PolyGram Entertainment

Universal Music Group (UMG) had been dabbling in the documentary field, having a hand in producing the 2015 Amy Winehouse documentary, Amy, as well as HBO's Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck. In January 2017, UMG hired David Blackman to head its newly formed film and TV unit, who would report to Universal Music Publishing Group chairman/CEO Jody Gerson and UMG Executive Vice President Michele Anthony.

PolyGram Entertainment was relaunched on February 11, 2017 as a film and television unit of Universal Music Group. Before the announcement, the revived PolyGram co-distributed with Studio Canal in September 2016 the documentary The Beatles: Eight Days a Week. Polygram had on its slate as its first production The Story of Motown (a documentary about the record label's cultural and historical effects). Also on its slate was the co-production and financing of Mystify (a biography of INXS frontman Michael Hutchence).

Republic Records, in working with PolyGram, appointed its first executive vice-president of film & television in July 2017 to oversee film and TV projects and its Federal Films initiative. In June 2018, the company announced the appointment of Daniel Inkeles to the post of Vice President, Scripted Film & Television, who moved over from a sister Vivendi company, StudioCanal, to UMG.

Lionsgate and PolyGram agreed to a multiyear first-look television deal in August 2018 to develop projects for TV from UMG's portfolio of labels, artists and music, with UMG issuing the corresponding soundtracks. Universal Music Group agreed in April 2019 to allow Wondery a license to use the UMG music catalog and develop story podcasts of UMG artists, which would possibly be adapted for TV or film projects. Wondery would work with all UMG labels and with its PolyGram Entertainment film and TV production unit.