The Columbia House Company, a giant in the direct marketing of music and video entertainment products, has undertaken a sweeping reorganization designed to streamline the company and emphasize its e-commerce business.
The company also said that its longtime chairman and CEO Richard Wolter will retire after seven years as its top executive and a total of 34 years with the company.
The reorganization is a result of the company’s pending merger with CDNOW, Scott Flanders, the new company’s chairman and CEO, said in a statement.
With the completion of the merger three divisions will exist–Columbia House, columbiahouse.com and CDNOW–all reporting to Flanders.
Brian Wood has been appointed president of Columbia House. Since 1981, he has served the company as executive vice president of its video unit. His new responsibilities include overseeing the company’s core music and video division which serve 13 million members and generate $1 billion in annual revenues.
Tom Beauchamp has been named to the newly created position of senior vice president, chief information officer of Columbia House. He formerly worked as senior vice president and chief information officer at Oxford health Plans.
Bill Ostroff has been named president of columbiahouse.com. Ostroff joined the company in 1998 as vice president, Columbia House Interactive.
Columbiahouse.com is expected to build on the company’s existing Web business, which ended 1999 with sales of $100 million and over three million active accounts. One goal is to accelerate the online migration of Columbia House’s 13 million offline members who order music and videos via the mail.
“We are making a significant strategic investment in columbiahouse.com to enhance the value of online membership and to offer new services that will make it easier for more people to buy more products from us than ever before,” said Flanders.
“We also anticipate substantially lowering our infrastructure and transaction costs as customers take advantage of our expanded online services,” he added.
In July 1999, CDNOW, a music and video commerce, content and community, entered into a definitive agreement with Sony Corp. of America and Time Warner Inc. to merge with Columbia House, which is owned equally by Sony and Time Warner. The new public company that will result from the proposed merger will be owned 37% each by Sony and Time Warner. CDNOW’s existing stockholders will own 26%. The merger is expected after receipt of the necessary regulatory and shareholder approval.
Network
