Label blues: Warner very slowly signs young Brit

Howard Manchester says:

The header says, “Warner…Sign(s) Young Brit”. I have been told by many in the business that Warner Classics, with a few exceptions, don’t really sign artists anymore, in the traditional way that would imply that they engage and pay for recording the artist, editing the master, all photo material, promo, advertising, etc. In other words, they don’t make any significant investment in the artist or their career, with most of the financial risk borne by the artist. In the majority of cases, the artist, or their sponsor, is made to pay for everything: the recording, the editing, the photo shoots, the marketing, etc. They just make a distribution deal with Warner for a certain period and then marketing is done ad hoc on a country by country basis, with no centralized global strategy of artist development. They seem to believe that the Warner name can be exploited in this way, with no commitments. This is sadly a very short-term philosophy and one that will never build artist nor brand identity. Warner Classics is a sad sign of non-commitment and no real long-term artist or label strategy.