Sony Shuts Down Arista, Jive and J Records

Sony has cleaned house!

They shut down the Arista, Jive and J Record labels and moved all of the artists under the RCA umbrella.

New RCA CEO Peter Edge did the deed on Friday.

Jive was founded by Clive Calder in 1977 and sold to BMG in 2002 for $2.74 billion. Jive is the home of Britney Spears, Chris Brown, JLo, R Kelly, Bullet For My Valentine, Nelly, Pitbull and Justin Timberlake.

Clive Davies founded Arista in 1974. Arista artists include Whitney Houston, P. Diddy, Aretha Franklin, Iggy Pop. Kenny G, Annie Lennox and Barry Manilow.

Davies then founded J. Records in 2000. J artists include Rod Stewart, Alicia Keys, Leona Lewis, Jennifer Hudson, Carlos Santana and Kelly Clarkson.

RCA COO Tom Corson says,

"The concept is that there is value in branding RCA and not having it confused or diluted by other labels. The artists have all been supportive. We didn't make this move without consulting our artists, and we haven't had any push-back. Frankly, they're the brand. We're defined by our artists."

Corson said that somewhere down the track

"there may be a reason to bring them back.'

Right now for Sony, and RCA, it was time to

'clean the slate.'

And we just got word that Sony PICTURES may be working on acquiring the rights to turn late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs' biography into a movie. No official announcements have been made just yet.