arvato Signs With Universal Music Group International

arvato digital services, provider of media services and integrated supply chain solutions, will assume responsibility for operating and maintaining the complete central media archive of Universal Music Group International (UMGI) and the relevant production-asset delivery.

UMGI is a division of Universal Music Group, the world’s leading music company, and manages all of UMG’s businesses in countries outside of North America.

The long-term cooperative agreement between arvato digital services and UMGI involves operating and maintaining the UMGI digital and physical media archive. “We are proud that Universal Music Group International has chosen us as a professional media services provider. 15 years ago, arvato established a digital archive which offers 1.5 petabytes of storage capacity – or about 1.5 million gigabytes. The archive contains well over 100,000 titles and has been consistently updated and developed. In addition, our physical tape archive offers the highest security and quality standards”, says Sven Deutschmann, CEO arvato digital services Manufacturing EMEA.

Universal Music Group has the largest music catalog in the world. The contract with arvato digital services relates to the preparation, preservation and digitization of UMGI’s analog audiovisual carriers and digital media from the beginning of the 20th century to present, as well as the physical archiving of more than 400,000 audio and video tapes and the digital storage and archiving of the audio, video and graphic components. All those assets can then be called up at any time in the requested file-format for the digital and physical supply chain in order to fulfill the requirements of the online-distribution partners and the traditional finished product suppliers.

Rahmyn Kress, Senior Vice President Supply Chain Management at UMGI noted: “We are delighted to have found such an industry-leading and reliable partner as arvato digital services. Our new partner will process and archive our content and preserve it for the future.”

As a matter of precaution, arvato digital services has notified the German Federal Cartel Office of the agreement, and clearance is still pending.