BREAKING: Carson James & Chris Poole Exit BBR Music Group/BMG Amid Restructuring

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Carson James & Chris Poole

Sr. VP of Promotion Carson James and Sr. Director of A&R Chris Poole have exited BBR Music Group/BMG as part of a company-wide reorganizing, MusicRow has confirmed.

James has been part of the BBR Music Group staff for over a decade. He oversaw the promotional efforts for Broken Bow, Stoney Creek and Wheelhouse Records, and led Broken Bow Records to being named 2022’s No. 1 airplay label for country music by Country Aircheck/Mediabase. Prior to joining BBR Music Group, James spent nearly a decade in promotion at Curb Records. He also served as GM at Bullseye Marketing/Research and Hart Media as well as Sr. VP Programming for then Colonial Broadcasting in Montgomery, Alabama.

Poole joined the company in 2018, and was promoted to Sr. Director of A&R in 2022. He joined the label group after time at CTM/Writer’s Ink, where he served as Creative Manager. He began his career as an artist manager with Paravel Management, which he co-founded in 2013.

BMG announced its plans for restructuring today (Nov. 30), detailing that the indie company planned to focus its approach on a global scale, and clarifying roles and structures to make the company “more accountable” to its artist and songwriter clients.

“We are changing the way we do things. We will combine creative intuition with data-driven insights to deliver the best service for our clients and customers,” says BMG CEO Thomas Coesfeld. “We are local where necessary, global where possible.”

In line with its publishing business, the company shares that the new structure for BMG’s recordings business will make a clear distinction between local expertise in artist relationships and global functions which serve them. Catalogue, sales and marketing will now become global functions, alongside investments, technology, rights and royalties which BMG already organizes on a global basis. Local campaign management will work with a new global marketing team responsible for analytics, content creation and media planning and buying.

The changes form part of a strategy which has already seen BMG take control of its distribution, forming direct relationships with Spotify and Apple Music and discontinuing its Berlin-based international marketing function in order to simplify its relationships with artists and empower local A&R and campaign management teams.

“This is a strategy for future growth,” states Coesfeld. “But in a business in which change is a constant, we ourselves need to change to grow further. Standing still is not an option if we want to deliver for our artist and songwriter clients.”

It is unclear if other positions from BMG’s Nashville office have been affected by the changes.

LB Cantrell
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