Job Description

Music is Universal

It’s the passionate and dedicated team at Universal Music who help make us the world’s leading music company. From A&R to finance, legal to digital, sales to marketing, Universal Music is the place to grow and develop your career within a truly commercial and innovative business that leads in everything it does.

Everyone is welcome to apply for our roles, and we are determined to ensure that no applicant or employee receives less favourable treatment because of gender, race, disability, sexual orientation, religion, belief, age, marital status, background, pregnancy, or caring responsibilities. We also recognise the importance of diversity of thought within our teams and are fully committed to embracing the talents of people with autism, dyslexia, ADHD, and other forms of neurocognitive variation.

We will always seek to make appropriate adjustments to recruitment, workplaces, and work processes to be fully inclusive to people with different needs and working styles. If you need us to make any reasonable adjustments for you from application onwards, including alternatives to the online form or to disclose a neurocognitive condition, please email UniversalMusicCareers@umusic.com.

The A Side: A Day in The Life

Mercury Studios is a multi-faceted content studio established to develop, produce, globally distribute and invest in innovative, music-rooted storytelling across a range of media including film, television, podcasting, publishing and live-streamed performance. Taking its name from the iconic Mercury Records label, Mercury Studios is powered by Universal Music Group and creates an open space for experimentation to unleash and amplify both emerging and established artists. With offices in London and Los Angeles, Mercury Studios harnesses its established relationships with best-in-class talent from music and film, seamlessly bridging the two worlds to create a completely distinctive community of trailblazers driven by original IP, innovation and collaboration.

The B Side: Skills & Experience

This is a key role within the London-based Commercial Affairs team for Mercury Studios. The successful candidate will have TV distribution experience, solid analytical skills and be a great team player. They will support all aspects of the distribution business including, but not limited to, the following core duties and responsibilities:

• Pitch, negotiate and sell Mercury Studios content into Iberia, LATAM, CEE, Middle East & Africa across all media rights.

• Manage relationships with global non-theatrical partners, identifying opportunities to maximise sales across airlines, educational, inflight and other non-theatrical platforms.

• Identify opportunities to negotiate and sell both new productions and catalogue titles - taking our audio-visual catalogue into new distribution footprints and finding new audiences.

• Maximise exploitation of content with existing clients across traditional TV and SVOD platforms while proactively identifying and developing new commercial opportunities, partners and distribution models within your markets, with an entrepreneurial approach to audience growth and revenue generation.

• Review and forecast international value of new productions, catalogue and 3rd party acquisitions, provide feedback to the wider Commercial / Mercury team and work with the team to develop release strategies.

• Build and maintain strong relationships with existing and prospective clients, sharing market intelligence, buyer priorities and emerging trends with the wider business.

• Attend relevant international TV markets and festivals as required.

Person Specification

Essentials:

• Good experience within the distribution sector, focused on TV/SVOD + Airline content sales and knowledge of rights management and windowing strategies.

• Confident and intuitive - be able to work and converse directly with a range of international clients.

• Passionate about premium factual, music and entertainment content, with the ability to communicate the commercial potential of titles to international buyers.

• Highly organised and familiar with workflow and communication software (Monday.com, Googlesheets, Zoom, Teams and rights management tools).

• Willing to travel internationally and be flexible.

• To be familiar with tight deadlines, remain calm under pressure and balance multiple tasks and releases simultaneously.

• Work collaboratively with other internal stakeholders in support of the company aims as well as individual goals.

Desirable:

• Specific and detailed knowledge of key broadcasters / platforms and their programming strategies, local market dynamics, rights / windows, emerging technologies, and local content trends.

• Strong sense of genres, topics and knowledge of content.

• Passionate and knowledgeable about music across different genres.

• Experience selling content creatively – intuitive, pro-active and entrepreneurial spirit to finding new customers and opportunities with a proven track record.

About UMG UK

We are Universal Music Group UK – the UK’s leading music-based entertainment company. We exist to shape culture through the power of artistry. We help UK artists produce, distribute and promote the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful music to inspire and entertain fans at home and around the world.​

Bonus Tracks: Your Benefits

• Group Personal Pension Scheme (between 3% and 9%)

• Private Medical Insurance

• 25 paid days of annual leave

• Interest Free Season Ticket Loan

• Holiday Purchase scheme

• Dental and Travel Insurance options

• Cycle to Work Scheme

• Salary Sacrifice Cars

• Subsidised Gym Membership

• Employee Discounts (Reward Gateway)

Just So You Know…

The company presents this job description as a guide to the major areas and duties for which the jobholder is accountable. However, the business operates in an environment that demands change and the jobholder's specific responsibilities and activities will vary and develop. Therefore, the job description should be seen as indicative and not as a permanent, definitive, and exhaustive statement.

Job Category:

Universal Music Group