NEW YORK (CelebrityAccess) – BMG’s new CEO (appointed in July 2023), Thomas Coesfeld, confirmed to the company’s staff that BMG is reorganizing its global structure to become “more efficient and more effective.” On Thursday (October 27), Billboard reported via sources that BMG terminated approximately 40 employees, equaling about 3% of its global staff.
In a memo to staff, Coesfeld said, “These are tough but necessary decisions,” adding: “I would like to extend my thanks to the team members involved on behalf of everyone at BMG. They have done us proud.”
Senior executives were also let go in the re-organization, including Fred Casimir, Executive Vice President (EVP) of Global Repertoire and Jason Hradil, Senior Vice President (SVP) of Global Repertoire.
The most significant change will be BMG discontinuing its centralized international marketing department for recordings, led by Casimir. In the internal memo reported by MBW, Coesfeld said, “The international marketing team was set up five years ago in response to the needs of the company at the time.
“Our talented team have done a great job driving international campaigns for artists including Lenny Kravitz, Kylie Minogue, and Louis Tomlinson, but unfortunately, on a business level, expectations from this novel structure were not met,, and it created duplication of functions with local teams. The clear business decision is to instead give artists a single contact point with their local repertoire teams.
He said BMG’s “recordings business is now three times the size it was then, and it’s overwhelmingly streaming-based. It is no surprise that the way we manage our business also has to change.”
In addition to the international marketing team extermination, Coesfeld has made four other significant changes to BMG’s internal structure, including:
- Termination of BMG’s Modern Recordings label based in Germany
- Closure of BMG’s New York-based theatrical productions initiative
- Termination of active commissioning of new films
- The consolidation of BMG’s NY and Canada-based recorded music operations into its Los Angeles location
CMU reports that within the internal memo, Coesfeld touched on BMG’s recent decision to end its partnership with Warner Music’s ADA division on distribution, which led the company to enter into direct licensing deals with the streaming services. He also provided an update on the move away from ADA, confirming that BMG should start distributing tracks directly to services such as Spotify and Pandora this week.
Within the last year, BMG – representing artists such as Halsey, Lainey Wilson and Jelly Roll, has made several business changes. Long-time CEO Hartwig Masuch announced his retirement in January to be replaced by then-CFO Coesfeld. In April, BMG claimed it would integrate its catalog and frontline music operations; in May, Masuch announced Coesfeld would take over July 1 instead of January 1, 2024; September brought the announcement of the Warner Music ADA partnership ending, and this month, Coesfeld announced it would partner with Universal Music Group’s (UMG) commercial services division for physical music distribution.
Billboard reports an employee at BMG said, “Everyone at BMG says it feels like a venture capital firm now and not a record label. Things got dark real fast, and it bums me out watching a lot of amazing people lose their jobs right before the holidays.”
