Warner Music Group history

Warner had also purchased Frank Sinatra's Reprise Records in 1963.

In 1969, Warner Brothers-Seven Arts was bought by Steven Ross.

Ostin however had received overtures from other companies including MGM Records and ABC Records and when he met with Ertegun in January 1970 and was offered Maitland's job, he was unwilling to re-sign immediately.

However, by 1971 Ross had sold most of its holdings; that year he changed the company's name to Warner Communications.

With the scheduled addition of the UK rights to the Atlantic catalogue, which would revert to Kinney in early 1972, Billboard predicted that the Warner-CBS partnership would have a 25–30% share of the UK music market.

Ironically, after the group’s transfer to Warner Bros. in 1975 and the recruitment of new members Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks, the group scored a major international hit with the single "Rhiannon" and consolidated with the best selling albums Fleetwood Mac, Rumours and Tusk.

Warner had purchased Atari, the video-game and computer firm, in 1976 for the bargain price of $28 million.

Alan O'Day was the first artist signed to the label, and the first release was "Undercover Angel". The song, which he described as a "nocturnal novelette", was in February 1977.

By 1980, Warner's revenues had reached $2 billion.

Founder and president Ken Middleton ran the Canadian company until his retirement in 1982.

Nevertheless, Atari was sold in the summer of 1984 for $240 million and the publishing division, which produced DC Comics and Mad Magazine, reached $16 million in operating profits by the end of 1984.

In February 1986 the company bought the other half of Warner Amex Cable from American Express for $393 million.

A particularly heated disagreement came in February, 1987 when the Warner board of directors gave Steven Ross a ten-year contract with a potential salary-and-bonus package of about $14 million a year.

In 1988 WEA took over the German classical label Teldec and the British Magnet label.

In June, 1989 Paramount Communications Inc. (formerly Gulf + Western) threw a wrench into these plans when it bid $10.7 billion ($175 per share) for Time.

This relationship ended when Island was sold to PolyGram in 1989. For example, Warner Bros. distributed Straight Records, DiscReet Records, Bizarre Records, Bearsville Records, and Geffen Records (the latter was sold to MCA in 1990). Atlantic Records distributed Swan Song Records.

Kinney CEO Steve Ross led the group through its most successful period until his death in 1992.

Since his appointment as head of WBR, Ostin had always reported directly to Steve Ross and his successor Gerald Levin, but in late 1993, when Ostin's contract came up for renewal, Morgado asserted his authority, insisting that Ostin should now report directly to him.

Morgado's new structure was announced in August 1994 and Bob Krasnow resigned from Elektra the next day.

In November 1995, Fuchs was himself sacked by Levin, leaving the company with a reported US$60 million "golden parachute", and Time Warner co-chairmen Robert A. Daly and Terry Semel took over the running of the music division.

In 1996, after causing much controversy, Interscope was purchased by MCA Music Entertainment.

In 1998, Seagram boss Edgar Bronfman Jr. held talks aimed at merging Seagram's Universal Music, headed by Morris, with the venerable British recording company EMI, but the discussions came to nothing; Bronfman then oversaw Universal's takeover by Vivendi.

In 1999, Rhino launched Rhino Handmade, which released limited-edition reissues of lesser-known but still-significant recordings from the WEA labels.

Peers, Martin, "AOL May Not Be Able to Help Struggling Warner Music Snap Sales Slump," Dow Jones Business News, January 13, 2000.

The mega-deal that created AOL Time Warner was completed 2001.

It soon became evident however, that many of the synergies that were expected to result from the multibillion dollar union of AOL Time Warner—including those related to Warner Music—had failed to reach fruition. It also acquired Word Entertainment, a Christian music label, in 2002.

Time Warner eventually removed the AOL portion of its name in 2003 and put Warner Music up for sale.

Nevertheless, the initial public offering went on as planned and raised over $554 million in May 2005.

In September 2006, after pulling its content from the service earlier in the year, WMG entered into a new licensing deal with the video streaming service YouTube.

On December 27, 2007, Warner announced that it would sell digital music without digital rights management through AmazonMP3, making it the third major label to do so.

In 2008, The New York Times reported that WMG's Atlantic Records became the first major record label to generate more than half of its music sales in the United States from digital products.

In 2009, it was announced that the companies had reached a deal, and videos would be re-added to YouTube.

WMG formed a partnership with MTV Networks in June 2010 that allowed MTVN to exclusively sell ads on WMG's premium content; in turn, views of WMG videos would be counted as views for MTVN.

In May 2011, WMG announced its sale to Access Industries, a conglomerate controlled by Soviet-born billionaire Len Blavatnik, for US$3.3 billion in cash.

Bronfman Jr. stepped down as chairman of the company on January 31, 2012.

In June 2013, WMG expanded into Russia by acquiring Gala Records, best known as the longtime distributor of EMI. Later that year, Warner Music Russia agreed to locally distribute releases by Disney Music Group and Sony Music.

In April 2014, WMG announced that it had acquired Chinese record label Gold Typhoon.

By March 2015, over 140 independent labels had placed bids on over 11,000 Warner Music artists valuing $6 billion, far higher than expectations.

In April 2016, the first confirmed sale of a Warner Music artist was the back catalogue of English band Radiohead to XL Recordings.

In April 2017, Warner Music agreed to sell the independent distributor Zebralution back to its founders.

In May 2018, New State Music acquired the catalogues of Paul Oakenfold and Dirty Vegas.

In January 2019, WMG signed a Turkish distribution deal with Doğan Media Group, which will represent the record company for physical and digital releases.

Warner Music Group had planned an IPO of current investors' stock in March 2020, but withdrew its IPO just before the March 2 kick off due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In February 2021, WMG purchased a minority stake in the Saudi Arabian record label Rotana Records.