 | |
| Company type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | |
| Predecessor | |
| Founded |
|
| Founder | Polydor Deutsche Grammophon |
| Defunct | 1999 (original) |
| Fate | Sold to Seagram and folded into Universal Music Group. Label still used by UMG's PolyGram Entertainment and for some of its label divisions in certain regions. 1996–1999 PolyGram Filmed Entertainment catalog currently owned by Universal Pictures. (part of Comcast) Pre-1996 PolyGram Filmed Entertainment catalog currently owned by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. (part of Amazon) |
| Successor | |
| Headquarters | , |
| Parent |
|
PolyGram N.V. was a multinational major music record label and entertainment company formerly based in the Netherlands. It was founded in 1962 as the Grammophon-Philips Group by Dutch corporation Philips and German corporation Siemens, to be a holding for their record companies, and was renamed "PolyGram" in 1972. The name was chosen to reflect the Siemens interest Polydor Records and the Philips interest Phonogram Records.[citation needed] The company traced its origins through Deutsche Grammophon back to the inventor of the flat disc gramophone, Emil Berliner.
Later on, PolyGram expanded into the largest global entertainment company, creating film and television divisions. In May 1998, it was sold to the alcoholic distiller Seagram which owned film, television and music company Universal Studios. PolyGram was thereby folded into Universal Music Group, and PolyGram Filmed Entertainment was folded into Universal Pictures, which had been both Seagram successors of MCA Inc. When the newly formed entertainment division of Seagram faced financial difficulties, it was sold to Vivendi, and MCA became known as Universal Studios, as Seagram ceased to exist. Vivendi remains the majority owner of the Universal Music Group (while the film and television division was sold to NBCUniversal) until 2021. In February 2017, UMG revived the company under the name of PolyGram Entertainment, which currently serves as their film and television division.