Warner Bros. Records Lays Off Employees, Restructures

Things still aren’t looking good for the record industry. As Digital Music News reports, Warner Bros. Records has started to lay off employees and restructure its company. The report said that restructuring involves cutbacks and consolidation of the promo units of Warner Bros. and Reprise Records.

Among those laid off were senior vice presidents of promotion Mike Rittberg and Ron Cerrito, who worked at Warner Bros. Records’ Los Angeles location. Although the reason for the layoffs hasn’t been confirmed, speculators are pointing to record sales and Access Industries’ purchase of the company.

Digital Music News also published a memo from Warner Bros. chairman Rob Cavallo, co-president and co-COO Livia Tortella and co-president and co-CEO Todd Moscowictz. You can read the memo below.

Yesterday was a difficult day for us at WBR. Necessary changes needed to build a promotion team for the future, while staying true to our core mission of investing in A&R, required us to say goodbye to some outstanding employees as we joined the WBR and Reprise promotional staffs. For those who are leaving, we are truly grateful for all of their work and commitment over the years.

As you all know, we recently hired Peter Gray as our Sr. VP of Radio Promotion for WBR and Reprise.  Peter carries a tremendous track record working records across all genres, and has been instrumental in the careers of Maroon 5, Kings of Leon, Ke$ha, Christina Aguilera, Alicia Keys, Kelly Clarkson, and Pitbull. We look forward to the expertise and leadership he will bring to the newly combined and enhanced promotion team. 

Reprise will remain a separate label with its distinct A&R point of view.  In addition, we have expanded the radio promotion team at ILG, which will focus on earlier-stage developing artists and more indie-oriented releases. This will allow us to stay nimble, and keep delivering winning results for our artists.  

Thank you all again for everything you do to help drive our success, and that of our artists. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us if you have any questions about any of this.

Rob, Todd, and Livia

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