Koch Nashville Shuttered

Koch Entertainment has closed its Nashville office after six years, leaving GM Nick Hunter, his staff and the label’s artists looking for options.

Hunter said it came down to the cost of doing business.

“If you look at Koch Records, their success is in rap music and children’s records. And if you look at our records, we’re a long ways from that,” he told Pollstar. “The kind of music we put out needs to be promoted and needs to be marketed.

“We either needed to do it right or not do it. They chose not to do it, which is fine.”

Koch Nashville’s roster includes Cledus T. Judd, Dale Watson, Dean Miller, Daryle Singletary, Hacienda Brothers, Maia Sharp, Robert Earl Keen, Robert Gordon and Ronnie Bowman.

“The artist roster, with the possible exception of Cledus T. Judd, will be free to go as soon as the terms of their current contracts are up,” Hunter said.

He and artist manager Simon Renshaw opened the former Audium Records in 1999, with Koch Entertainment as a minority investor. When Renshaw took a job with The Firm in Los Angeles a year later, the partners sold their interest in the label to Koch but Hunter remained in charge.

Canada-based ROW Entertainment, parent company of the CD Plus retail chain, completed its acquisition of Koch Entertainment in June.

— Tina Amendola