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Emboldened House Democrats ushered in a new generation of leaders on Wednesday (Nov. 30) with Rep. Hakeem Jeffries elected to be the first Black American to head a major political party in Congress as long-serving Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her team step aside next year.
Showing rare party unity after their midterm election losses, the House Democrats moved seamlessly from one history-making leader to another, choosing the 52-year-old New Yorker, who has vowed to “get things done,” even after Republicans won control of the chamber. The closed-door vote was unanimous, by acclamation.
“It’s a solemn responsibility that we are all inheriting,” Jeffries told reporters on the eve of the party meeting. “And the best thing that we can do as a result of the seriousness and solemnity of the moment is lean in hard and do the best damn job that we can for the people.”
Many in the music business are likely celebrating Jeffries’ election today. The Congressman, who has served as the U.S. representative for New York’s 8th Congressional District since 2013, has been a longtime champion of music creators. Among other efforts, he co-sponsored the Music Modernization Act, the most important copyright law passed in decades, as well as the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act of 2020, a.k.a. the CASE Act, which streamlined copyright disputes by creating a small claims tribunal within the U.S. Copyright Office to adjudicate small claims infringement cases.
A noted hip-hop fan who once gave The Notorious B.I.G. a shout-out from the House floor, in 2018 Jeffries hosted the sixth annual “Hip-Hop on the Hill” political fundraiser. He was also an honoree at the Recording Academy’s GRAMMYs on the Hill in 2019, an annual event that honors congressional leaders and music creators who fight for creators’ rights. This September, Jeffries was honored by the RIAA as well, along with hip-hop pioneers Grandmaster Flash and MC Lyte, at RIAA Honors 2022: Hip-Hop, where he received the policy maker of the year award. (Billboard sponsored this event.)
This creator-friendly mindset may have stemmed in part from Jeffries’ days as a lawyer prior to entering politics. During that period, Jeffries worked on several copyright cases, including representing Lauryn Hill in a case brought by some of her collaborators. In a previous statement, National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) president David Israelite said that Jeffries “has a deep understanding of copyright law” and “may know the subject better than anyone else in Congress.”
In a statement sent to Billboard, Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason jr. applauded Jeffries’ election: “Since his first year in Congress in 2014, Hakeem has been a dynamic leader in shaping music policy and fighting for legislation that benefits and protects music creators. From signing on as a lead cosponsor of the Music Modernization Act in 2018 and the CASE Act in 2020, to being celebrated as a GRAMMYs On The Hill Honoree in 2019, he’s been a key ally to the music community and instrumental in achieving bipartisan support for music people. We’re thrilled for him to take on this new role, and we look forward to seeing how this will impact the important issues facing our ecosystem of music creators.”
It’s rare that a party that lost the midterm elections would so easily regroup and stands in stark contrast with the upheaval among Republicans, who are struggling to unite around GOP leader Kevin McCarthy as the new House speaker as they prepare to take control when the new Congress convenes in January.
Wednesday’s internal Democratic caucus votes of Jeffries and the other top leaders came without challengers. Cheers broke out after the elections.
The trio led by Jeffries, who will become the Democratic minority leader in the new Congress, includes 59-year-old Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts as the Democratic whip and 43-year-old Rep. Pete Aguilar of California as caucus chairman. The new team of Democratic leaders is expected to slide into the slots held by Pelosi and her top lieutenants — Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland and Democratic Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina — as the 80-something leaders make way for the next generation.
But in many ways, the trio has been transitioning in plain sight, as one aide put it — Jeffries, Clark and Aguilar working with Pelosi’s nod these past several years in lower-rung leadership roles as the first woman to have the speaker’s gavel prepared to step down. Pelosi, of California, has led the House Democrats for the past 20 years, and colleagues late Tuesday granted her the honorific title of “speaker emerita.”
“It an important moment for the caucus — that there’s a new generation of leadership,” said Rep. Chris Pappas, D-N.H., ahead of voting.
Democratic Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri called the leadership election “historic” and a “time for change.”
While Democrats will be relegated to the House minority in the new year for the 118th Congress, they will have a certain amount of leverage because the Republican majority is expected to be so slim and McCarthy’s hold on his party fragile.
The House’s two new potential leaders, Jeffries and McCarthy, are of the same generation but have almost no real relationship to speak of — in fact the Democrat is known for leveling political barbs at the Republican from afar, particularly over the GOP’s embrace of former President Donald Trump. Jeffries served as a House manager during Trump’s first impeachment.
