ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the common structures that underpin the administration of the recorded product and the framework that allows it finally to reach its audience. It clarifies some of the necessary duties in running a music label. The representative voice of the UK recorded music business is the British Phonograph Industry (BPI). Recording budgets, whether funded by the record company or artist/management/publisher, have reduced to something like 25 per cent of what they were in the pop genre peak of the mid-1990s. Larger music recording companies have core functions that facilitate the acquisition, manufacture and sale of recorded products. Specifically for the record label, an important feature of Phonographic Perfomance Limited (PPL) is that on joining a unique digital registrant code is issued in order that the label and all of its recordings. In promotional terms, the popular music video has become one of the most important tools available to record companies to break new music and perpetuate existing catalogues.
