Is Warner the only game in town?
I doubt this will affect the smaller independents.
The music industry is so filthy. The labels and agents are just pimps. Been there, done that.
Recording labels are quickly breaking down as a business model.
Look at the software industy. Pre-internet you had to find a company to distribute your software. Today, there are millions of software companies that create their product in a basement and distribute it via the internet. Now, the number of people becomming zillionaires by selling software has gone down, but the number of people making a decent living selling software is in the zillions.
Bands no longer need record labels to produce music, and they don’t need them to distribute it. The number of mega-bands in the future will probably go down, but the number of bands able to make a decent living will go up.
In the 1990s WEA (Warner Entertainment) bought shares in the majority of small labels. They wanted to be sure to have a piece of whatever the next big thing was.