“We’re still working through the implications of Trumpism,” Jeffries said, “and what it has meant, as a very destabilizing force for American democracy.”
Jeffries said he hopes to find “common ground when possible” with Republicans but will “oppose their extremism when we must.”
On the other side of the Capitol, Jeffries will have a partner in Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer as two New Yorkers are poised to helm the Democratic leadership in Congress. They live about a mile (1.6 kilometers) apart in Brooklyn.
“There are going to be a group, in my judgment, of mainstream Republicans who are not going to want to go in the MAGA direction, and Hakeem’s the ideal type guy to work with them,” Schumer said in an interview, referencing Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.
Jeffries has sometimes been met with skepticism from party progressives, viewed as a more centrist figure among House Democrats.
But Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., a progressive and part of the “squad” of liberal lawmakers, said she has been heartened by the way Jeffries and his team are reaching out, even though they face no challengers.
“There’s a genuine sense that he wants to develop relationships and working partnerships with many of us,” she said.
Clark, in the No. 2 spot, is seen as a coalition builder on the leadership team, while Aguilar, as the third-ranking leader, is known as a behind-the-scenes conduit to centrists and even Republicans.
Clyburn, now the highest-ranking Black American in Congress, is seeking to become the assistant democratic leader, keeping a seat at the leadership table and helping the new generation to transition.
But Clyburn faces an unexpected challenge from Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., who is openly gay and argued Wednesday in a letter to colleagues that House Democrats should “fully respect the diversity of our caucus and the American people by including an LGBTQ+ member at the leadership table.”
The election for the assistant leader post and several others is expected to be held Thursday.
Jeffries’ ascent comes as a milestone for Black Americans, the Capitol built with the labor of enslaved people and its dome later expanded during Abraham Lincoln’s presidency as a symbol the nation would stand during the Civil War.
His Brooklyn-area district was once represented by Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress, who was born on the same day as his election, Nov. 30, in 1924.
“The thing about Pete, Katherine and myself is that we embrace what the House represents,” Jeffries said, calling it “the institution closest to the people.”
While the House Democrats are often a big, diverse, “noisy family,” he said, “it’s a good thing.” He said, “At the end of the day, we’re always committed to finding the highest common denominator in order to get big things done for everyday Americans.”
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They’re the keys to a solid business plan: a sound product, an understanding of the target customer, focused marketing and country music.
That’s right — country music. Nashville songwriters have over the last decade amplified a secondary source of revenue by giving more in-the-round performances beyond Music City’s club circuit, particularly for America’s corporate movers and shakers. Sometimes it’s a hometown gig at Nashville’s Bluebird Cafe or The Listening Room for 50-75 staffers with a company enjoying an entertainment break during a conference. In other instances, the composers may travel out of town to perform for a dozen senior members of different companies that are engaged in a leadership exercise.
Regardless of a company’s purpose, it gives songwriters — who create their material in small rooms — a chance to see their songs at work in front of an audience and to get paid for the privilege.
“A lot of songwriters are doing it because they’re not making money on getting cuts anymore,” says songwriter Hillary Lindsey (“Blue Ain’t Your Color,” “Jesus, Take the Wheel”). “Even if you get the album cut, if you don’t have a single, you’re not making money. So a lot of people are hustling and getting a lot of these gigs. If you do enough, I think you can make some money.”
The development was not born in a songwriting room. Instead, it came indirectly from the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp., which is tasked with marketing Music City as a destination for both vacation and business travel. Songwriters are “a secret weapon of Nashville,” says NCVC CEO Butch Spyridon. Roughly 20 years ago, he rounded up three writers — Brett James (“I Hold On,” “Blessed”), Rivers Rutherford (“Ain’t Nothing ’Bout You,” “Real Good Man”) and Tim Nichols(“Live Like You Were Dying,” “Heads Carolina, Tails California”) — and hit a handful of other markets, attempting to entice convention bookers to plot their events in Middle Tennessee.
“The irony was it was so good, so cool and so special,” Spyridon says. “The client base responded better than if they were seeing the artists. It resonated out of the gate, and so then we just never stopped.”
