Who invests the most in new artists? (Universal, Sony, Warner compared)

Tracking new signings and dollar spend

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Does the music industry still invest in new music?

The music industry gets a lot of criticism for no longer backing new artists.

This month Thom Yorke blasted the industry for failing to invest in artist development, and ploughing money into catalog instead.

This feels true, so I wanted to see if I could find any data about it.

Are the major labels still signing artists? Do they still invest in artist development? And how much?

I pulled three data points to try and get closer to the answer:

• New signings: how many new artists have the major labels signed this year?

• A&R spend: how much are the major labels spending on artist costs?

• Industry estimates: what do industry organisations estimate?

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Mapping the music industry: new artist development

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1. New signings 2026

The major labels have signed a total of 124 new acts since the start of the year, according to the data we pulled from Rostr.

Universal is the most active, signing 46 new acts across all its labels. And the most prolific imprint in the whole industry is Atlantic (owned by Warner Music) which signed 19 new artists so far this year, including Barry Can’t Swim and Emei.

This seems to suggest that majors are still backing new artists, at a rate of nearly one new signing every day.

What we don’t know: deal terms and structures (singles, album, 360?), advance figures, commitment to long-term development. We haven’t tracked the rate-of-change (we don’t know if this is more or less signings than the same period last year).

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2. A&R and artist costs

The majors are still signing acts, but how much are they spending? Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group are public companies, so we can look at their financial reports to estimate A&R spend.

Universal

UMG reported €5.83 billion in “artist costs paid” last year, which is where A&R and new artist development budget lives. However, that figure a little misleading and opaque.

We know that €402 million is artist advances (about 7%), which is more than double the previous year, so investing in new music rose substantially.

Beyond that, we don’t know exactly how the budget breaks down (e.g. how much is allocated to marketing, tour support, studio time, long-term artist development etc.) The €5.83 billion figure captures a huge umbrella of artists costs including (i) royalties paid to artists across the roster, (ii) signing and developing new acts and (iii) writedowns on unrecouped advances.

We can assume that (i) royalties paid to artists is almost certainly the largest expenditure in this bucket and likely well over 50%, leaving only a smaller cut for active new music development.

Warner

Warner reported $2.34 billion in artist and repertoire costs last year but this is also reported in a similarly opaque way to Universal. Warner’s A&R costs are spread across i) royalties paid to artists across the roster, (ii) signing and developing new acts and (iii) studio costs.

Again, we can assume that royalties are the biggest cost here, and active artist investment is a smaller slice.

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3. Industry estimates

Given that labels don’t break down the specifics, several organisations have tried to drill down and estimate the industry’s actual spend on A&R, marketing and artist development.

• The IFPI estimates that labels spent $8.1 billion globally in A&R and marketing in 2024.

• The BPI estimates that UK labels spent £358.1m in A&R and £136.7m in marketing and promotion in 2021 (the most recent estimate).

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Conclusion

Major labels are still signing artists (on a daily basis) and spending up to $8 billion a year on A&R and marketing, so there’s clearly a large artist development engine running.

However, we’re still left with a lot of questions. We don’t know whether those 124 new deals are long-term development commitments or short-term single spikes. We don’t really know how much money is allocated to new artists vs new music from legacy and superstar acts.

The data is quite hopeful (lots of resources and cash still committed to new music). However, like most data in the music industry, the big numbers don’t necessarily tell us the real story, like how much belief, trust and commitment is going into those artists for the long-term. That’s really the heart of the criticisms and unfortunately the raw data doesn’t give us an answer to that one.

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Thanks for reading

If you found this useful, please do forward it to your colleagues or share with your friends. If you have questions or thoughts, reach out to me on LinkedIn or by email at benjamin@stvdio.io. See you next week with another music industry report.