Present debt is $1.9 billion

Would you buy it ?
Have decided not to split up it's divisions
Warner Music Now Forcing the Biggest Bundle On Earth...

Is this proof enough that the old music model just doesn't work anymore.Pop / super hyped commercialised music is just not viable anymore i.e. the profits made from the 10% of the profitable artists cannot sustain the less profitable or loss making 90% of the other artists to keep the model going (with all the corporate employees & other expenses required to sustain it).

List of Warner Music Group artists

Warner Music Group

If sold are the potential buyers thinking of splitting up it's divisions & trying to make a quick profit & then getting out of the business.New buyers may be released from liabilities that WMG have at present allowing this to happen.

There may be loads of artists disposed of, if WMG is bought up.On top of the sale of EMI as well which may have similar results.Is this the end of the music industry as we know it ?

To be entirely honest WMG is a godawful company especially in its PR after all its aggro with YouTube etc, I have some sympathy for EMI as before the venture capitalists bought it it was going well, and if they hadn't they'd probably still have artists like Paul McCartney and Queen.

You really have no clue.

You understand that Bruno Mars, Cee Lo Green, and Michael Buble are under this company.

I do think they want to sell their publishing unit to pay off its debt and buy EMI to creat one large recording company.

Apparently not now.They want to sell it as a 'bundle' as the snide headline of the article says.The publishing side of WMG seems to be the thing most of them are after.Apart from the top 10% of the artists that are bringing in profits the rest will be treated as dead wood if the label is sold off.If you look through that apparent 90% of 'dead wood', however, you will find some really talented artists who haven't had the good fortune to have had the full backing of the lucky 10%.

This is how the record industry has worked since the '60's though with the larger labels.Having a large roster of artists is almost like hedging their bets - at least some of them will break through - & when a little bit of success (sales) appears the hype machine kicks in (& a large chunk of promo investment with it).Don't think it work's in the rapidly changing music world anymore though, hence the big losses some of these major labels are suffering.