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The Japanese entertainment company that has acknowledged its founder sexually assaulted hundreds of boys over the span of half a century, took a new name on Monday: Smile-Up. It also vowed to focus on compensation for victims of the abuse.
Tokyo-based Johnny & Associates, founded in 1975, will eventually fold, but its performers can join an independent company that is being set up, said Noriyuki Higashiyama, the company’s new leader and a former star at Johnny’s, as the company is known.
Higashiyama, tapped last month to head the old Johnny’s, will now be president of both Smile-Up and the new company. The new company’s name will be put to public vote by Johnny’s fans.
“All things with the Johnny’s name will have to go,” Higashiyama told reporters at a Tokyo hotel. “A wounded heart isn’t easy to heal. Compensation on its own will never be enough.”
In recent months, dozens of men who were performers and backup dancers as teens and children at Johnny’s have come forward, saying they were sexually assaulted by Johnny Kitagawa.
Kitagawa, who died in 2019, was never charged.
So far, 325 people have applied to the company’s compensation program, and that number may grow. Payments will begin next month, Higashiyama said. How the monetary amount will be decided was not yet clear.
Last month, Kitagawa’s niece Julie Keiko Fujishima resigned as chief executive at Johnny’s and apologized for his past. She still owns 100% of the unlisted company but will not be part of the new unnamed company, whose capital structure is still being worked out.
Fujishima did not appear at Monday’s news conference and had a letter read aloud. The letter said she was “brainwashed” by her mother Mary, who insisted Kitagawa was innocent, even after the Japanese Supreme Court ruled two decades ago that the sexual allegations against him were accurate.
“I want to erase all that remains of Johnny from this world,” she wrote. “I do not forgive what Johnny has done.”
Some victims say they have suffered for decades in silence, unable to confide in family or friends, while experiencing flashbacks.
Most of the attacks took place at Kitagawa’s luxury apartment, where several youngsters were handpicked to spend the night. The following morning, he would thrust 10,000 yen ($100) bills into their hands, according to various testimony.
Rumors about Kitagawa were rampant over the years, with several tell-it-all books published. A recent U.N. investigation has said that the number of victims is at least several hundred, and called on the Japanese government to act. When BBC did a special on Kitagawa earlier this year, the scandal jumped into the spotlight.
Mainstream Japanese media have come under serious scrutiny for having remained mum about Kitagawa, apparently afraid of his influence and ability to deny access to his stars.
Now, some TV broadcasters and programming have done an about-face to shun Johnny’s stars. Major companies have also recently announced they will stop using them in advertising.
In a related development, several victims met with lawyers, feminists and Johnny’s fans to work together in pushing for legal changes so civil damages can be pursued after the current limit of 20 years. The criminal statute of limitations is now 15 years.
Attorney Yoshihito Kawakami said children often don’t understand what happened, and the changes will allow victims to seek damages from Johnny & Associates.
Japan raised the age of sexual consent from 13 to 16 only this year. Japanese media reports say Kitagawa often purposely picked on 13-year-olds, although his victims have been as young as 8.
The company has promised it will compensate victims “beyond the scope of the law. ”
“Some perpetrators are living their lives as though nothing happened. That causes great pain to the victims,” said Junya Hiramoto, who heads a group of Johnny’s victims.
The Associated Press does not usually identify victims of alleged sexual assault, but Hiramoto and others in the case have chosen to identify themselves in the media.
“By coming together, we can grow into a bigger force and move toward hope,” he said.
SiriusXM shares rose 11.1% to $4.52 this week following an offer from Liberty Media on Tuesday (Sept. 26) to combine its tracking stock, The Liberty SiriusXM Group, with SiriusXM’s stock to form a new public company.
Liberty Media, which owns 83% of SiriusXM’s outstanding shares, proposed a complicated transaction that would “provide value to all shareholders with a more flexible and attractive currency” in the newly formed SiriusXM stock, Liberty Media president/CEO Greg Maffei said in a statement. SiriusXM said in a statement that a special committee of its board of directors is evaluating the proposal and provided no assurance a deal would eventually happen.
The effect appeared to be a short squeeze — albeit one smaller than the instance that inflated SiriusXM’s share price by 49% in one week in July. Because SiriusXM shares are heavily shorted and have a small float, sudden demand for the stock can create large price fluctuations. SiriusXM shares rose 15% on Thursday (Sept. 28) alone, while shares of The Liberty SiriusXM Group tracking stock finished the week up 13.4%.
While overall stocks were mixed this week, music stocks performed well. The 21-stock Billboard Global Music Index improved 1.1% to 1,344.99, better than the 0.1% gain eked out by the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite and easily besting the S&P 500’s 1.3% loss. In the United Kingdom, the FTSE 100 fell 1%, while South Korea’s KOSPI composite index dropped 1.7%. Eleven of the Billboard Global Music Index’s 21 stocks finished the week in positive territory, eight lost ground and two were unchanged.
Helped by Deezer’s double-digit improvement, streaming stocks had an average gain of 3.1%. Chinese music streamers Cloud Music and Tencent Music Entertainment gained 6.5% and 1.3%, respectively. Spotify shares dropped 2.1% to $154.63 but have gained 95.9% year to date. LiveOne shares fell 8.6% to $0.96, marking its third successive weekly loss since spinning off its PodcastOne division. This week, Billboard reported that LiveOne took out a high-interest loan to lure UFC fighter-turned-podcaster Brendan Schaub after Kast Media failed to pay him advertising money. LiveOne agreed to acquire Kast Media in May and offered Schaub and other podcasters settlements that included a mix of cash, promissory notes and PodcastOne stock.
