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EMI faces the music in struggle for profitability

Written by Lars-Erik_Olson on March 24, 2002 to .

NEW YORK - EMI will ax 1,800 staffers worldwide — nearly 20% of its work force — has cast off a quarter of its 1,600 artists, and will take more than $340 million in charges in an aggressive bid to return the stumbling British music group to fighting form.

  The drastic cost-cutting actions, announced last Wednesday by EMI Recorded Music chief Alain Levy at a conference for investors in London, are the culmination of a worldwide evaluation of EMI’s operations initiated when he took over the company six months ago.

  Levy said half of the 1,800 job cuts have already happened or will happen by the end of the month, while the other half will be completed by the end of September. Roughly 400 of the layoffs will come from the U.S. operation, where EMI has languished in last place among the five majors and its key labels, Capitol and Virgin, have struggled to generate new hits for the better part of a decade.

  Levy said almost half the planned $140 million in annual cost savings will come from the North America region because salaries and operating overhead are far higher here than in other territories.

  “This is not just a cost-cutting exercise,” Levy said at the conference, also attended by chairman Eric Nicoli and EMI division chiefs from around the globe. “This is reshaping EMI for the future and positioning it for growth with a much lower cost base.”

— This article by Justin Oppelaar and Erich Boehm.

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8 comments

I am reading this with no small amount of ambivalence. I’m half-grinning my chops off because EMI deserves all the crap that gets flung its way, after the disgusting way it treats Roxette in the UK/US . But I’m also concerned because here in the UK, it has been said that numerous acts will be cut. Guess who’s going to be near the top of the list.

That said, it may turn out to be something of a blessing in disguise. Say Per, Marie and the guys *are* dumped by EMI - it would mean they’d be free to go to another UK label who might treat them with some respect. Works for me.

We may yet come out of this smelling of roses while Nutley, Millard et al are left to flounder in effluent of their own making. And how much would we laugh? ^________^

SB

PS: the second Anon. - 5-Star? Dude, they went under AGES ago! They’re so far back, they’ve been appearing on I Love The 80s shows on the BBC. Jeez, you should see Stedman now... HOW effeminate does he look?!

So true Anonymous! There’s always been a problem with distribution. Maybe someday they will wake up.

Hey, Anon-who-replied-to-me...

Oh, I knew about Roxette Recordings alright, but about the “via Rox.Rec. they can put it on any label they like” bit... why don’t they do that then, instead of staying with (and getting fscked over on a regular basis by) EMI UK?

I’ve been saying since the days of Anyone’s non-UK appearance (which was, as we now know, engineered by the despicable suits of EMI UK) that Roxette should split from the label and go somewhere else. Can’t happen soon enough for me.

SB

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