The meaning of competitors is fairly obvious: an organisation (or country) engaged in commercial or economic competition with others. More specifically in terms of media companies, it is comparing one with others who pose economic (etc) threats to them. So, with a record label such as Columbia Records, the main competition would perhaps be from other very large record labels. I think that it is very important too that we learn about the companies differing competition, as well as competition for companies in general, because from there we are then able to understand perhaps why organisations do things the way they are done. Understanding a companies competitors I believe will further extend understanding for how and why a company makes its decisions.
And of course Columbia Records has a number of competitors that they have to endure whilst trying to sell their artists work, as well as attempting to scout the best new artists (much like everyone else too!) Columbia's competitors will be trying to do the exact same thing that Columbia are doing themselves, only better; so the company must make sure that everything is covered thoroughly in order to stop this from happening.
Examples of these are:
- Republic and Capital Music Group (known and likely to be the nearest competitor)
- Atlantic Records Corporation
- Capitol Records, LLC
- Interscope Geffen A&M Records
For example, in 2014 Columbia Records was actually the second record label (company) on the 2014 market share chart. One of its competitors, Republic, actually beat them with 8.97% - Columbia Records got a commendable 7.75% of total album sales, plus track equivalent albums (TEA).
The graph above shows exactly what percentages the mother companies held; as you can see Sony LTD actually holds a very commendable, higher percentage than at least Indies and WMG; however, again their competitors (this time being UMG) are clearly more successful - perhaps because the company is larger? Surely this provides a substantial advantage!
Even indie labels are seen to be catching up to major record labels now in terms of sales, again as you can clearly see from the graph; small competition, but competition nevertheless. However Columbia Records does have several advantages over the indie record labels.
For example, Columbia is obviously much larger than indie labels (the departments in particular); this means they are able to act faster and more efficiently than the indie labels, ultimately resulting in more income/shares for the company. Furthermore indie record labels are admittedly far less known than big record labels, such as Columbia Records under Sony. This makes the bigger ones far more appealing than the smaller, because with more exposure for the aspiring recording artists comes more live shows, recording sessions and income.
In terms of disadvantages though, I believe that perhaps smaller record labels (unlike Columbia Records) have more artist freedom; because the labels are smaller, the people running them perhaps aren't as motivated by revenue as the much bigger ones like Columbia, who essentially have to maintain a reputation. Therefore I feel the bigger record labels would constrict artists more, and try to get 'hit' songs out of them, as opposed to smaller one who would give the artists more freedom to make what they actually want to make. (Of course this is not the case all the time, but it does happen! People have been dropped from very big record labels for not making something the label feels will be successful).
The graph above here is what I was talking about in the first paragraph; as you can see there are many different competitors to Columbia Records, such as Warner Bros and Atlantic. There are even smaller record labels within Sony, the mother company even! (Such as Sony Nashville; they work under the same mother company and so both bring in income for Sony - however in terms of individual record labels yes, they are both still competition to each other). Although Columbia Records is not number one on the chart, they still continue to challenge, and are very commendable in providing decent competition. Their album sales have never been better!
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