Around 10 years ago, some of the executives who experienced those songwriter-in-the-round performances started booking them for their own corporate events. The price was much less than booking, say, Tim McGraw, and the event proved more personal and intimate, as attendees heard familiar songs in the vocal-and-guitar format in which they were originally conceived. While prices vary, the typical writer might get $5,000, so a company could conceivably book a four-person event for $20,000 and minimal production costs, far cheaper than a corporate McGraw gig.
“Not only that, you can get the writers that wrote most of the Tim McGraw hits,” says songwriter Rob Hatch (“I Don’t Dance,” “If Heaven Wasn’t So Far Away”), who co-founded a songwriter booking agency, Entersong, with Jerrod Niemann and Indiana-based entrepreneur Steve Stewart this year. The company has over 50 writers on its roster, and bookings can range from appearances at established venues to informal dates at backyard barbecues or house parties.
“COVID-19 created a situation where people couldn’t go out and go to concerts,” Hatch says. “A lot of the private concerts popped up more because they couldn’t go anywhere else.”
Like any other performer, songwriters determine the workload that suits them. Ashley Gorley (“You Proof,” “You Should Probably Leave”) takes out-of-town dates only if they’re with fellow writers who are already friends and/or it’s in a location where he and his wife would like to vacation. Chris DeStefano (“At the End of a Bar,” “Something in the Water”) is more aggressive.
“I try to do as much of it as possible,” he says. “It’s a great way of reaching fans and [a chance to] do some traveling, too, which I go do a lot of times. I get to bring my wife, and that’s always great. It’s working vacations, but also, it’s a way of really communicating directly with fans. And any opportunity I get to do that is some of the best parts of what I do.”
But a number of writers have also found that the shows can become too much of a good thing, as they start eating into their family time or damaging their creativity in the writing room.
“They are good for a songwriter to get some hard cash because our money is so delayed, the way we get paid,” says Jessi Alexander (“Never Say Never,” “I Drive Your Truck”). “If you’re going to pay me to come sing five songs with my friends, I’m going to do it, but I found that it was really starting to disrupt my writing — go play a gig, get home late at night, start all over again.”
Some of the gigs are ideal — Corey Crowder (“Famous Friends,” “Minimum Wage”) did one for Waldorf Astoria Hotels in Hawaii — and others have ranged from a trucking tire company that employed Track45 to a winery that booked Hunter Phelps (“wait in the truck,” “Thinking ’Bout You”). Another songwriter booking agency, Mike Severson’s Songwriter City, lists a bundle of clients — including Morgan Stanley, AT&T and Amazon — on its website.
In the end, the trend is one that takes advantage of the most unique feature of Music City’s creative class, providing an extra income stream to songwriters and setting the community apart in the business world.
“This kind of shows who we are,” Spyridon says. “You clear away all the clutter, and there’s a heart and soul, and it comes from the songwriter.”
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There’s some good news for the music business in Washington DC: House Democrats seem to have found their next caucus chair in Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, a champion of music creators who since 2013 has served as the U.S. representative for New York’s 8th congressional district. Jeffries, who represents parts of Brooklyn and Queens, co-sponsored the Music Modernization Act, the most important copyright law passed in decades, as well as the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act of 2020, a.k.a. the CASE Act. He’s also known as a big hip-hop fan, who once gave The Notorious B.I.G. a shout-out from the House floor on the 20th anniversary of his death.
A formal vote has not yet been taken. But the party seems to be coalescing around Jeffries, who was endorsed as a successor by outgoing Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). If chosen, Jeffries would become the first Black leader of a Congressional caucus, as well as the presumptive Speaker if the Democrats were to win back the House majority. And although it’s hard to say if serious copyright legislation will come in front of Congress, having a supporter of creators and copyright in such an important role could only help rightsholders.
“Mr. Jeffries has been a steadfast supporter of songwriters, and as an original cosponsor of both the Songwriter Equity Act and the Music Modernization Act, he has fought for fairness for creators throughout his career,” said NMPA president and CEO David Israelite. “His leadership in this powerful role will bode well for the future of songwriters.”
Jeffries was honored by the RIAA in September, along with hip-hop pioneers Grandmaster Flash and MC Lyte. (Billboard sponsored this event.)
“It’s hard to think of two potential leaders with more experience working in the trenches of music policy and shaping bipartisan consensus for the digital streaming era than Kevin McCarthy and Hakeem Jeffries,” said Mitch Glazier, chairman and CEO of the RIAA. “A House led by Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries would feature a dynamic duo for the music community.”
