Record label EMI could announce that it is cutting up to 2,000 jobs on Tuesday as part of a radical restructuring plan, several newspapers report.
Jobs in sales, marketing, distribution and artist management among the group's overall 5,500 staff are likely to go.
There are also suggestions that the marketing spend could be cut from about 20% of projected sales to about 12%.
The restructuring plans come from EMI's private equity owner Guy Hands, who bought it for £3.2bn last year.
There have been warnings that the reduced spending on marketing could alienate some of EMI's recording artists.
Last week, EMI's UK chief executive Tony Wadsworth left the company after 25 years.
The manager of one of EMI's major artists, Robbie Williams, said the singer would not deliver a new album because he had no idea how the label would handle it.
Tim Clark accusing Mr Hands of acting like a "plantation owner" who had stumbled into the music industry via a "vanity purchase".
The Mail on Sunday says that Mr Hands must cut costs swiftly to pay back the £2bn he borrowed from Citigroup just as the credit crunch began to bite last summer.
The story also appears in the Sunday Times and Sunday Telegraph.
Nobody from EMI was available to comment.
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