It takes a special kind of company to wait until the week before Christmas to make their layoffs, but welcome to the Australian music industry circa 2025 as Sony Music delivers a round of shock redundancies in their marketing and PR divisions.
Director of Marketing Clay Doughty, veteran senior publicist Bronwyn Tasker, and Publicity and Radio Co-ordinator Kate Hunter have all announced their departures, while The Music understands there are others who have yet to announce.
Sources have confirmed that the moves are part of the company’s shift away from traditional media to focus on “international influencers”. The move follows Warner’s slimming of their promo team and the appointment of a new head of creator strategy as labels chase user generated content.
Doughty first walked into Sony Music thirty-one years ago, kicking off as Epic Records’ product manager in 1994. He had a meander into roles at EMI and Gibson before returning to Sony as director of marketing eight years ago.
He said: “I’m grateful to have worked with some of the most talented, creative, passionate people and artists in the industry. What we’ve been able to achieve together has been truly remarkable. I leave with lifelong memories and lasting friendships.”
Tasker is one of Australia’s most-loved music publicists, kicking off as National Publicity Manager at Festival Mushroom before moving to Sony in 2005 where she was Senior Manager of National Publicity and subsequently director. In a note to industry colleagues she said: “I leave with my head held high knowing the joy I have brought to so many peoples lives”.
Hunter was at Sony for just shy of three years, joining in 2023 as Publicity and Radio Co-ordinator. In a Linkedin statement she said:
“It’s been the most unbelievable, wild, memorable, hilarious, chaotic, exciting, challenging yet inspiring era of my life. A job I dreamt of having since I was a little girl that felt impossible, until it wasn’t. I’ll never forget all I’ve learnt, the new music I’ve discovered, the incredible people I’ve met and had the privilege of working with, the hundreds of gigs/award shows/listening parties/backstage meet and greets / album launches, and of course my team — who are some of the best to ever do it, whom I will miss more than anything.”
The restructuring across Australia’s major labels was covered in our editorial from a couple of weeks ago, showing the frighteningly low market share of Australian artists as multinationals focus their promo efforts overseas, with Australian artists increasingly self-funding and utilising distribution services.
APRA AMCOS this year revealed that while Australian audiences were generating near record revenues for rightsholders, Australian music consumption was down thirty percent. The figures were backed up by The Australia Institute’s recent report by Will Page. Page today also released a new study with Pivotal Economics showing that the global value of recorded music this year hit an all-time high. It would seem that it’s never been a better time to be a shareholder of a multinational record company, but a worse time to be an Australian music lover.
With Australians being urged to “Ausify their Algo” at the same time as major labels are withdrawing the resources to putting local music in front of them, 2026 will be a fascinating time for local content.
