Music Brokers was founded in 1977 by Federico Scialabba and is the only independent Latin American company that has managed to develop a multinational platform. 25 years since its founding and success in the music industry. 25 years transforming the music industry
MUSIC BROKERS 25 YEARS: It has offices in LATAM and the USA and an extensive network of more than 38 associated distributors around the world.
Music Brokers celebrated 25 years of success in the music industry
At the end of the 1990s, the world was already connected to the internet, but life was not shared in real time. Bandwidth didn’t exist, and the speed was different. There were search engines like Altavista or Yahoo, but the king of search engines, Google, only arrived in 1998. And although people communicated via mobile phones and emails, no one was yet showcasing their experiences on social media or watching movies via streaming.
One year earlier, in 1997 to be exact, two young men —Federico Scialabba and Julián Cohen— joined forces with the dream of creating an independent record label that, from Argentina, could expand globally and become an alternative to the traditional multinationals that have historically dominated the music business.
Music Brokers – physical product
How did Music Brokers begin?
In the beginning, Music Brokers was a company supported by a permanent line of low-priced collections: from boleros to romantic music, including tango and many other genres. And as the market proved that the new label could offer good products at accessible prices, the first 80,000 units were followed by hundreds of thousands of orders. These collections even began to be sold in non-traditional sales points like newspaper and magazine kiosks. It was the end of the 1990s, and people still got their news from printed newspapers with ink and paper. The print runs were massive — millions of newspapers were printed and distributed throughout the country. Major publishers quickly saw the opportunity to sell music alongside their news and began to buy MB collections to accompany different types of publications. No one could imagine that so many people would want to buy a series with 50 classical music CDs, but it happened. The collections became a boom. Spotify didn’t exist yet, and unknowingly, people were buying something similar to a playlist — they were “physical playlists,” compilations.
Music Brokers evolves its products
Over time, and with the ability to expand its investments, Music Brokers began to evolve with its products and became increasingly demanding. It opened new pricing lines, greatly improved the quality of its licenses, and began working with more rigorous partners.
Music Brokers and Bossa N’Stones
In 2001, while Argentina was experiencing its worst crisis — blocked bank deposits, a state of emergency, and a presidential resignation — MB took another leap forward. The successive devaluations and the enormous exchange gap made importing products impossible, but the company turned that problem into a great opportunity. Record labels and record stores were on the brink of bankruptcy, so MB partnered with a factory to supply products to shelves that had been well-positioned but were now empty. Sales multiplied again. A few years later, in 2005, the Bossa N’Stones series arrived. With millions of units sold not only in Argentina but around the world, this album marked the beginning of the company’s internationalization. Regional offices were opened in Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and the United States.
And along with the sales success in Tower Records, HMV, and even Walmart stores in different countries, came the effort to digitize the catalog. In 2006, while Spotify and other platforms were beginning to launch their streaming services, MB was slowly building its base on each one. Cultivating spaces in the virtual world seems like a good formula. In the last 25 years, those “small digital plots” have grown into vigorous, interconnected, and very active profiles.
What does Music Brokers do today?
Today, Music Brokers is a company of ideas, with specific products to nourish a virtuous ecosystem — one that continuously grows and feeds itself. According to its founders:
“MB creates soundtracks for specific situations that infiltrate people’s emotions, spaces, and what people recognize and need.”
If, as Matt Redman says, there are 10,000 reasons to bless the Lord, then 16,000 songs should represent the outcome of these first successful 25 years of Music Brokers.