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Former Universal and Sony boss plotting new label
By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 26 February 2018
Record industry veteran Doug Morris – who spent the latter part of his career running the two biggest record companies in the world, first Universal Music and then Sony Music – is plotting the launch of a brand new label, according to sources who have been busy chattering with Billboard.
The 79 year old Morris stood down as CEO of Sony Music last year, allowing British record industry exec Rob Stringer to finally take on the top job at the world’s second biggest record company. However, Morris stayed on in a non-executive Chairman role for another year.
He’ll step down from that job too next month, gossipers say, leaving the major to launch a new record company. Billboard’s sources reckon that Morris already has funding in place for the new label business, and that a close alliance with Apple Music may be part of the venture, although the tech giant won’t be a shareholder.
Morris, of course, was the boss of now Apple Music exec Jimmy Iovine when he set up his Beats business with Dr Dre. At the time both execs were at Universal Music, which took a stake in the Beats business and then cashed in big time when Apple bought the company – including its then fledgling streaming service – in 2014.
