Today there are Three major Record Labels. These are, Warner, Sony and Universal. These are the 'Big Three'. Back in late 2012 Universal got approved a £1.2bn takeover for EMI records. This was agreed by the European Commision on the grounds that it would sell off labels that bring in just below a third of the british company's revenues. This would include recordings from Coldplay, Pink Floyd and David Bowie.
Within record labels there are so many opertunities for everyone From the CEO all the way to Being marketing.
From the Top of the list you have:
CEO: As a CEO, You are the President/Owner of a record label. These guys wear many hats, but having to focus on there main duty directing the label. They have to pick an artist they want to sign depending on genre they are looking for, choose methods of marketing and having the final say over all departments day to day tasks reported by the Vice president. The CEO is more responable over everyone for the Behind The Scenes compared to, say, an owner of an indie label. With an indie label, the CEO may be more hands on to with the day to day operations within the label, such as, banking, marketing and networking. This is if the label doesnt have the staff at the time.
Vice President: This guy is directly responsible for implementing the direction as given by the CEO of the label. The vice president wils also hold daily meetings to get updates and will plan future endevours with the different department heads. Also along with this the VP is pretty much directly responsable for negotiating distribution, media buys and pretty much maing things happen when a head of department is having difficulties with a resistant outside vendor. A vendor is a persdon who sells the labels product, whether its in a shop or at a festival.
Accountanting: This sometimes has a different same within a record label which is Business Affairs or The Business Department. This department pretty much says everything it does in the name. This consists of banking, taxes and the handling of all the artists royalties. These guys have to report directly to the CEO.
Legal: This is probably one of the most straight forward department of all. Every label will have a complete team of attourneys to handle all of its legal affairs. This will include, Contract negotiations with the artist, vendors, and all other contractual obligations of the Record Label. In a lot of cases the CEO in there self are an attourny, but even so labels still habe a huge legal department to handel day-to-day obligations that the label incur
A&R: (Artist and Repatoire) Pretty much where you can have a party all day everyday. A&R are in charge of finding new talent, setting up a production team to work with the new artist and will be the labels liaison between the artest and record label. There are a few main duties that they need to do and these are the pretty serious parts. This is, To assist with song selection, Signing a producer to producer albums, tracks and EP's. They also have to negotiate with recording studios, video houses etc. Ultimatly that will record the artists' creativity. As you can imagine this is a job that can be alot of fun, due to scouting the streets, clubs/pubs, chatting with recording studios, superstar producers and so on makes this one of he most sought after jobs.
Production: The people within this department are responsable for all the audio or video production of the label. They must make sure the artists are at the studios on time and the studios have the right files to work with. They also need to make sure that the final mastered copy is sent to A&R. They report and work directly to A&R to ensure that the production