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Former CBS Head Walter Yetnikoff on Why the Major Labels Can’t Adapt to the Realities of Today’s Music Market
Walter Yetnikoff
One of the most storied – and controversial – executives in the history of the record industry, Walter Yetnikoff was head of CBS Records from 1975 to 1990. Over the course of his career at CBS, he oversaw an explosive growth in record sales (both by his label group and the industry at large), became embroiled in numerous feuds with artists and rival executives, and presided over the sale of the CBS label group to Sony in 1988. Along the way, he made the careers of a who’s who of modern rock and pop music – Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon and Billy Joel among them. Today, Yetnikoff runs a small boutique label and is an in-demand public speaker. His memoir, Howling at the Moon: Confessions of a Music Mogul in an Age of Excess, was published in 2004. |
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Description: Walter Yetnikoff, the legendary former head of CBS Records, takes a few minutes at a meeting of the American Bar Association to explain why internet and new-media companies are eating the lunch of the major labels in today’s music marketplace. He also discusses what the major labels could do to reassert their dominant role in the music marketplace, and why the management of those labels makes it unlikely that they will ever manage to do so.
Shoot Date: October 2007 |
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