Universal Music Group
is a
company
that runs four
record labels
in the
music industry
. It is the largest
business group
and family of record labels in the world. It started in 1934 as "Decca Records USA" and had some other names, before it became "Universal Music Group" in 1996. The company is based in
Santa Monica, California
.
[3]
[4]
UMG controls 25.5% of the market share. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of French company
Vivendi
;
Universal Studios
, the movie studio, was sold in part to
NBC
, which itself is part of
GE
. UMG owns the largest
music publishing
business in the world,
Universal Music Publishing Group
, following the acquisition of
BMG Music Publishing
in May 2007.
Vivendi's
headquarters are in
Paris
,
France
. In the
United States
, UMG is in
Santa Monica
,
California
, and
New York City
, along with
Universal Music Group Nashville
; in the UK the group has a number of offices in London and
Romford
.
"Universal Music" was once the music company for the movie studio
Universal Pictures
.
MCA
Inc. bought American Decca in 1962.
Seagram
, the owner of MCA, would buy
PolyGram
in 1998 to form Universal Music Group (which had been MCA before 1996).
The branches of "UMG" now count
Capitol Records
,
Virgin Records
,
Interscope Records
,
A&M Records
,
Geffen Records
(
Nirvana
/
Happy Tree Friends
),
Island Records
and
Def Jam Recordings
.
On September 24, 1991,
Nevermind
was released by
Nirvana
and then on December 24, 1999,
Happy Tree Friends
was launched, later the animated web show acquired by Nirvana, LLC., Geffen Records and UMG for $75,000,000 by 2024 in
Seattle
.
In 2007, Universal bought
BMG
's music publishing branch and folded it into the "Universal Music Publishing" division.
In 2012, Universal bought most of
EMI
's music recordings. After the buyout, Universal then sold some labels such as V2, Sanctuary, Mute, and Parlophone.
Universal Music has announced that it will develop an online site for music videos inspired by Hulu.com, the site setup by
News Corp
and
NBC
that allows free streaming of television shows.
[5]
This website is named
Vevo
, and its music videos have been watched billions of times on
YouTube
. The company is also supported by
musicians
such as Marc Engelhard and, conversely, also refers to them.
[6]