I read an article on Rolling Stone Magazine’s website about the new artistic venture between Universal Music Group and Live Nation Entertainment. This new venture will house Universal’s four management firms under a new company called Front Line Management Group through Live Nation Entertainment.
This deal sounds like a major thing for both of these companies, because the industry in itself is desperately trying to stay afloat in such changing times. The same way that the major record labels all joined under the same umbrella, it seems like the major live entertainment giant and Universal Music is trying to stay alive in the same vein.
According to the author Matthew Perpetua, this join venture is likely to give clients an incredible degree of leverage in the market between Live Nation and Universal (Perpetua, 2011). The goal of this venture is to provide more options to the music buying consumer, which is the person who’s the most important factor in this type of deal. Live Nation will have control of this company, as well as being co-owner of Front Line Management Group.
Also according to a statement by Lucian Grainge, who is the CEO of Universal Music, "We are creating a series of new platforms and global direct-to-consumer initiatives that will further expand the presence of our artists in the evolving marketplace while providing music fans with even more flexibility in how they consume music" (Perpetua, 2011). This deal will hopefully put things back on track with the artist and the consumer, otherwise the industry will just continue to spiral downward.
The figures for this deal would probably be one for the ages, but I’m sure that both companies will become the industry leaders in a new management journey. I just hope that the artist and music buyer doesn’t ultimately suffer from this merger, since both companies were already powerhouses separately before this new deal was presented.
Source: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/universal-forms-artist-management-company-with-live-nation-20110920
