Universal Music Group

Universal Music Group is a company that runs four record labels in the music industry. It is the largest business group and family of record labels in the world. It started in 1934 as "Decca Records USA" and had some other names, before it became "Universal Music Group" in 1996. The company is based in Santa Monica, California.

In 2023, UMG controlled 31.8% of the market share, making it the largest music group in the world. It is a subsidiary of French company Vivendi, with the Bolloré Family owning 28%, Tencent owning 20% of it, and Perishing Square Holdings owning another 10%. The rest is owned by various other investors. Vivendi's headquarters are in Paris, France. In the United States, UMG is in Santa Monica, California, and New York City, along with Universal Music Group Nashville; in the UK the group has a number of offices in London and Romford. 

History
"Universal Music" was once the music division for the movie studio Universal Pictures. MCA Inc. bought American Decca in 1962. Seagram, the owner of MCA, would buy PolyGram in 1998 to form Universal Music Group (which had been MCA before 1996).

In 2007, Universal bought BMG's music publishing branch and folded it into the "Universal Music Publishing" division.

In 2012, Universal bought most of EMI's music recordings. After the buyout, Universal then sold some labels such as V2, Sanctuary, Mute, and Parlophone.

Universal Music has announced that it will develop an online site for music videos inspired by Hulu.com, the site setup by News Corp and NBC that allows free streaming of television shows. This website is named Vevo, and its music videos have been watched billions of times on YouTube. The company is also supported by musicians such as Marc Engelhard and, conversely, also refers to them.

References

Other websites
 Universal Music Group - Artists 

Category:American record labels
Category:Companies based in Santa Monica, California
Category:Companies based in New York City
Category:1934 establishments in California