Before entering politics in 2007, Jeffries worked as a lawyer, first in New York for Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison – where he worked down the hall from NMPA general counsel Danielle Aguirre – then for Viacom. At Paul Weiss, he worked on some copyright cases, and he represented Lauryn Hill in a case brought by some of her collaborators. “He has a deep understanding of copyright law,” Israelite said. “He may know the subject better than anyone else in Congress.”
Jeffries may also be one of the bigger music fans in Congress. Besides giving Biggie a shoutout, he’s written about his favorite female rappers, and hosted an annual “Hip-Hop on the Hill” political fundraiser. “Watching hip-hop develop — with Grandmaster Flash, and then Run-DMC, and then the artists of the ‘80s and ‘90s — has been a fantastic journey,” he told Billboard in a 2018 interview about his history as a fan of the genre. “What’s been most compelling to me is how hip-hop has been a vehicle to tell the story of urban America and black America in such an artistic, poetic, and authentic fashion.”
Jeffries is involved with a number of issues, of course. He advocates police reform, and he co-sponsored the Formerly Incarcerated Reenter Society Transformed Safely Transitioning Every Person Act, a.k.a. the First Step Act, which reformed prison and sentencing laws. He voted to impeach Pres. Donald Trump, but he’s also known for working well with Republicans, including former Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), with whom he co-sponsored the Music Modernization Act, as well as the First Step Act. (The two also put together a summer playlist.) Jeffries has also been a leading Democratic fund-raiser.
Some of this has put Jeffries at odds with some of his more radical colleagues, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). Jeffries is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, but his politics are more centrist, as well as more pragmatic. His ability to compromise could be important, since he will have to work with both the Republican House majority as well as the progressive members of his own party. He recently told CNN that “while we can have some noisy conversations at times about how we can make progress for the American people, what we have seen is that under the leadership of Speaker Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, Jim Clyburn, we have constantly been able to come together.”
After Smallpools’ “Dreaming” popped up in the FIFA 14 soccer video game, singer Sean Scanlon noticed something had changed: his Los Angeles electro-pop band began booking more college gigs. The fans reacted differently, too. “We’d get to the soundchecks, and we’d have students who wouldn’t even know what our band was called go, ‘Yo, FIFA’s here!’” Scanlon says. “We’d kind of be branded with that. That was huge for popularity on the younger front.”
As the FIFA World Cup opens Sunday (Nov. 21) in Qatar, the 29-year-old video game franchise based on the international sport, which allows Playstation and Xbox users and others to simulate tens of thousands of real-life soccer stars, is maintaining its global popularity. The 2023 version is at No. 8 on the NPD Group’s list of the year’s global best-sellers, and the FIFA series has scored 325 million sales overall, according to Electronic Arts. This sales power has been a unique song-breaking opportunity for artists going all the way back to FIFA: Road to World Cup 98, which licensed Blur‘s woo-hooing “Song 2.”
Over the years, the game has used music synchs from Kasabian (whose “L.S.F.” appeared in the 2004 game, the first of many for the band) to Billie Eilish (“you should see me in a crown” was in FIFA 19) to Glass Animals (whose “Heat Waves” was in the 2021 game, then hit Billboard‘s Hot 100, where it rose to No. 1 in March). “You see a noticeable uptick in streams,” says Adam Faires, manager of U.K. electronic-music duo Jungle, whose “Busy Earnin’” was in FIFA 15 and has since streamed nearly 120 million times on Spotify and has 30 million YouTube plays. “You can almost pinpoint it to the exact moment that the game comes out.”
The game provides different looks for synchs — some artists hit the soundtrack, airing prominently throughout the game, some are in marketing trailers, and certain stars, such as Jack Harlow and Rosalía, design custom uniforms as kits to be unlocked during the game. “It’s a little ahead of the curve. They’ve done a great job of breaking artists over the years,” says David Nieman, Interscope Geffen A&M Records’ senior vp of sports and gaming, who has placed Tierra Whack, Louis The Child and other synchs in FIFA. “We see followers increase, we see streams increase, then we see other people wanting to license that song after FIFA is taking that risk.”
Game giant EA Sports launched FIFA in 1993 as an international counterpart to its American-focused Madden NFL franchise, but the soccer game didn’t turn into a song-breaking fixture until the early 2000s. That was when Steve Schnur, an early MTV programmer who’d been a promotions, marketing and A&R exec for Elektra and other labels, took over the music. Schnur’s vision was to turn FIFA into its own music company, scouting and breaking new acts.
