WMG’s Lyor Cohen Goes On The Record

Today’s LA Times profiles Warner Music chief executive Lyor Cohen; and as the Times often does with entertainment execs the interview gives Cohen the space to paint a bright picture of the company.

Most of the evidence of positive motion is based on cost cutting and a stock price that is up 25% for the year. Without giving examples of what acts WMG is targeting for long term investments, Cohen states that, "the industry needs to develop artists who are profitable over the long term, even if they don’t start out big. We wanted to give ourselves more time for artist development, but to do that, we had to lay off a lot of people so we could afford to move more slowly…".

What is his biggest challenge?  "The digital revolution is baked into the very capillaries of our organization now, and we have to push experimentation every day," says Cohen. "We have to be willing to try things that may fail, and partner with anyone we can…". Cohen sites their relationship with 20 something year old Panic At The Disco manager and label exec John Janick as a new partnership that is paying dividends. (full LA Times story here).