20MusicWeek 06.0913 INTERVIEW METROPOLIS A TRUE POWER HOUSE Metropolis says its business is thriving after a financial restructure earlier this year
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STUDIOS n BY TIM INGHAM
I
t may have made its name as a world-famous recording studio, but West London’s Metropolis offers much more than that in 2013. The company’s CEO Ian Brenchley and MD
Carla Maroussas are especially keen to plug its creative agency, led by former Momentum Pictures exec Emily Compton, which has recently partnered on broadcast projects with the likes of Studio Canal, Channel 4 and Lionsgate. Standout projects have included an official
Paralympics DVD/Blu-Ray and Emeli Sande’s Live At The Royal Albert Hall mini-movie - as well as a host of corporate work including a partnership with Coca-Cola. Meanwhile, its productions team - led by Ramy
Dance and working closely with the creative division - has begun to spread its wings in the world of digital. It created the promo for Nina Nesbitt’s Stay Out, which scored half a million YouTube hits in its first week and recently topped the 2 million level. Between them, this pairing have also added
clients in the world of apps, video games and TV/movie production. But the bread and butter of the studio - based at
the towering Power House in Chiswick - remains its recording expertise and excellence.
ABOVE I’m with the brand: Metropolis MD Carla Maroussas and CEO Ian Brenchley. Since the company has expanded its service offerings, it’s much more than just a recording studio
According to Brenchley, Metropolis was
responsible, either in recording, mixing or mastering, for around 50% of the Top 40 UK singles and albums in both 2012 and 2013 so far. This year brought some eyebrow-raising news at
the company, with a financial restructure that saw three new investors come on board - including former commercial director of The Guardian, Adam Freeman. Meanwhile, its old trading company was placed into administration and a new fiscal setup was assembled. According to Brenchley and Maroussas, this has
paved the way for a newly-diversified complex, offering audio/visual expertise, live events and, of course, a special place to lay down your album…
How is the restructure process going? How many due balances with creditors have you cleared so far? Ian Brenchley:We’re not quite there, but we’ve done three quarters in terms of making everyone happy and we’ve got a bit more to go. It’s going to plan, so far so good. Carla Maroussas: We’ve been very open with everybody, given them access to both of us. That’s taken a lot of time, but it’s been worth it. IB:We’ve spent hundreds of thousands of pounds so far in honouring contracts. There’s a little bit more to go over the next couple of months and then we’ll draw a line under it. Trading is good.
What has the restructure enabled you to do? IB: Basically, we had private equity backers before, who were very expensive and not synergistic to the vision of the business. The new investors are from a media background and they’ve put their own personal money in, so it’s more angel investors than corporate [venture capitalists]. It’s a much more cost-efficient setup, with greater value and better strategic synergies. Adam [Freeman] was previously top dog at The
Guardian - there’s not a brand out there that’s worth knowing that he doesn’t know. That’s incredibly helpful to our business. We can do everything brands want to leverage [music], and it’s a great fit. The recording of music is still our main business, but [media work] is another player that comes with better margins, bigger budgets and more creative enthusiasm.
How close are you becoming to big brands? IB: On the one hand we’re a service facility: everything we do is complementary to those brands; we’re not competing with them on anything like IP. Whereas a record company wants to leverage a brand for rights as well as cash, we just want to work with them because it means greater visibility on what we do - a much broader audience - and bigger budgets to do creative things. They want to do things we did in the music industry 10 or 15 years ago; crazy
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