The Warner Music Group, the smallest of the three major record companies, has had several management defections since it was sold a year ago, and now its upper ranks have been reshuffled once again with the departure of one of its top record label chiefs and an expanded brief for the head of its publishing division.
The company announced on Thursday that Todd Moscowitz has resigned after two years as co-president and chief executive of Warner Brothers Records, one of its flagship labels. At the same time, Cameron Strang, the chairman of Warner/Chappell, the publishing unit, will take over the company’s West Coast operations, including the Warner Brothers label.
The change is the second promotion in a month for Mr. Strang, who joined Warner only two years ago when the company bought his publishing firm, Southside. (Music publishing concerns the copyrights for songwriting and composition, as opposed to recordings.) He was recently given control over Rhino Entertainment, Warner’s catalog arm, and now he will also have authority over one of the company’s two recorded music divisions.
Rob Cavallo, the chairman of Warner Brothers Records, and Livia Tortella, the label’s co-president and chief operating officer, will report to Mr. Strang. The company did not say whether Mr. Moscowitz will be replaced.
Artists at Warner Brothers and its affiliated labels include stars like Green Day, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Josh Groban, but it has had few major new successes recently, while Warner’s other group, Atlantic, has had a strong recent run of hits. Both label groups, however, had strong showings in the Grammy Award nominations this week: The band Fun., on Atlantic, and the Black Keys (and its member Dan Auerbach), under Warner Brothers, each had six nominations.
The Warner Music Group was sold for $3.3 billion last year to Access Industries, a holding company controlled by the Russian-born billionaire Len Blavatnik. Since then several top executives at the company have departed, including Lyor Cohen, the chief executive of its recorded music division, and Edgar M. Bronfman Jr., who stepped down as chairman but has a seat on the company’s board.
The most prominent new executive at Warner, the publishing executive Jon Platt, who was the top urban music scout at EMI Music Publishing, was hired by Mr. Strang.
Ben Sisario writes about the music industry. Follow @sisario on Twitter.
Article source: http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/06/publishing-chief-at-warner-music-gets-expanded-role/?partner=rss&emc=rss
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