Warner Music’s main frontline labels in the UK are joining up with their US counterparts, so that Atlantic Records UK will become part of US-based Atlantic Music Group and Warner Records UK part of the US-based Warner Records Group.
As the mini-major continues its pretty radical global restructure, the move to bring Atlantic’s UK operations under its US namesake marks a further expansion of power for Atlantic Music Group boss Elliot Grainge, while Warner Records Group CEO Aaron Bay-Schuck and COO Tom Corson also expand their remits.
More closely aligning US and UK label operations in this way “amplifies the organic connection” between Warner Music teams and rosters on each side of the Atlantic, the major explains, in doing so “turbocharging the process of breaking acts across both markets”.
Which is lovely, everybody needs a bit of turbocharging now and again. It also saves having to pay a UK CEO, which is helpful for a company looking for $170 million in savings on salaries. The big rejig comes the day after Warner Music UK CEO Tony Harlow announced he was departing the company after six years in the top job.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the overall boss of Warner Music, CEO Robert Kyncl, focuses more on the sexy sounding turbocharging than the decidedly unsexy cost savings in his official statement about the UK restructure.
“This strategic move”, he says “will put more firepower behind British artists while strengthening the UK’s place in our ecosystem as one of our highest priority markets”.
You would assume Kyncl doesn’t actually mean that he’s giving his executives guns to wave behind the backs of British artists to encourage them to greater and more global achievements, but in the world of major labels it’s best not to make snap assumptions.
“Above all”, adds the Special K, “both our UK and US teams will be able to better mirror the way music moves in the world, further strengthening WMG’s collective impact and competitive edge”. Which everyone can agree is a gloriously vague but very stirring sentiment. Firepower! Impact! Competition!
In terms of how it will all work logistically, Atlantic UK Presidents Ed Howard and Briony Turner will join the leadership team of Atlantic Music Group and report into Grainge. Joe Kentish, who is President of Warner Records UK – a division that also includes Parlophone – will join the leadership team of the Warner Records Group and report into Bay-Schuck and Corson.
Of course, there is more to Warner Music UK than just its frontline labels. Other UK recorded music teams at the major will be overseen by Simon Robson, Warner’s President for EMEA, and existing UK COO Isabel Garvey.
Warner Music has been through significant upheaval since Kycnl joined the company in 2023 pledging to “future proof” the business.
That included a restructure of the major’s US labels last year which saw a number of prominent senior executives depart – some planned, some not – while Elliot Grainge, son of Universal Music’s big beast Lucian Grainge, rose to the top of Atlantic Music Group, having sold his own 10K label to Warner in 2023.
Although ultimately a cost saving move, there is a logic to more closely aligning the major’s UK and US labels, which – after all – already use the same brands.
In a market where labels increasingly compete to sign talent with distributors and artist services companies, one reason why an artist might sign a more traditional major label deal is the support it can open up in other markets, and especially the US. Providing the UK labels don’t become forgotten outposts of the bigger US sides of the two label groups, the closer alignment could be attractive to rising new talent.
Although back in the UK, one challenge will be ensuring that everyone stays connected closer to home, with different teams reporting into different people in different countries. Robson will likely play a key role in meeting that challenge and he will presumably – borrowing from his boss’s firepower metaphor – be giving it both barrels.
He’s also issued a statement about the rejig, which he dubs a disappointingly corporate-sounding “incredible opportunity for British artists to more directly access greater resources and reach”. He then adds, “I’m looking forward to working more closely with our UK artists and leaders, as we continue to introduce the most distinctive British voices to the world stage”.
