Universal Music, the Vivendi-owned music company, will announce today that David Joseph has been promoted to run its UK company, in an attempt to give Lucian Grainge, his immediate superior, more time to develop strategy and handle artist relations.

Mr Grainge wants to develop partnerships with broadcasters - building on its deal with ITV to create a British version of High School Musical - and mobile phone companies in an attempt to restore growth.

“I’ve got relationships with companies like Vodafone and Nokia, which my predecessors would never have had, and I need to spend time on them,” said Mr Grainge, who previously ran Universal’s British operation in addition to its international division, which covered all operations outside the United States.

Universal Music UK is understood to have increased its revenues last year, helped by the success of Amy Winehouse, Mika and Take That, even though the company as a whole recorded a fall in revenue of 3 per cent on a like-for-like basis during 2007 as the larger American business was hurt by the broader economic and consumer downturn.

In Britain, Universal’s album market share increased from 30 per cent to 32.7 per cent, helped because its three main rivals – SonyBMG, Warner Music and EMI – are struggling. Last year, seven of the top ten albums in the UK came from Universal, and this week a release from Duffy, a new artist, is expected to sell at least 130,000.

David Joseph, who takes over an operation run by Mr Grainge for eight years, previously ran Polydor, Universal’s flagship UK label, where he helped to relaunch Take That. He also captured The Rolling Stones forthcoming soundtrack to a film documentary from under the nose of EMI, in a move expected to lead to Sir Mick Jagger switching his band’s lucrative catalogue to Universal. Mr Joseph said that he wanted to start to sell music direct via artist websites, which will help it to boost margins for digital sales.

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