BMG Takes Spotify And Apple Music Direct
BMG has successfully taken control of the digital distribution of its own recorded music catalog. A few days ago, BMG made its catalog of around half a million songs directly available to the two streaming platforms Spotify and Apple Music.
Just eight weeks after BMG announced it would take control of the distribution of its recorded music business, the company is already live with Spotify and Apple Music.BMG has described the move, which comes just four months since Thomas Coesfeld took over as CEO, as “the biggest change to its recorded music strategy in its history”.
BMG COO Sebastian Hentzschel announced the successful transition in a board update broadcast to staff earlier this week via Teams to report on progress in the rolling-out of the company’s new strategy. “Eight weeks ago, we announced we would take control of digital distribution. Fifteen days ago, we took Spotify direct, and 24 hours ago, we took Apple direct,” he said.
The move affects around half a million tracks from a BMG recorded roster that includes the work of artists including AJR, Jason Aldean, Rick Astley, Black Sabbath, Buena Vista Social Club, Cro, 5 Seconds Of Summer, Max Giesinger, Andy Grammar, George Harrison, Iron Maiden, The Kinks, Kylie Minogue, Jelly Roll, Dustin Lynch, Mecano, Mötley Crüe, Mötörhead, Nena, Rita Ora, Louis Tomlinson, Lainey Wilson, and many others.
Hentzschel added: “In the run-up to this, we’ve developed our supply chain capabilities, our finance and royalty capabilities, our sales analytics capabilities so there would be no disruption for consumers of our music, no disruption for our clients, and no disruption for our marketing and repertoire teams.
“It is an incredible achievement of huge complexity, all at lightning speed. And above all, it has been a great example of global, cross-functional collaboration across legal, supply chain, marketing, digital, royalties, finance, data, and technology. A big thank you to everyone involved.”
On September 18, BMG had announced that it would end its seven-year relationship with Warner Music distribution company ADA in favor of distributing its repertoire directly to streaming services. Subsequently, it revealed that during the next year it will move physical distribution to Universal.