Music’s greatest gainer this week was French streaming company Deezer. Despite there being no news — neither a press release nor a regulatory filing — that normally leads to such a substantial change, Deezer shares rose 21.8% to 2.735 euros ($2.90), including a 14.8% gain on Thursday with one of the highest trading volumes since the company went public in September 2022. Nothing indicated the company has substantially improved its earnings outlook in recent days, but Deezer had been in the news prior to this week. Three weeks ago, Deezer announced a partnership with Universal Music Group to create a new system for calculating artist royalties; and last week, the company revealed plans to increase subscription prices for new individual and family plans in the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and its largest market, France.
Live Nation shares rose 4.1% to $83.05 following news the company will help developing artists by providing a financial stipend and eliminating fees charged on merchandise sales at a number of its owned and operated clubs in the United States. Although the move will cost Live Nation money, it also comes with some strategic advantages, according to LightShed Partners analyst Brandon Ross. The decision is “great for Live Nation because it actually throws up another barrier to entry,” Ross said in the Friday (Sept. 29) episode of the LightShed podcast. “Artists are going to want to play your venue where the economics for them are better rather than somebody else’s venue.”
This content was created in partnership with Kara Major. Kara Major is an ambassador of GLOW Beverages.
Emerging from the dazzle of neon lights and the infectious rhythm of electronic beats in Miami, EDM sensation Kara Major is taking 2023 by storm. Her recent track “Everything Works Out,” fuses soulful lyrics with pulsating melodies. Featured in publications like SweetnSour Magazine and Earmilk, its success spoke volumes to her core fanbase’s zeal and the weight of the message she bore.
Major’s previous professional settings— a mix of offices, board rooms and sports teams— plays a pivotal role in her approach to music. Writing songs and constructing beats has been second nature to her for as long as she can remember. Major used music as an outlet to combat the day’s monotony and satisfy her urge to release her pent-up emotions. Drawing on both celebratory moments and heart-wrenching experiences, Major’s music offers not just entertainment but comfort and hope for her fans. With a sizzling new music video that dips in the abstract, Kara’s larger than life message is reaching listeners across the country.
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Kara Major’s latest single “Glow”
Her latest track, “Glow,” is the third in her homage to mantric principles and has garnered significant attention from both media and brands. The single piqued the interest of GLOW Beverages, an electrolyte beverage company that is quickly gaining popularity. Partly owned by Kylie Jenner and Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott, the drink is a cult favorite for clubgoers and a guilty pleasure for techies. Now, Major is a member of a group of key influencers who are partnering with GLOW to connect with consumers, hooking onto both Kara’s song and the drink’s radiating personality.
Challenges and adversities have been part and parcel of Major’s journey. Every artist faces hurdles, but it’s these challenges that give music an edge and a rawness that listeners connect with deeply. Major’s ethos, which she shared with POP CULTUR, is clear: “Believe it to see it. Knowledge is the precursor to experience. Keep reaching for new information; new inspiration and new futures will find you.”
Kara Major in her music video for “Glow”
Łukasz Rucinski, Black Parrot Media
Beyond her music, Major has a greater vision. She is eager to collaborate with giants in the self-care and motivational speaking communities like Esther Hicks and Tony Robbins. What stands out is her belief that everyone has their own “inner music.” Major’s message to her fans and the world at large is rooted in the philosophy of finding one’s inner light and letting it “glow.”
With her unique blend of musical talent, introspective lyrics and a vision that transcends the boundaries of EDM, Kara Major is making her place in the industry and setting her Major message in motion.
If it’s Friday that means another spin around the Executive Turntable, Billboard’s comprehensive(ish) compendium of promotions, hirings, exits and firings — and all things in between — across the music industry.
Sony Music UK and Ireland‘s stalwart COO, Nicola Tuer, announced she is stepping down at the end of the month for family reasons. Tuer started her groundbreaking 28-year run at Sony in 1995 in the label’s sales division and rose to senior vp of commercial sales before her elevation to executive vp of the entire imprint in 2011. In 2014, Tuer earned the keys to the C-suite as the label’s first female chief operating officer — making her “one of the most senior women in the UK industry,” boasted Jason Iley, longtime CEO of SMUK&I. As COO, she has overseen the running of the U.K. and Ireland businesses, including frontline, catalog and label services, as well as sales, partnerships and other departments. “Nicola lives and breathes Sony Music,” Iley added. “She has, time and again, gone above and beyond to ensure not only that Sony succeeds, but more importantly, that our artists succeed.”
Tuer has been a near–constant presence on Billboard‘s various lists of influential executives, deservedly so, including this year’s roundup of International Power Players. The dynamic duo of Iley/Tuer were lauded for landing the top-selling single and album of 2022, with Harry Styles’ Harry’s House and his hit “As It Was.” And as head of Sony UK’s commercial group, Tuer got a shout-out for helping Wham!’s “Last Christmas” top the charts for the first time in 38 years.
