Sony Music

Sony Music Entertainment (SME), commonly known as Sony Music, is an American multinational music corporation owned by Sony Group Corporation. It is the recording subsidiary of Sony Music Group, with the other half being the publishing subsidiary, Sony Music Publishing. Founded in 1929 as American Record Corporation, it was acquired by the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) in 1938 and renamed Columbia Recording Corporation. In 1966, the company was reorganized as CBS Records, Inc. Sony bought the company in 1988 and renamed it Sony Music in 1991. In 2004, Sony and Bertelsmann established a 50–50 joint venture known as Sony BMG to handle the operations of Sony Music and Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG). Sony bought out Bertelsmann's stake four years later and reverted to using the Sony Music name. This buyout led to labels formerly under BMG ownership, including Arista, Jive, LaFace and J Records, being absorbed into RCA Records in 2011. Arista Records and Jive Records would later be revived under Sony in 2018 and 2026, respectively. On July 17, 2019, Sony announced a merger of Sony Music Entertainment and music publishing arm Sony/ATV (now Sony Music Publishing) to form the Sony Music Group. The merger was completed on August 1, 2019. As of 2026, Sony Music Entertainment is the second largest of the "Big Four" record companies, with a valuation of $25 billion, behind Universal Music Group and followed by Warner Music Group. Its Sony Music Publishing division is the largest music publisher in the world.

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article "Sony Music", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.