Warner Music Group

Warner Music Group Corp. (WMG) is a New York City-based American multinational that runs record labels and other entertainment businesses. It ranks as the third-largest music company globally, part of the “Big Three” alongside Universal Music Group and Sony Music Group.

WMG was once owned by Time Warner, which sold it in 2004 to a group of private investors led by Edgar Bronfman Jr. to reduce debt from the AOL merger. The company went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2005, then was taken private again in 2011 when Access Industries bought it. It returned to the public market with a second IPO on Nasdaq in 2020. As of 2025, Access Industries still holds 72% of the equity and 98% of the voting power. With annual revenue in the billions, WMG employs over 4,500 people and operates in more than 50 countries. Its labels include Elektra, Reprise, Sire, Warner (formerly Warner Bros.), Parlophone (acquired from EMI), and Atlantic. It also owns Warner Chappell Music, one of the world’s largest music publishers.

The company’s roots go back to the late 1950s. In 1957, Warner Bros. actor Tab Hunter hit No. 1 on Dot Records, a rival label owned by Paramount Pictures. To keep its stars from recording for competitors and to profit from music, Warner Bros. founded Warner Bros. Records in 1958, setting up its first office above the studio’s machine shop in Burbank, California. In 1963, it bought Reprise Records, started by Frank Sinatra three years earlier for more creative control. That purchase brought in Mo Ostin, who became key to Warner/Reprise’s success.

In 1967, Warner Bros. was sold to Seven Arts Productions, becoming Warner Bros.-Seven Arts. It then bought Atlantic Records (founded in 1947, WMG’s oldest label until Parlophone was added in 2013) and its subsidiary Atco Records. This deal brought Neil Young into the fold, first as a member of Buffalo Springfield. Young would record for Atlantic, Atco, and Reprise over decades, with his only major recordings not under WMG being five albums on Geffen Records (now owned by Universal). Atlantic, Atco, and affiliate Stax Records helped Warner rise to prominence, bringing a valuable back catalog of Ray Charles, the Drifters, the Coasters, and others. In the mid-1960s, Atlantic/Stax released landmark soul by Booker T & the MGs, Sam & Dave, Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Ben E. King, and Aretha Franklin. The sale to Seven Arts caused Stax to leave because Seven Arts insisted on keeping Stax’s recordings. Atlantic then moved into rock and pop in the late 1960s and 1970s, signing acts like Led Zeppelin, Cream, Crosby Stills & Nash, Yes, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Genesis, Average White Band, Dr. John, King Crimson, Bette Midler, Roxy Music, and Foreigner.

Warner Bros. Records had tried and failed to create its own distribution arm in 1958. In 1969, Elektra Records head Jac Holzman suggested to Atlantic’s Jerry Wexler that they set up a joint distribution network for Warner, Elektra, and Atlantic. An experimental branch was launched in Southern California as a possible model for a larger operation.

Tensions soon emerged between Atlantic/Atco president Ahmet Ertegun and Warner/Reprise president Mike Maitland. Maitland, as vice-president of the Warner Bros.-Seven Arts music division, wanted final say over all recording operations and proposed merging most of Atlantic’s back-office functions (marketing, distribution) with Warner/Reprise’s. Ertegun, fearing Maitland would gain more power, moved to undermine him. Maitland had delayed renegotiating contracts for Joe Smith and Mo Ostin, presidents of Warner Bros. and Reprise labels. When Wexler—now a major shareholder—learned of this, he and Ertegun pressured Eliot Hyman to secure Smith and Ostin, worried they might leave for MGM or ABC Records.

In 1969, Kinney National Company bought Warner Bros.-Seven Arts for $400 million—over eight times what Hyman had paid for Warner/Reprise and Atlantic combined. Months later, Kinney reverted the company’s name to “Warner Bros.” Kinney president Steve Ross had built the company from a funeral-parlor business into a profitable conglomerate with interests in comics, the Ashley-Famous talent agency, and parking lots.