Beatport promoted Charles Morgan to chief marketing officer. Morgan joined the company in early 2022 as senior vp of strategy. As CMO, Morgan will oversee marketing strategy and execution across Beatport’s suite of companies, which includes the Beatport digital download store, the open-format DJ oriented Beatsource, sample pack provider Loopcloud, software platform Plugin Boutique, label management and demo submission platforms ampsuite and LabelRadar, along with Beatport Media Group. He’ll be based out of the company’s London office and report directly to Beatport Group CEO Robb McDaniels. “Since his arrival at Beatport, Charles has been instrumental in the transformation of our brand and creative teams, playing a pivotal role in repositioning the company’s leading products,” says McDaniels. “His work has been integral to the growth we’ve seen across our various products for DJs, producers and labels.” –Katie Bain
Universal Music Taiwan
Universal Music Greater China brought in William Hsieh as general manager of its Universal Music Taiwan unit, as well as senior vp of UMGC. Based in Taipei and starting immediately, Hsieh reports directly to UMGC chairman and CEO Timothy Xu. Hsieh joins UMG from fitness tech firm Fiture, where he served as vp of content. Prior to that, he was group vp for Space Cycle, a boutique wellness studio chain. He has also held senior positions at Electronic Arts Asia, and earlier in his career took on managerial gigs at EMI Music and Sony Music Greater China. The Taiwan-born, SoCal-raised Hsieh got his education in New York — at Columbia and NYU. Xu pegs Hsieh as being “perfectly positioned to spearhead our business expansion, innovation, and growth for the Taiwan market,” adding the island nation’s “pop music culture holds an indispensable value in the wider Chinese music scene.”
HFA/Rumblefish promoted Lauren Apolito to executive vice president of strategy & business development. She was previously senior vp at the synch licensing company, which is part of SESAC. Apolito joined HFA (The Harry Fox Agency) way back in 2001 and stayed on board when the venerable rights management agency was scooped up by SESAC in 2015. The company said that in the last year alone, Apolito’s efforts have “fueled revenue growth, client diversification, licensing opportunities and a new service offering” at Rumblefish. Apolito, a 2019 digital power player, has also focused on simplifying direct licensing deals between publishers and distributors. “She operates at the intersection of music, data and technology and has leveraged seismic industry changes into new revenue opportunities and streamlined administration for both rightsholders and music distributors,” glowed HFA/Rumblefish president Michael Simon. “We’re thrilled to expand her role with this well-deserved promotion.” Reach her at lapolito@rumblefish.com.
Big Machine Music has promoted Michelle Attardi to the role of senior director, publishing. Since joining Big Machine Music (a division of HYBE America) seven years ago, Attardi has been central in the signing of songwriters Daniel Ross, Matt Roy, Troy Cartwright and Geoff Warburton to the BMM roster, and has secured cuts with Jon Pardi, Lady A, Jason Aldean, Jake Owen and Mitchell Tenpenny, among others. –Jessica Nicholson
Oak View Group appointed Kristina Heney as executive vp of marketing, media & conferences. As evp of mmc, Heney will handle all marketing and communications for OVG and oversee its media and conferences division — which includes the Pollstar and VenuesNow media brands. She joins the OVG family following a five-year stint at Cirque du Soleil and before that, a 15-year tenure at MSG. Before that, she worked in merchandising at the NBA. “With her deep understanding of the live events and experiential industry, we are confident Kristina can continue our substantial growth momentum while transforming the OVG brand story and our Media and Conferences Division to support OVG and our growth vision,” said president of biz dev Francesca Bodie, to whom she’ll report along with OVG360 president Chris Granger.
SGPS/ShowRig elevated live industry veteran Ned Collett to president of the Las Vegas-based production company. Collett joined SGPS/ShowRig in 2022 following the passing of founder Eric Pearce. As president, he’ll oversee and direct all activities for the company’s global operations, which now includes its first European office, located in Utrecht, Netherlands. Collett was previously Midwest president of LiveStyle, and has also held roles at Oak View Group, Live Nation Entertainment and Base Entertainment, among others. “I am proud to continue Eric Pearce’s guiding principles of always demonstrating boundless creativity and providing exceptional client service,” Collett said. “I am honored to be the person charged with incorporating that philosophy while simultaneously bringing the company forward with new technologies, partners, European expansion, and domestic growth.”
Feed.fm, the business-to-business music streaming platform, hired Ryan Morris as its new director of engineering. At Feed.fm, Morris will lead expansion efforts as the company works to meet demand for a scalable, effective platform for providing music for businesses. Morris was most recently director of software engineering at Slack, which experienced massive growth during his six-year tenure as more businesses turned to remote work. Prior to Slack, Morris was an engineering manager at Pandora. “Ryan’s part of a new breed of technologist in the B2B music space who has a unique mix of high growth tech platform leadership experience alongside a deep understanding of the music industry,” said Jeff Yasuda, CEO of Feed Media Group. “His addition will strengthen Feed.fm’s position to become the leader in a new category of turnkey music solutions for the world’s top brands.”
Entertainment lawyer Zachary Bohlender officially launched Charta, a new company with a mission to modernize and automate the logjam-prone process of getting clearance agreements done quickly so that, ultimately, artists can release music faster. Bohlender’s platform, cofounded with Arash Rashidi, an engineer with a background in AI, aims to distill producer and side-artist agreements to a few key provisions that can be quickly negotiated and then slotted into standardized contracts. “There’s no single bigger pain point in the industry than clearance agreements,” Bohlender said. Charta investors and advisors include Che Pope, Matt Colon, Aloe Blacc, Boys Noize and Milana Lewis of Stem, who calls it “an incredibly powerful tool towards building a better future where artists can be paid more expediently and accurately.”
