The Incredible Shrinking Sony Music

Sony Music, essentially the Columbia and Epic labels, is laying off 1000:

Sony Music Entertainment is making sweeping layoffs in the first reorganizational move by its new chairman and chief executive, Andrew Lack.

Mr. Lack, who succeeded Thomas D. Mottola about three months ago, plans to eliminate 1,000 jobs in the United States and abroad as part of a broad cost-reduction plan that would try to cut expenses by more than $100 million a year, people close to the company said yesterday.

....The cuts include about 300 positions in the United States. The layoffs will affect people who work in distribution, manufacturing, administrative support and corporate offices, and at Sony's two major record labels, Columbia Records and Epic Records.

The layoffs come as Mr. Lack seeks to restructure, streamline and leave an imprint on a company that was run for 14 years by Mr. Mottola, an industry giant. Mr. Mottola left under a pall after the music division experienced huge financial losses as its market share continued to shrink, at a time when CD sales in general had fallen. Mr. Lack, formerly the president and chief operating officer of NBC, was hired by Sir Howard Stringer, chief of the Sony Corporation of America, in the hopes that he could help improve the division's finances.

"We are also combining some functions, most notably in sales and distribution, in order to minimize duplication of efforts and more efficiently serve the needs of our artists, employees and customers," Mr. Lack said in an undated memorandum to employees. [NY Times]

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