EMI - 'The Electrical and Music Industries'

As part of my major and independent record label research, I investigated and created a case study which covers the various aspects of EMI, such as it's methods of production and distribution.

Timeline of EMI :

Formed in 1931 in London as 'The Electrical and Music Industries'
Introduced the first vinyl in 1948
Released music by Elvis in the USA & UK in 1956
Signed Cliff Richard in 1958 - the start of a 50+ year career!
Signed the Beatles to a subsidary label (Parlophone) in 1962 - sold approx. 600million albums!
Vertically integrated Tamla Motown - was a global success! - music from Jackson 5 & Diana Ross
Also signed artists from other genres, such as Queen and The Rolling Stones
BUT.....
Music sales slowed in the 1980's
This forced EMI to change their direction twice, from music like Iron Maiden to Duran Duran
They started to catch up with new technology in 1986 - started manafacturing CD's
Bought undisputed rights to soundtracks from 'Wizard of Oz', 'Singing in the Rain' and more

EMI were also responsible for the first internet video single in 2001.
They were also the first label to release singles at the same time as radio (in 2002.)
In 2005 they made a deal with Disney to sell their soundtracks through EMI.
In 2007, they were taken over by Terra Firma in a £4.2 billion deal.
Yet this move caused controversy, as Radiohead left the label and released their album 'Rainbows' online, but users could pay what they liked and it had no copyright rules.
They also angered Pink Floyd in 2010, and were succesfully sued by them over the sales of their singles.
However, in 2010 they finally reached a deal with iTunes which saw the Beatles disocgraphy on the iTunes store for the first time, which produced huge interest and sales.

EMI has embraced new media technology, as they now scout sites such as MySpace, YouTube and Facebook to find up and coming artists from around the world.
However, their profits are contsantly limited by P2P sharing, which is now estimated to cost the music industry as a whole $10billion a year, as 7 million people in the UK alone file-share online.