ASM Global‘s new vice president of live entertainment is Alex Bowen, a familiar player in Louisiana’s entertainment industry. In his new job, Bowen will oversee content and bookings for ASM venues in New Orleans, including the Caesars Superdome and Smoothie King Center, along with the new Thunder Ridge Nature Arena in Missouri’s Ozark region. He’ll also handle bookings for venues across the Southeast U.S. region. Bowen arrives from Live Nation, where he was a senior talent buyer in multiple markets.
Round, the creative digital agency with a client list that includes the Big Three labels and a slew of festivals and events companies, promoted Simon Friend to chief operating officer and Ray Uscata to managing director of North and South America. “The importance and power of digital marketing is growing exponentially and is now an integral part of the way in which consumer facing brands engage with their audiences; but it is a competitive marketplace that demands specialist expertise and tools to achieve cut through,” said Round CEO Aaron Sayer.
Last Week’s Turntable: Blue Raincoat Founder in Transition
Hipgnosis Songs Fund has set a date of Oct. 26 for its shareholders to vote on the proposed sale of some 29 song catalogs and a separate vote on whether to keep the fund going under founder Merck Mercuriadis‘ advisory, the company said on Thursday (Sept. 29).
Earlier this month, Hipgnosis announced its plans to sell a package of assets that includes rights to songs performed by Shakira, Barry Manilow, Rick James and others to its sister fund — the privately held Blackstone-backed entity, Hipgnosis Songs Capital — for $440 million.
Hipgnosis Songs Fund — or SONG, as it’s abbreviated on the London Stock Exchange — has struggled with a sagging share price that values the company at a discount to its assets’ worth. The Oct. 26 shareholder vote represents a key milestone in the young company’s five-year lifespan.
In its statement on Thursday, Hipgnosis Songs Fund’s board said it’s in talks with third parties to consider outside bids for the package of assets, with those discussions set to resolve by Oct. 23. The board previously said it would use proceeds of any asset sales to buy back up to $180 million of the company’s stock and pay down its revolving debt balance, two measures aimed at achieving a “re-rating of the share price.”
If a majority of shareholders vote “yes” on the company’s continuation vote, the board has committed to holding the next continuation vote in January 2026, followed by a third in 2028.
The board also said that if the discount between Hipgnosis Songs Fund’s share price and operative net asset value reaches 10% or more on average over the month of January 2025, it will terminate its investment advisory agreement with Mercuriadis’ Hipgnosis Song Management. The agreement with the founder as an investment advisor will be “terminable by the company on 12 months’ notice,” according to the statement.
The board added that chair Andrew Sutch will retire as a director before the next annual meeting in 2024, and that Andrew Wilkinson will retire from his director role by the end of this year. Cindy Rampersaud will take Wilkinson’s place after he retires. The departures mean Hipgnosis Songs Fund will have five directors in the future.
In a vote of support for retaining Mercuriadis’ Hipgnosis Song Management as SONG’s investment adviser, the board said its approach had led to a 44% total return on the 29 music catalogs that Hipgnosis Songs Fund proposes to sell to its private sister fund since the initial dates of purchase.
“The board and the investment adviser firmly believe that the company has a unique portfolio of iconic, culturally significant songs that will deliver strong long-term value as they benefit from the structural tailwinds in the music industry,” according to the statement. “Furthermore, the board believes that the investment adviser’s approach to song management should enable the company to outperform the wider music market.”
Since LiveOne announced plans to acquire Kast Media in May, CEO Rob Ellin has not budged on his offer to compensate the podcasters to whom Kast owes millions of dollars. Ellin’s best offer: one-third of the money Kast Media owes them in cash, one-third of what they are owed in promissory notes to be paid over two years and one-third of what they are owed in stock from LiveOne subsidiary PodcastOne. In exchange, the podcasters must sign a multi-year agreement with PodcastOne and agree to reduce their cut of ad sales from 80% to as low as 60%.
“We’ve spoken to every podcaster. We’ve offered really fair deals — equity in our IPO to help them,” Ellin told Podcast Business Journal on Aug. 11. (Technically PodcastOne wasn’t actually going public via IPO, but making its shares available through a direct listing on the NASDAQ.) Podcasters had a tough choice ahead, Ellin explained — dig in their heels or take the settlement offer. “No other platform is going to pay them for the past,” he said. “They’re only going to work with them in the future.”
PodcastOne and its parent company LiveOne were, however, willing to pay at least one podcaster what Kast owes them in full — even if it meant taking out a high interest loan. Records obtained by Billboard show that in early August, LiveOne borrowed $1.7 million from CapChase, an online bank based in Madrid. That money, Billboard confirmed, was borrowed to pay UFC fighter-turned-podcaster Brendan Schaub what he was owed by Kast Media, the Los Angeles-based podcast company launched in 2016 by founder and CEO Colin Thomson. Kast Media, like PodcastOne, is a podcast network that provides a variety of services to podcast creators like production assistance, show distribution and, most commonly, advertising sales. Among its top shows are Logan Paul’s Impaulsive and Theo Von’s This Past Weekend.
In February, Schaub and other podcasters noticed that Kast’s payments on advertising money were becoming irregular, before falling off all together by the end of the month. By August, Kast Media owed Schaub, an accomplished podcaster with three successful shows – the Golden Hour, The Fighter and the Kid and the Brendan Schaub show – a whopping $1.6 million in unpaid revenue. A month later, Schaub and his co-host Bryan Callen announced on the Fighter and the Kid podcast that they were leaving Kast Media and joining PodcastOne.
