A new report entitled Inclusion in the Music Business has been released, examining gender and racial diversity at the upper echelons of music companies around the world.
Presented by the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative in partnership with Believe Music and TuneCore, the study of 37 major and independent music companies reveals that 86.8 percent of leaders are male, and 92.1 percent are white, with a decrease in women and minority racial groups in leadership positions since 2021.
Image courtesy of Amy Hirschi/Unsplash
The report examines also studied top leadership roles and senior management teams in music groups, record labels, publishing, streaming and distribution organisations, crunching the titles of over 2,700 executives across 106 companies. In the ranks of senior teams at six of these biggest companies (Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Spotify, iHeartMedia and SiruisXM), women made up one-third, and people of colour, 16.7 percent.
Music distribution companies are leading in the inclusion of women in executive positions, who make up almost half (47.8 percent) of those ranks.
Record labels are also more likely than streaming, publishing, distribution and music groups to employ people of colour in executive positions (30.1...
Continue reading
Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month
Already a subscriber?
Log in
As far as record companies such as Universal, Sony and Warner are concerned, I have been collecting classical recorded music for over 50 years and for whatever reason it seems to be a particularly male pursuit. You just don’t see many women at classical record fairs or sales such as the ones Readings used to run in Melbourne, or the 3MBS Music Fair. Nor do you see female classical reviewers on youtube, an area of interest reserved for the likes of David Hurwitz and Gil Zilkha. Why this is so I have no idea, because there are many fine women record producers, but it may help to explain a lack of a natural progression from enthusiast to CEO of a major record company.
Peter Taplin
Freelance Record Producer