Job Roles in a Record Label

1. FACT FILE:
JOBS IN A RECORD LABEL

2. CEO
The CEO of a record label have to have a mix of business and music skills. They
determine the general direction of the marketing, the music distribution and other
matters. They must also have the skills to improve financial performance and
communicating with board members.
The CEO is in control of final approvals of each departments work. An owner of a
small label, whilst fulfilling the strategic role of the CEO, is also involved with day-to-
day jobs such as marketing and networking. Where as the CEO of a bigger company
would be able to delegate most of their roles and responsibilities to the people they
hire and only do the work they have to do themselves.

3. VICE PRESIDENT
The vice president is directly responsible for delivering the strategy of the Record
Label as finalised by the CEO. They will hold meetings to plan future aspirations and
targets with different department heads. Key tasks at this strategic level include
negotiating with distributors, the purchase of media and general business running.
In bigger record labels there may be more then one vice president, some may have
over 10, and they have a department each which they would run and manage the
daily oversight of their department.

4. BUSINESS AFFAIRS
This department deals with the business side of things. It takes care of bookkeeping,
payroll for the staff and general finances.
The head of business affairs advises and supports senior management on all business,
legal, litigation and other rights-related matters. As well as managing all aspects of
the Business Affairs Department.

5. LEGAL
Each record label have a group of lawyers to handle the legal affairs. They mainly
concentrate on contract negotiations with artists. They also work with vendors, and
manage all the other contractual needs of the Record Label. The legal department is
often one of the bigger departments of a record label.
The legal department is also responsible for responding to any legal issues that may
occur such as lawsuits between an artist and the company.

6. A&R
A&R (artists and repertoire) is in charge of finding new artists and setting up a
production team to work with them. This department is often what keeps the artist
and the record label communicating together. A&R help choose song selection for
sets and albums, sign producers to produce the artist’s album and negotiate prices.
They negotiate with recording studios and video houses as well. If artists produce
badly selling albums or are not very popular then the blame if often on A&R as well as
the artists.
This department work closely with other departments to try and branch out the artists
music as much as possible.

7. ARTIST DEVELOPMENT
This department is crucial in the development of the an artist and are in charge of
planning the careers of the artist who are signed to the record label. Its advertises and
publicizes the artists over the advancement of their career.
Most record labels have stopped providing ‘artist development’ as they now try to
sign artists that are already fully developed into their own genre. This means its
unlikely that work is needed to get the artist into the market. Product development is
what most companies have renamed this department due to labels seeing the artists
as more of a product.

8. MARKETING
The marketing department of most record labels nowadays tend to focus on Street
Teams, Art and Design and the image of the artist and online promotion. Street
Teams give out flyers, put up posters and sell tickets to younger groups of people.
The Street Team may also ring into the radio stations to request songs.
The marketing department is also in control of the bands art and design. They design
everything from posters to flyers and CD covers and in-store banners. They are also in
charge of creating marketing plans for every album that the record label plans to
release.

9. ONLINE/NEW MEDIA
Social Networking Staff promote bands in the label creating and using social media
such as Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr and Twitter. These social media sites are used to
keep fans up to date on the latest news and releases. Other online work is creating
banner ads through sites like Vevo on YouTube and creating/updating band websites.
In bigger labels the department may also have several smaller sub-departments such
as SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), programming and PPC (pay per click) managers.

10. ART DEPARTMENT
The art department have one main job in which they are in charge of all the artwork
and designs that go with the production on a single/album. Producing CD cover,
advertisements and displays are examples of the types of jobs this department does.
They also are in charge of creating in store displays mainly in music stores but they
may also be in larger supermarkets.

11. PUBLICITY/PROMOTIONS
A publicist is responsible for getting their artists coverage in the media whether it be
on the radio, TV, online or in print. They attempt to put a positive spin on any bad
press and try to get the most out of all the good news/events coverage that has been
reported. Publicists want to get their artists invited to parties, events, and news worthy
situations which will increase media coverage for that artist.
They would also arrange photoshoots and news articles to be written and publicised
in newspapers and broadcasted across social media. Major artists would usually have
their own publicists who help coordinate publicity events.

12. SALES
The sales department is in control of everything the labels artists are selling. This is
mainly CDs, DVDs, merchandise and signature instruments etc. The sales department
is a large department within the label, they make the deals with the different
manufacturing and distribution businesses. The sub-departments ‘Sales Distribution’
make sure that when the artists merchandise/CDs etc are ready to be sold they have
all the materials prepared with the manufacturers to make sure they are produced and
released on time.
They would work with big music chain stores in order to get new albums/singles onto
the retailers shelves. The department will also work closely with the promotion and
team in order to discuss prices of the product being sold.