“Brendan spoke to a number of agencies, and the company that gave us the best deal when we were out this money was a company called PodcastOne,” Callen said at the time. “PodcastOne has been the agents of a lot of people we know, and they have been very happy with them.”
A rep for Schaub declined to comment for this story. LiveOne did not respond to requests for comment.
After announcing LiveOne’s plans to acquire Kast Media in May, Ellin revealed that the deal would only close if 70% of Kast’s podcasters would join LiveOne under the proposed settlement terms. To date, PodcastOne has not announced the closing of the Kast Media acquisition. On Sept. 8, the day PodcastOne was listed on the NASDAQ, LiveOne released a statement increasing its revenue and earnings guidance for the year that included Kast Media’s revenue and adjusted earnings and assumed “the previously announced Kast Media” acquisition “would have taken place at the start of the fiscal year,” which is April 1, 2024. On Wednesday (Sept. 27), LiveOne issued a press release saying that it “reiterates” its previous revenue guidance.
That reiteration has not helped the company’s share price. In July, ValueScope, a third-party valuation firm hired by parent company LiveOne, valued PodcastOne between $230 million and $275 million, which came out to $8 to $12 per share, a valuation Ellin had hyped to podcasters considering joining PodcastOne.
That estimate ended up being overly optimistic — PodcastOne’s share price immediately dropped 46% after being listed on the NASDAQ and has since tumbled even further. Three weeks after being listed on the NASDAQ, the stock closed Tuesday at $1.91 per share with a $45 million market capitalization, a drop of more than 80% after less than three weeks of trading.
“I hope this serves as a wakeup call for creators, because long-term, they’re much better off doing everything themselves – they don’t need these big podcast networks,” says Bryan Last, president of Arcadian Vanguard and the on-air co-host of The Jim Cornette Experience and Jim Cornette’s Drive-Thru. While Arcadian Vanguard produces each episode, it started contracting its advertising sales to Kast Media in 2018, in 2023 it brought sales back inhouse.
“Any service a network offers, most podcasters can do themselves,” he tells Billboard. “When their model puts an entire community of creators at risk, there’s obviously something wrong with the model.”
Epic Games has sold Bandcamp to Songtradr, an online music licensing marketplace. News of the sale arrives as the Fortnite developer also announced plans to eliminate 16% of its workforce — around 830 jobs — and to spin off its SuperAwesome services division, according to a memo on Epic Games’ website.
“We’ve been spending way more money than we earn…We’re cutting costs without breaking development or our core lines of businesses so we can continue to focus on our ambitious plans,” explained Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney in the memo.
Epic Games acquired the independent music platform for an undisclosed sum in March 2022. Though the purchase initially shocked the music business, several music executives explained to Billboard right after the sale that the motive behind buying Bandcamp might be to improve Epic’s relations with musicians or ease synch licensing. According to Epic Games at the time of the sale, “Bandcamp will play an important role in Epic’s vision to build out a creator marketplace ecosystem for content, technology, games, art, music and more.”
In the company’s latest memo, it continued to stress its desire to build itself into a wide-reaching “ecosystem for creators” but added that it needed to reach profitability.
In the past few years, Songtradr has been active in acquiring new businesses to expand its reach. In March 2023, it purchased B2B music company 7digital for a reported $23.4 million. It also recently acquired AI metadata and music search platform MusicCube in 2022, Massive Music and Song Zu in 2021, and Big Sync Music in 2019. Other companies in its expanding portfolio include Tunefind and Pretzel; it also invested $1 million in music credits database Jaxsta.
Bandcamp’s new owner says it will continue to operate the platform as a marketplace and music community with an artist-first revenue share, while the acquisition will enable it to expand its capabilities to support the artist community. In addition, Songtradr will now offer all Bandcamp artists the ability to have their music licensed to all forms of media, including content creators, game and app developers, and brands.
In a press release announcing the acquisition, Songtradr added that Epic Games is “exploring ways” to allow Bandcamp artists to opt-in to have their music licensed for use in Epic’s gaming and metaverse ecosystem via a partnership with Songtradr. Epic will continue to collaborate with Bandcamp on Fortnite Radio and “is investing in Songtradr to support Bandcamp’s successful integration into” the company, according to the Songtradr release.
“The acquisition of Bandcamp will help Songtradr continue to grow its suite of services for artists,” said Songtradr CEO Paul Wiltshire in a statement. “I’m a passionate musician myself, and artistry and creativity have always been at the heart of Songtradr. Bandcamp will join a team of music industry veterans and artists who have deep expertise in music licensing, composition, rights management, and distribution.”
“Songtradr shares Epic and Bandcamp’s values around ensuring artists are fairly compensated for their work,” added Epic Games vp/GM, store Steve Allison. “Bringing Bandcamp to Songtradr will make it easier for independent artists to connect with creators and developers looking to license their music and enable Epic to focus on its core metaverse, games, and tools efforts.”
U.S. Latin music revenue increased 15% to a record high of $627 million in the first half of 2023, according to the RIAA’s mid-year Latin music report released Wednesday (Sept. 27). The new milestone for the genre follows Latin music revenue hitting an all-time high last year, exceeding the $1 billion mark with 24% growth that outpaced the overall market.
According to the report, streaming continued to drive an “overwhelming” portion of the genre’s growth, accounting for 98% of revenue. Latin music’s share of overall U.S. recorded music revenue grew from 7.1% in the first half of 2022 to a new pinnacle of 7.5% in the first half of 2023.
