July 5, 1968 and came into the position in February 2014) who has a net worth of $410 million. Its parent site is Google from 2006 till present day which is a mass search engine for the internet with a net worth of $527 billion. Many musicians or creators can make videos of them performing and post them to you tube for free creating their own marketing and advertising for themselves. Stars such as Justin Bieber and Troye Sivan started off through posting videos to YouTube and then later got record labels with companies such as EMI and Island Records (which is child to Universal Music Group). YouTube also offers advertising revenue to the bigger creators which is based on the number of views they achieve on a video, the higher the number the higher the revenue so this allows them to become self employed. Although this is an issue as the advertising revenue has been heavily constricted so some creators are finding it hard on YouTube to create profit and to market themselves to the audience. For instance a smaller creator with only 100 subscribers wont get much attention now as YouTube gives most of its attention to the 'big money makers'.