Sony Music
Sony Music Entertainment, usually known as Sony Music, is a worldwide music corporation headquartered in Los Angeles, California. It is a subsidiary of the parent corporation Sony Group Corporation and a member of the Sony Music Group, which is controlled by Sony Corporation of America. It is headquartered in Tokyo.
The Columbia Recording Corporation was established in 1929 as the American Record Corporation and renamed as such in 1938 upon its purchase by the Columbia Broadcasting System. It was formerly known as the American Record Corporation. The firm was reformed in 1966 to become CBS Recordings, and Sony purchased the company in 1988, rebranding it under its present name in 1991. The company has been operating since 1966. After establishing a 50-50 joint venture known as Sony BMG in 2004, the two companies merged their respective music operations to form a single organisation known as Sony Music Entertainment. However, in 2008, Sony purchased Bertelsmann's interest in the firm, and the corporation returned to its original name of Sony Music soon afterwards; the acquisition enabled Sony to acquire all of BMG's labels, which resulted in the relaunch of BMG as BMG Rights Management following the relaunch of BMG. It would take until 2011 for all of BMG's previous labels (Arista, LaFace, J, and so on) to be folded into RCA Records (which was also once owned by BMG). Arista Records would go on to be resurrected a year later in 2018.
After Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment is the second-largest of the "Big Three" record companies in terms of revenue as of 2020, behind only Warner Music Group. Sony/ATV (now known as Sony Music Publishing) is the world's biggest music publishing company, with a music publishing branch that is the largest in the world. In the period 2009 through 2020, Sony had a 50 percent stake in Syco Entertainment, which is responsible for some of the world's most popular reality television formats, such as Got Talent and The X Factor with Simon Cowell. Sony's interest was bought by Cowell in 2020.
As of July 17, 2019, Sony Music Entertainment and Sony/ATV will combine to become Sony Music Group, according to a press release issued by the company. The merger was finalised on August 1, 2019, according to the company.