“U.S. Latin music revenues reached an all-time high in 2022, and the growth has continued mid-year into 2023. This has been driven by both the vitality of classic hits and chart-topping new releases that have influenced broader culture and society,” said RIAA senior vp of public policy & industry relations Rafael Fernandez in a statement.
Latin music’s growth over the past two years has been driven by the success not only of Bad Bunny — who ended 2022 as the most streamed artist in the United States and around the world — but also artists such as Karol G, who earlier this year made history with Mañana Será Bonito. In March, the 17-track set became the first all-Spanish language album by a Latin female artist to top the Billboard 200.
A new wave of música mexicana acts such as Peso Pluma, Fuerza Regida and Eslabon Armado have also helped usher in a record year for regional Mexican music. Earlier this year, Billboard reported that consumption for the genre jumped 42.1% through May 25, according to Luminate.
The RIAA’s mid-year report further explains that ad-supported on-demand music streaming revenue (from services like YouTube, the free version of Spotify and social media platforms) continued to make up a larger percentage of revenue for Latin music (23%) than for U.S. recorded music overall (10%).
Meanwhile, revenue from digital and customized radio services (such as Pandora, SiriusXM and internet radio services) grew 13% to $36 million — rebounding from a 5% decrease in 2022 — making up 6% of total Latin music revenue. However, physical formats totaled less than 1% of revenue at $4.7 million, resulting in a 37% decline from the first half of 2022.
Purchase tickets to 2023 Billboard Latin Music Week here.
For some music companies, 2022 was the payoff for weathering the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic. When business returned that year — sometimes in record-setting fashion — these companies rewarded their executives handsomely, according to Billboard’s 2022 Executive Money Makers breakdown of stock ownership and compensation. But shareholders, as well as two investment advisory groups, contend the compensation for top executives at Live Nation and Universal Music Group (UMG) is excessive.
Live Nation, the world’s largest concert promotion and ticketing company, rebounded from revenue of $1.9 billion and $6.3 billion in 2020 and 2021, respectively, to a record $16.7 billion in 2022. That performance helped make its top two executives, president/CEO Michael Rapino and president/CFO Joe Berchtold, the best paid music executives of 2022. In total, Rapino received a pay package worth $139 million, while Berchtold earned $52.4 million. Rapino’s new employment contract includes an award of performance shares targeted at 1.1 million shares and roughly 334,000 shares of restricted stock that will fully pay off if the company hits aggressive growth targets and the stock price doubles in five years.
Live Nation explained in its 2023 proxy statement that its compensation program took into account management’s “strong leadership decisions” in 2020 and 2021 that put the company on a path to record revenue in 2022. Compared with 2019 — the last full year unaffected by the COVID-19 pandemic — concert attendance was up 24%, ticketing revenue grew 45%, sponsorships and advertising revenue improved 64%, and ancillary per-fan spending was up at least 20% across all major venue types. Importantly, Live Nation reached 127% of its target adjusted operating income, to which executives’ cash bonuses were tied.
The bulk of Rapino’s and Berchtold’s compensation came from stock awards — $116.7 million for Rapino and $37.1 million for Berchtold — on top of relatively modest base salaries. Both received a $6 million signing bonus for reupping their employment contracts in 2022. (Story continues after charts.)
Lucian Grainge, the top-paid music executive in 2021, came in third in 2022 with total compensation of 47.3 million euros ($49.7 million). Unlike the other executives on this year’s list, he wasn’t given large stock awards or stock options. Instead, Grainge, who has been CEO of UMG since 2010, was given a performance bonus of 28.8 million euros ($30.3 million) in addition to a salary of 15.4 million euros ($16.2 million) — by far the largest of any music executive.
This year, shareholders have shown little appetite for some entertainment executives’ pay packages — most notably Netflix — and Live Nation’s compensation raised flags at two influential shareholder advisory groups, Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis, which both recommended that Live Nation shareholders vote “no” in an advisory “say on pay” vote during the company’s annual meeting on June 9. Shareholders did just that, voting against executives’ pay packages by a 53-to-47 margin.
Failed “say on pay” votes are rare amongst United States corporations. Through Aug. 17, just 2.1% of Russell 3000 companies and 2.3% of S&P 500 companies have received less than 50% votes on executive compensation, according to executive compensation consultancy Semler Brossy. (Live Nation is in both indexes.) About 93% of companies received at least 70% shareholder approval.
ISS was concerned that the stock grants given to Rapino and Berchtold were “multiple times larger” than total CEO pay in peer group companies and were not adequately linked to achieving sustained higher stock prices. Additionally, ISS thought Live Nation did not adequately explain the rationale behind the grants.
To determine what Rapino, Berchtold and other executives should earn, Live Nation’s compensation committee referenced high-earning executives from Netflix, Universal Music Group, SiriusXM, Spotify, Endeavor Group Holdings, Fox Corporation, Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. and Paramount Global. Netflix co-CEOs Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos were paid $51.1 million and $50.3 million, respectively, in 2022. Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslov made $39.3 million in 2022 — including a $21.8 million cash bonus — a year after his pay totaled $246.6 million, including $202.9 million in stock option awards that will vest over his six-year employment contract. Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel and executive chairman Patrick Whitesell received pay packages worth $308.2 million and $123.1 million, respectively, in 2021 thanks to equity awards tied to the company’s IPO that year (the received more modest pay of $19 million and $12.2 million in 2022).
