History of Chrysalis

• The roots of Chrysalis stretch back to a tiny flat in West London in 1967, when former university social secretaries, Chris Wright, then 22, and Terry Ellis, 23, linked their flair for managing and booking bands to form the Ellis Wright Agency. The duo quickly established themselves as significant entertainment providers for British colleges and swiftly transferred to an office in London's West End. Among the duo's early management clients were blues rockers Ten Years After, whom Wright had snapped up in Manchester when they were known as the Jaybirds, and a Blackpool soul band that evolved into Jethro Tull.

  After a couple of experiences trying to release Ten Years After and Jethro Tull records via other companies, Wright and Ellis began thinking in terms of their own label. In 1968, they signed a licensing deal with Island Records with the proviso that, should Wright and Ellis' acts log an agreed number of hits, then the pair would be awarded a label in their own right. The appropriate tally was logged within a year, and a new independent record company - Chrysalis, an amalgam of Wright's first name and Ellis's last - was born.

  Via hit albums like "This Was" and "Stand Up" from Jethro Tull - who boasted a highly charismatic frontman in Ian Anderson - plus others from Ten Years After, Procol Harum and Jethro Tull offshoot Blodwyn Pig, Chrysalis established itself as a highly individual label, folksy at its roots but with blues/rock leanings. Alongside Chris Blackwell's Island, which specialised in ska/reggae, Chrysalis's emergence as a front-running independent prompted the majors of the day to create their own "progressive" offshoot labels.

  Into the 70s, as Jethro Tull took off in the US, Chrysalis's signings included gravel-voiced Scot Frankie Miller, former Procol Harum guitarist Robin Trower, folk/rock band Steeleye Span, singer/songwriter Leo Sayer and hard-rock band UFO. Chrysalis responded to punk and new wave by signing Generation X, Ultravox and out of New York, Blondie, whose string of subsequent hit singles included "Atomic", "Call Me" and "The Tide is High".

  Wise to new musical trends emanating from the UK, Chrysalis later set up an offshoot, 2-Tone, arguably the first artist-related label within what had now become a global music company and home to ska-revival notables the Specials, the Selector, Madness and the Beat. At the start of the 80s, Chrysalis also helped set the New Romantic movement in motion by signing Spandau Ballet on the Reformation label. A buyout of the Ensign label brought the Waterboys and Sinead O'Connor on board. The US side of Chrysalis, operated out of Los Angeles by Terry Ellis, enjoyed a run of successes with Pat Benetar, Huey Lewis & the News, Slaughter and Billy Idol.

  In early 1985, Terry Ellis sold his share of the company to Chris Wright. Following a reverse takeover of Management Agency and Music Plc later in 1985, Chrysalis became a public company with a full listing on the London Stock Exchange. Increasing overheads in the US side of the business played a part in the decision to sell 50% of the record label to Thorn EMI in 1989, which activated an option to buy out the entire Chrysalis Records label 18 months later. Chris Wright retained, however, the Group's extensive music publishing interests. Barred from working in the music industry for two years as part of the agreement with Thorn EMI, Wright began forging a new direction for the Chrysalis Group in radio broadcasting and television production.

  1991 saw the commencement of the Italian Football TV production contract which led to the setting up of Chrysalis Sport. Due to the increasing demand for television programming, over the next few years joint ventures were set up with established TV production companies such as Assembly, Bentley, Cactus and Clive James' Watchmaker ? resulting in Chrysalis TV Group becoming one of the largest production groups in the UK, with overseas interests in Holland, Spain and New Zealand. Chrysalis TV Group was sold to a strong MBI team led by ex-Granada/ITV executives in August 2003. The disposal price of ?53m represented a good return on our past investment and allows us to be a more focused media group.

  In 1993 the Radio Division was established under Richard Huntingford with the first station 100.7 Heart FM being launched in September 1994 in Birmingham, followed a year later with the launch of Heart 106.2 in London. The Nottingham-based Century 106 was acquired in May 2005 and subsequently rebranded as Heart 106. It extended our Heart brand to the East Midlands are, thereby giving our Heart brand a footprint in the key Greater London and entire Midlands population conurbations. The Galaxy brand rapidly followed, with the acquisition of stations in Bristol/South Wales (since sold), Manchester, Yorkshire and Birmingham and the launch of a new Galaxy station covering the North East region. The acquisition of the two London news talk stations (LBC) in September 2002 has significantly strengthened our position. Chrysalis Radio is now the second largest commercial radio group in London and the UK's third largest radio group, and continues to be recognised as one of the best performers in the industry on the basis of its audience and revenue growth. The Group has also been successful in winning digital licences through the MXR Consortium (Chrysalis Radio, Capital Radio and Guardian Media Group), with quasi-national coverage obtained for its analogue brands as well as a digital-only brand, The Arrow, providing a classic rock format.

  As stated above, when the Chrysalis Records label was sold to EMI in 1991, the group made the very wise decision of retaining its music publishing business, and began a concerted strategy of building the catalogue. This has proved to be very successful as Chrysalis Music's Net Publisher Share has grown from ?2.5m in 1992 to over ?10m today. The catalogue itself is hugely broad and deep, spanning 5 decades, and Chrysalis Music has offices in the UK, the US, France, Germany, Benelux, Spain, Italy and Scandinavia. Chrysalis Music songwriters have had their material recorded by artists as diverse as Madonna, Blue, Jennifer Lopez, Eminem, Michael Jackson and Marilyn Manson. Chrysalis Music tracks are regularly licensed for use in high profile films, tv series, commercials and video games. The financial strength of the catalogue was recognised when the Group completed a long term ?60m securitisation of its global music publishing catalogue in an innovative structure to accommodate what Chrysalis believes to be the largest ever securitised music deal and certainly the first to involve a multi-jurisdictional international music-publishing catalogue. The facility was extended to £75m, underlining the value of our catalogue, in January 2006.

  In 1998, the Books division was formed and invested in a number of book publishing companies and back lists, including Brasseys, B.T. Batsford, Ramboro Books, Robson Books, Salamander, Greenwich Editions, Conway, Putnam and ZigZag.

  In November 2005 we sold our book publishing operations to Anova Books Company Limited, a new company formed by Robin Wood (CEO) and other senior managers of Chrysalis Books. 

  We disposed of our 50% interest in Air Studios (Lyndhurst) in February 2006.

  In July 2007, Chrysalis Radio was sold to Global Radio for £170m, leaving Chrysalis as a focused music business. Chrysalis now operates a successful international music publishing operation, the Echo Label, an 'incubator' record label for artists signed to our music publishing division and Lasgo Chrysalis, an international wholesale distribution business. We have a wealth of extremely talented staff across all the areas in which we operate and are in an excellent position to build long-term value for all shareholders.