A fact file about all the different production roles in the music industry

1. FACT FILE:
Jobs Roles In a Record Label

2. CEO
 A CEO’s main job responsibilities are to act as the ‘manager’ as they are
the highest ranking person in the company, so they have the final say
over all corporate decisions made for example they have to manage
and control all ongoing projects and oversee the budget for them. They
also have to act as the communicator for all the sub-department heads
as they must talk to them and get all their feedback on current affairs
so they can decide what to do going forward and tell the individual
teams the appropriate information so they can work efficiently.
 Although they may not be the main person in charge of talent scouting,
they have a large role in deciding the new people who are signed on.

3. VICE PRESIDENT
 Vice President is basically a fancy name for head of department
meaning that every record label will have multiple Vice Presidents who
manage the daily schedule of the different departments and then feed
back any relevant information to the CEO. The departments that have
VPs are: business affairs, legal, artist and repertoire, publicity, marketing
and sales.

4. BUSINESS AFFAIRS/ACCOUNTING
 The accounting department at a record label is pretty much the same as
at any other firm or cooperation, as they take care of income and
bookkeeping to see how record sale are and which artists have the best
selling records. They also are in charge of the pay roll so the maker sure
the artists get the correct amount of money depending on their record
sales and make sure the people in other departments of the company
are paid on time.

5. LEGAL
 Again the legal department at a record label is relatively similar to any
other as they make sure that none of the artist are breaching their
contracts and can take companies to court if music belonging to their
artists is used and infringes the copyright acts on the music. They also
manage any money discrepancies for example if a company purchased
the rights to use their music in a film and then didn’t pay, they would
be taken to court to get said money back.

6. ARTISTS AND REPERTOIRE DEPARTMENT
(A&R)
 These are the people that could be classed as part time talent scouts, as
they are responsible for recruiting new talent and integrating them into
the company. They then work closely with the artists to help them find
a producer they’re happy to work with, which recording studio they
should work with (if the company doesn’t have its own) and they also
help the artist create and refine their songs or albums. They are also in
charge of communicating with the other departments for the artist so
that everything runs smoothly for them so they could be called a liaison
between the artist and the paperwork side of things.

7. ARTIST DEVELOPMENT
 According to the internet, this department doesn’t really exist anymore
as they used to be in charge of advertisement for the artists and would
plan out the future of the artists’ careers and use the appropriate
advertising and publishing to make this successful, however this has
since changed to just the ‘Development Department’ and its main focus
ids basically making the artists more famous so they will have more
record sales and the company will make more money faster.

8. MARKETING
 The are responsible for all the publicity, advertising, and commercial
events for the artists signed to the company. Every time an artist
releases a new single or album they are in charge of the release date,
the pre-promotion, any release events for the record, social media
campaigns and any other form of advertising the song to their best
ability so it gets the most publicity possible and will sell better to a
large target audience.

9. ONLINE/MEDIA DEPARTMENT
 This department basically specialises in online and social media based
promotion of the new record being released. They will coordinate any
online campaigns, they will help with the organisation and distribution
of the music or lyrics video from the songs and send them to the music
channels like MTV so they get more air time. They will also coordinate
the process involved in the online streaming industry to make sure
everything works well.

10. ART DEPARTMENT
 They will design all the posters, CD covers, vinyl covers, online
campaigns and any other front of online or print media so all the
advertisement fits the artists look and music genre, therefore appealing
to their target audience.

11. PUBLICITY/PROMOTIONS
 This department is the more press/paparazzi side of the advertisement
of the artist as they will organise any TV or radio appearances,
interviews, magazine articles, etc. They will work closely with the artists
own personal publicist to make sure that any events planned will be
convenient for the artist and that they’re happy doing said appearance
or interview.

12. SALES
 The people in this department are kind of like finance in the sense that
they oversee all the company’s sale and see which music retailer sells
the most of their units. This means it’s important that they are good at
forming good communication between all of the retail stores like HMV
so they can easily coordinate shipping and profit.