Sony Media Group

Sony Entertainment, Inc. is a global entertainment company established in 2012. It focuses on most of Sony's motion picture, television and music businesses. It is a subsidiary of the Japanese Sony Group, managed by Sony's American subsidiary, Sony of America.

History
On March 30, 2012, Michael Lynton, co-chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE), was named as CEO of Sony Corporation of America to oversee all of Sony's global entertainment businesses and Nicole Seligman, Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Sony Corporation, was named as president. On April 9, 2013, Lynton renewed his contract with the company.

On February 18, 2016, Seligman resigned after 15 years working for Sony and remained with the company until the end of March.

On January 13, 2017, Lynton announced that he was stepping down as CEO of Sony Entertainment and chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment to be chairman for Snap Inc. He was later replaced by Anthony Vinciquerra on June 1, 2017 after he was named as chairman/CEO of SPE.

It was reported in December of 2016 by multiple news outlets that Sony was considering restructuring its U.S. operations by merging its TV & film business, Sony Pictures Entertainment, with its gaming business, Sony Interactive Entertainment. According to the reports, such a restructuring would have placed Sony Pictures under Sony Interactive's CEO, Andrew House, though House wouldn't have taken over day-to-day operations of the film studio. According to one report, Sony was set to make a final decision on the possibility of the merger of the TV, film, & gaming businesses by the end of its fiscal year in March of the following year (2017). However, judging by Sony's activity in 2017, the rumored merger never materialized.

On July 17, 2019, Sony announced that they will merge Sony Music Entertainment and Sony/ATV Music Publishing to form the Sony Music Group. The merger was finalized on August 1, 2019.

Sony Pictures Group
Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. (SPE) is the television and film production/distribution unit of Sony. With 12.5% box office market share in 2011, the company was ranked third among movie studios. Its group sales in 2010 were US$7.2 billion. The company has produced many notable movie franchises, including Spider-Man, The Karate Kid and Men in Black. It has also produced the popular television game shows Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune.

Sony entered the television and film production market when it acquired Columbia Pictures Entertainment in 1989 for $3.4 billion. Columbia lives on in the Sony Pictures Group, whose assets include:


 * Columbia Pictures: Founded in 1924 by Harry Cohn, Sony acquired the studio in 1989 from The Coca-Cola Company for $3.4 billion.
 * TriStar Pictures: Formed in 1982 as a joint venture between Columbia Pictures, HBO, and CBS. Became part of The Coca-Cola Company in December 1987 and the Sony ownership in 1989. Was relaunched in 2004 as a marketing and acquisitions unit that specializes in the genre and independent films.
 * TriStar Productions: A joint-venture between Thomas Rothman and SPE.
 * Screen Gems: Originally Columbia's animation division and later a television production company best known for TV's Bewitched and The Partridge Family, as well as bringing The Three Stooges short subjects to TV in 1958. Sony revived the Screen Gems brand in 1998 to develop mid-priced movies (production budget of between $20 million and $50 million) in specific genres such as science fiction, horror, black cinema and franchise films.
 * Sony Pictures Imageworks
 * Sony Pictures Animation
 * Sony Pictures Releasing: Founded in 1994 as a successor to Triumph Releasing Corporation. The unit handles distribution, marketing, and promotion for films produced by Sony Pictures Entertainment; including Columbia Pictures, TriStar Pictures, Screen Gems, Sony Pictures Classics, among others.
 * Sony Pictures Releasing International (formerly Columbia TriStar Film Distributors International)
 * Sony Pictures India: A production house established by Sony to release Indian movies and distribute Hollywood movies released under Columbia Pictures.
 * Sony Pictures Home Entertainment: Founded in 1978 as Columbia Pictures Home Entertainment. Currently manufactures and distributes the Sony film and television libraries on Blu-ray, Ultra HD Blu-ray, 3D Blu-ray, DVD, VHS, UMD and digital download
 * Sony Wonder: The former kids and family label of Sony Music Entertainment that was moved to SPHE on June 21, 2007.
 * Genius Brands (minority stake)
 * Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions (SPWA): A Sony division which acquires and produces about 60 films per year for a wide variety of distribution platforms, especially for non-theatrical markets. It had been called Worldwide SPE Acquisitions, Inc. until September 2010.
 * Destination Films: A motion picture company which currently specializes in action, thriller, sci-fi, niche and low-end to medium-end horror films was purchased by Sony in 2001.
 * Stage 6 Films: A direct-to-video label created in 2007. Also releases some films theatrically.
 * Affirm Films: A motion picture label launched in 2008 to release gospel and Christian films.

Sony Music Group
Sony Music Entertainment (also known as SME or Sony Music) is the second-largest global recorded music company of the "big three" record companies and is controlled by Sony Corporation of America, the United States subsidiary of Japan's Sony.

In one of its largest-ever acquisitions, Sony purchased CBS Record Group in 1988 for US$2 billion. In the process, Sony partnered and gained the rights to the ATV catalogue of Michael Jackson, considered by the Guinness Book of World Records to be the most successful entertainer of all time. The acquisition of CBS Records provided the foundation for the formation of Sony Music Entertainment, which Sony established in 1991.

In 1968, Sony and CBS Records had formed a 50:50 joint-venture CBS/Sony Records, later renamed CBS/Sony Group, in Japan. When CBS Records was acquired, a 50% stake in CBS/Sony Group owned by CBS was also transferred to Sony. In March 1988, four wholly owned subsidiaries were folded into CBS/Sony Group and the company was renamed as Sony Music Entertainment Japan (SMEJ). It operates independently of Sony Music as it is directly owned by Japanese Sony.

In 2004, Sony entered into a joint venture with Bertelsmann AG, merging Sony Music Entertainment with Bertelsmann Music Group to create Sony BMG. In 2005, Sony BMG faced a copy protection scandal, because its music CDs had installed malware on users' computers that was posing a security risk to affected customers. In 2007, the company acquired Famous Music for US$370 million, gaining the rights to the catalogues of Eminem and Akon, among others. Sony bought out Bertelsmann's share in Sony BMG and formed a new Sony Music Entertainment in 2008. Since then, the company has undergone management changes.

Sony purchased digital music recognition company Gracenote for US$260 million in 2008. Tribune Media Company acquired Gracenote from Sony in 2014 for $170 million.

Besides its record label, Sony operates other music businesses. In 1995, Sony merged its publisher with Michael Jackson's ATV Music Publishing, forming Sony/ATV Music Publishing. At the time, the publishing company was the second largest of its kind in the world. The company owns the publishing rights to over 4 million compositions, including The Beatles' Lennon-McCartney catalogue, Bob Dylan, Eminem, Lady Gaga, Sam Smith, Ed Sheeran, and Taylor Swift.

In 2012, Sony/ATV then acquired a majority stake in EMI Music Publishing, becoming the world's largest music publishing company. In 2018, Sony bought the shares in the publisher it didn't own already, making it a wholly-owned subsidiary. As of 2016, Sony owns all of Sony/ATV.