Report: The Budget's On A Tight Leash At EMI

Report Of More Budget Cuts

EMI’s new private equity owners are enforcing tight restrictions on new artist signings and marketing budgets in an attempt to impose stricter discipline, reports THE FINANCIAL TIMES. The moves are likely to be followed by job losses among the UK music group’s 5,500-strong workforce later in 2008.

People who have been briefed on TERRA FIRMA’s plans expect the axe to fall more heavily on the overlapping marketing and administrative bureaucracies of individual labels than on creative "A&R" talent scouts. The cost clampdown is essential for TERRA FIRMA to meet the ambitious targets it set when it completed its takeover of EMI in AUGUST for £4bn ($7.9bn) including debt.

A person close to TERRA FIRMA said it had made three significant culture changes at EMI: telling employees to submit business plans and secure senior executives’ approval before signing new artists; demanding detailed marketing plans before any promotional activity; and changing bonus plans to encourage executives to focus on EMI artists’ global potential rather than local markets alone.

CEO GUY HANDS is also understood to have carried out an unprecedented survey of 600 employees since buying the business, and issued staff before CHRISTMAS with an IPOD-shaped book of quotes from the feedback he received in an effort to stimulate debate within EMI.

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