Entertainment One expanding music service in Australia

Above: Chris Taylor

North American entertainment media company Entertainment One (eOne), which already has a strong presence in Australia for film and TV distribution, has signalled it is upping the ante in its music presence here.

UK trade Music Week reported overnight that it has opened an office in Australia and Germany as part of an international roll out.

Entertainment One’s music activities include licensing, publishing, distribution, and artist promotion

In addition to its new German office, Entertainment One has entered into a marketing, promotion and physical distribution agreement for Europe with German indie SPV.

The Canadian-headquartered already handles digital distribution and marketing across Europe.

In a statement on the expansion to Australia and Germany, Entertainment One’s Global President of Music, Chris Taylor, said, “Entertainment One is at the forefront of indie music companies; thinking globally, acting locally, and pushing digitally across all management, label and publishing divisions.

“With the combination of our worldwide digital footprint, our new, on the ground marketing and promotion teams and our new physical partner SPV, eOne now has the capabilities in Europe that are unmatched by any other North American based independent.”

With offices in North America and the UK, Entertainment One offers physical and digital distribution for independent record labels and studios.

As of March 2016, it had 40,000 music tracks in its pocket.

Its in-house labels include Americana-folk Dualtone Music Group, the gospel-focused Light Records and Broadway content DRG Records.

The roster includes top-selling rapper The Game, country crossover stars The Lumineers, and former Destiny’s Child member and gospel artist Michelle Williams.

Entertainment One has been poised to grow its music internationally for the past 12 months.

Last March, it brought in Taylor to head its music division. An entertainment lawyer whose clients included Drake, Avril Lavigne and Nelly Furtado, he also set up record label and artist management company Last Gang in 2003.

Last Gang launched the careers of Death From Above 1979, MSTRKRFT, Metric, Chromeo, Ryan Hemsworth and Crystal Castles, and sold over two million records worldwide.

As part of the deal, Last Gang became part of Entertainment One.

Last September, Taylor brought in Toronto-based artist manager and. label executive Meg Symsyk to the newly-created role of Vice President, International Marketing & Management

Symsyk managed prog icons Rush and Australian-born frontwoman for the Distillers and Spinnerette Brody Dalle, and was director of marketing at Universal Music Canada.