RCA Records Announces Closing of Jive, Arista, and J Records

By Justin Sarachik, Christian Post Reporter Monday, October 10, 2011

The RCA Music Group is closing some of its well known sub labels in order to strengthen the brand of the company's core identity and bring the label together.

The sub groups, Jive, Arista, and J Records will all fall into the new RCA as well as some of their notable clients including: Britney Spears, Alicia Keys, R. Kelly, and Leona Lewis among others.

RCA released a statement saying, "In an effort to refresh RCA Records, all label imprints -- J Records, Arista Records and Jive -- will now be under the iconic RCA Records label."

Peter Edge, the CEO of RCA Records further confirmed the rumor in an interview with Hiphopdx.com.

"What we're witnessing - finally, maybe - is the digital turnaround that's long been discussed, where people feel comfortable buying music and building their collections digitally. The path we've taken is to refresh RCA, so we're going to retire those brands. There may be a reason down the line to bring them back, but it's a clean slate here...[t]he concept is that there is value in branding RCA and not having it confused or diluted by other labels. RCA is big now. We've doubled our market share, and we're competing with the top label groups in the industry...We didn't make this move without consulting our artists, and we haven't had any push-back. Frankly, they're the brand. We're defined by our artists," said Edge.

Jive is most known for developing pop boy-band superstars 'NSync and the Backstreet Boys, and still relevant hit maker, Britney Spears.

These artists were the cornerstone acts for the company; producing some of the last two decades biggest-selling albums and selling multiplatinum hits.

J and Arista have already converted their sites to default to the RCA Music Group site, while Jive has remained unchanged.

Remaining unchanged during the compression of companies is the Arista Nashville label, Columbia, and BNA, which continue to pump out country albums.

"Arista Nashville and its respective roster are not impacted in any way," Gary Overton, Chairman and CEO, Sony Music Nashville, said in a statement. "Our four-label Sony Music Nashville operations remain unchanged."