Some companies in the peer group didn’t fare well in “say on pay” votes in 2023, though. Netflix, got only 29% shareholder approval in this year’s say-on-pay advisory vote after Hastings’ and Sarandos’ compensations both increased from higher stock option awards while the company’s stock price, riding high as COVID-19 lockdowns drove investors to streaming stocks, fell 51% in 2022. Warner Bros. Discovery’s 2022 compensation squeaked by with 51% shareholder approval.
Minutes from UMG’s 2023 annual general meeting in May suggest many of its shareholders also didn’t approve of Grainge’s compensation. UMG’s 2022 compensation was approved by just 59% of shareholders, and the company’s four largest shareholders own 58.1% of outstanding shares, meaning virtually no minority shareholders voted in favor.
UMG shareholders’ votes could be meaningfully different next year. Anna Jones, chairman of the music company’s remuneration committee, said during the annual meeting that in 2024, shareholders will vote on a pay package related to Grainge’s new employment agreement that takes minority shareholders’ concerns from the 2022 annual meeting into consideration. Grainge’s contract lowers his cash compensation, and more than half of his total compensation will come from stock and performance-based stock options.
Other companies in Live Nation’s peer group received near unanimous shareholder approval. SiriusXM’s 2022 executive compensation received 98.5% approval at the company’s annual meeting. Paramount Global’s executive compensation was approved by 96.4% of its shareholders. Endeavor didn’t have a “say on pay” vote in 2023, but a year ago, it’s sizable 2021 compensation packages were approved by 99% of voting shareholders.
As the radio industry came back from pandemic-era doldrums, two iHeartMedia executives — Bob Pittman, CEO, and Richard Bressler, president, CFO and COO — were among the top 10 best-paid executives in the music industry. It was new employment contracts, not iHeartMedia’s financial performance, that put them into the top 10, however. Both executives received performance stock awards — $6.5 million for Pittman and $6 million for Bressler — for signing new four-year employment contracts in 2022. Those shares will be earned over a five-year period based on the performance of the stock’s shareholder return. Neither Pittman nor Bressler received a payout from the annual incentive plan, however: iHeartMedia missed the financial targets that would have paid them millions of dollars apiece. Still, with salaries and other stock awards, Pittman and Bressler received pay packages valued at $16.3 million and $15.5 million, respectively.
Spotify co-founders Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon once again topped the list of largest stockholdings in public music companies. Ek’s 15.9% stake is worth nearly $4.8 billion while Lorentzon’s 11.2% stake has a market value of nearly $3.4 billion. Both Ek and Lorentzon have benefitted from Spotify’s share price more than doubling so far in 2023. In September 2022, the inaugural Money Makers list had Ek’s stake at $3.6 billion and Lorentzon’s shares at $2.3 billion.
The billionaire club also includes No. 3 HYBE chairman Bang Si-hyuk, whose 31.8% of outstanding shares are worth $2.54 billion, and No. 4 CTS Eventim CEO Klaus-Peter Schulenberg, whose 38.8% stake — held indirectly through his KPS Foundation non-profit — is worth $2.25 billion. They, too, have benefitted from higher share prices in 2023. Last year, Bang’s stake was worth $1.7 billion and Schulenberg’s shares were valued at $2.1 billion.
These top four shareholders and three others in the top 10 have one important thing in common — they are company founders. At No. 5, Park Jin-young, founder of K-pop company JYP Entertainment, owns a $559 million stake in the label and agency he launched in 1997. Another K-pop mogul, No. 8 Hyunsuk Yang, chairman of YG Entertainment, owns shares worth $199 million in the company he founded in 1996. And No. 9 Denis Ladegaillerie, CEO of 18-year-old French music company Believe, has a 12.5% stake worth $112.7 million.
Live Nation’s Rapino again landed in the top 10 for amassing a stockholding over a lengthy career, during which he has helped significantly increase his company’s value. Rapino, the only CEO Live Nation has ever known, took the helm in 2005 just months before the company was spun off from Clear Channel Entertainment with a market capitalization of $692 million. Since then, Live Nation’s market capitalization has grown at over 20% compound annual growth rate to $19.1 billion. Rapino’s 3.46 million shares represent a 1.5% stake worth $291 million.
Selling a company that one founded is another way onto the list. Scooter Braun, CEO of HYBE America, has a 0.9% stake in HYBE worth $69.8 million. That’s good for No. 10 on the list of executive stock ownership. Braun, HYBE’s second-largest individual shareholder behind chairman Bang, sold his company, Ithaca Holdings — including SB Projects and Big Machine Label Group — to HYBE in 2021 for $1.1 billion.
These rankings are based on publicly available financial statements and filings — such as proxy statements, annual reports and Form 4 filings that reveal employees’ recent stock transactions — that publicly traded companies are required by law to file for transparency to investors. So, the list includes executives from Live Nation but not its largest competitor, the privately held AEG Live.
Some major music companies are excluded because they are not standalone entities. Conglomerates that break out the financial performance of their music companies — e.g., Sony Corp. (owner of Sony Music Entertainment) and Bertelsmann (owner of BMG) — don’t disclose compensation details for heads of record labels and music publishers. Important digital platforms such as Apple Music and Amazon Music are relatively small parts of much larger corporations.
The Money Makers executive compensation table includes only the named executive officers: the CEO, the CFO and the next most highly paid executives. While securities laws vary by country, they generally require public companies to named executive officers’ salary, bonuses, stock awards and stock option grants and the value of benefits such as private airplane access and security.
And while Billboard tracked the compensation of every named executive for publicly traded music companies, the top 10 reflects two facts: The largest companies tend to have the largest pay packages and companies within the United States tend to pay better than companies in other countries.
The list of stock ownership is also taken from public disclosures. The amounts include common stock owned directly or indirectly by the executive. The list does not include former executives — such as former Warner Music Group CEO Stephen Cooper — who are no longer employed at the company and no longer required to disclose stock transactions.
On a trip to visit his mother in Israel last year, Lyor Cohen, YouTube’s global head of music, asked her one of those big life questions that’s impossible to answer with anything but a big answer.
“She has 16 grandchildren and four sons, she’s 92 years old, and she is moving around this world by herself and still enjoying her grandchildren, healthy,” said Cohen. “And I said to her, ‘You’re a very, very lucky person.’ And she said, ‘Yes, I know that.’ And I said, ‘So, why are you so lucky?’
Without hesitation, she replied, “The more you give, the more you receive.”
At 63, with three kids and an illustrious career in music, Cohen said it’s this giving spirit that inspired him to accept this year’s Spirit of Life award from City of Hope, one of the country’s leading cancer treatment and research centers.
“We’re in the giving business and so we’re grateful to be here and to have the privilege,” said Cohen. “It’s a privilege to do it, but you have to get out of your normal grind to recognize that.”
Dr. Joseph Alvarnas speaks to a group on a tour of City of Hope on April 17, 2023.
Ryan Hartford
The honor, bestowed by City of Hope’s music, film and entertainment industry (MFEI) fundraising group, is reserved for entertainment industry titans and has helped the MFEI group raise $150 million since launching in 1973. Now in its 50th year, recent recipients in music include Republic Records founders/chief executives Monte and Avery Lipman (2022), Epic Records chairperson/CEO Sylvia Rhone (2019) and Sony Music Publishing chairman/CEO Jon Platt (2018). As such, the events around them are regularly a who’s-who of industry heavyweights and well-wishers leading up to the gala dinner where the award is presented, which this year will take place Oct. 18 at the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles.
In April, before the monthslong rollout of events including the All In For Hope Poker Tournament in May and the Music Trivia Bowl in July began, Cohen and seven of his staff members woke up early to drive over 100 miles from the Coachella Valley in rush hour traffic for a tour of the City of Hope campus in Duarte, Calif., just outside Los Angeles. It was the morning after the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival’s first weekend, where Cohen’s team oversaw what was likely the largest festival livestream event ever, broadcasting to more than 45 million people worldwide, according to the company. Many of them noted they hadn’t even had a cup of coffee yet.
Cohen, the tallest of the bunch, dressed in all black with a scarf around his neck, led the group, which also included Universal Music Publishing Group, North America president Evan Lamberg, entertainment lawyer Dina LaPolt, Culture Collective founder/CEO Jonathan Azu and Spirit Music Group chairman David Renzer — all of whom are on the City of Hope MFEI Board — as they followed City of Hope staff around the expansive 100-plus acre grounds.
There, they spoke with doctors and scientists to better understand the organization’s research efforts and care services. One of the key advantages City of Hope has in the field, several staff members explained, is that the proximity of scientists, treatment staff and manufacturing facilities, all of which are on-site, allows cross-collaboration that brings their research — seeking cures for cancer, HIV/AIDS and other life-threatening diseases — directly to patients without delay. Throughout, Cohen listened closely and expressed an intent to focus on how to address health disparities for Black people in the United States to create more equitable access to healthcare and establish greater trust in the system.
“I’ve made a living on Black music,” he said, “and what I’m particularly interested in is figuring out how the Black community could demystify getting early treatment and understanding about cancer and how they get the opportunity to help educate and eradicate cancer in these communities.”
Dr. Debbie Thurmond speaks on a tour of City of Hope on April 17, 2023.
Ryan Hartford
Cohen launched his career in the 1980s New York hip-hop scene as a road manager for Russell Simmons‘ Rush Productions before going on to manage the label. He later headed up Def Jam and then Warner Music Group before co-launching 300 Entertainment and, in 2016, joining YouTube. He had a hand in the careers of Public Enemy, DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince, De La Soul, Eric B. & Rakim, A Tribe Called Quest, Jay-Z, DMX, Ja Rule and Ludacris. He acknowledges this is an opportunity to support the people and culture that built his success.
Supporting economically disadvantaged and racially diverse communities facing barriers that limit their ability to find and sustain specialized care was the focus of City of Hope’s Closing the Care Gap event on Aug. 29 and has been at the center of the organization’s MFEI fundraising since 2018. According to City of Hope, only 20% of cancer patients in the United States are treated at National Cancer Institute-designated cancer centers, which can sometimes mean the difference between life and death. It’s something the City of Hope treatment and research center is addressing through community partnerships, government policy, expansion and diversifying its own workforce.
“My big takeaway is that there are so many people that have committed a lifetime to helping others that are selfless, that are so enthusiastic about solving some of these big problems,” Cohen said after the tour. “I saw and met many of the doctors here that loved the fact that they were in an organization that’s biased to speed of getting things done, and breaking the code and making things happen. I felt like this is a joyful place to work and a joyful place to solve these problems.”
Jordan Schepps, Jonathan Azu, Ali Rivera, David Renzer, Waleed Diab, Dina LaPolt, Stephen Bryan, Vivien Lewit, Jake O’Leary, Lyor Cohen, Evan Lamberg, Zach Horowitz, and Loren Fishbein on a tour of City of Hope on April 17, 2023.
Ryan Hartford