“The producer at the time wanted to record a symphony to do an orchestral score,” Schnur recalls. He had grander visions. He instructed EA’s music staff: “We’re going to make the real estate of FIFA really important real estate, where people discover their next favorite band with no global barriers.” After that, FIFA soundtracks expanded, breaking tracks by artists old and new, including Ms. Dynamite, Avril Lavigne, The Dandy Warhols, Junior Senior and even Radiohead.
“All of the artists got it,” says Schnur, Electronic Arts’ worldwide executive and president of music. “They knew that they not only played games, but their audience played games.” Artists featured in FIFA often expanded their touring business, reaching “a huge part of the world that potentially terrestrial radio and streaming services don’t have the same impact,” says A/J Jackson, frontman for pop-rock band Saint Motel, which landed “My Type” in FIFA 15. “We noticed in our shows, especially in the U.K., we were getting football fans and hooligans jumping around and chanting their team name. It exposed us to a lot of new people.”
The FIFA game sound, as defined by Schnur and Electronic Arts music supervisors such as Cybele Pettus, has a “particular mix of that DNA,” including world, electronic, hip-hop and pop, says Jonathan Palmer, BMG’s U.S. senior vp of creative synch, who has placed many tracks in the game over the years. Looking at artists on this year’s soundtrack, including Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Biig Piig, Black Thought and Danger Mouse, he adds, “That’s a great day at Lollapalooza.”
When Palmer worked on synchs for Columbia a decade ago, he placed Foster the People‘s “Call It What You Want” in FIFA, which helped extend the band’s post-“Pumped Up Kicks” run. “This just felt like a good fit — not just for the tone and style for the music, but also for the fact that they’re massive football fanatics. It culturally made sense,” he says. “People were showing up at shows and telling the band, ‘I heard your song in the game.’ This was making a difference.”
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Is Ticketmaster a monopoly that treats customers unfairly? Problems with Taylor Swift’s record-breaking The Eras Tour onsale this week has created choruses of complaints around the ticketing giant that have now led to a reported Justice Department investigation.
On Thursday, Sen. Amy Klobuchar sent an open letter to Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino detailing her “concerns about the state of competition in the ticketing industry and its harmful impact on consumers.” The problem, wrote Klobuchar, is a lack of competition “that typically push[es] companies to innovate and improve their services. That can result in dramatic service failures, where consumers are the ones that pay the price.”
Breaking up Live Nation and Ticketmaster wouldn’t necessarily have prevented this problem. It’s likely that any ticketing platform would have struggled with such a high level of demand. StubHub crashed in 2018 after University of Georgia fans flooded the site to purchase tickets to see their team play in the NCAA football national championship game — and that was just one game.
Ticketmaster blamed the outage on a surge of unregistered fans and billions of bots. According to the company, over 3.5 million people pre-registered for Swift’s Verified Fan credentials, the largest registration in its history. Typically, only a fraction of registered fans show up to buy a ticket. This time, “a staggering number of bot attacks as well as fans who didn’t have invite codes” resulted in 3.5 billion total system requests — four times the previous record number.
One could argue Ticketmaster could have been better prepared for such a high level of demand. Perhaps the company should Swift-proof the platform in anticipation of a flood of speculators and unregistered fans — Swift said Friday (Nov. 18) that her team “asked them, multiple times, if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could.” Overall, problems on the platform are relatively rare given Ticketmaster’s volume of business, but we talk about them because they happen with high-profile concerts that attract large numbers of customers. Those attract the most attention and complaints online, which in turn attracts politicians. Ticketmaster is one of the few non-partisan issues in America in 2022.
Some observers have conflated the issues surrounding Ticketmaster’s market power, though. Rep. David Cicilline, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee’s Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee, wrote about the Swift on-sale that “excessive wait times and fees are completely unacceptable … and are a symptom of a larger problem.” It’s fair for Cicilline to suggest that Ticketmaster does not invest enough in its platform to avoid the technical issues and wait times Swift fans recently experienced. That’s debatable, but it’s a defensible argument.
Fees are, however, an entirely different issue. Ticketmaster is a pioneer in the area of ticket fees but does not have a monopoly on the ability to charge them. More competition in ticketing would not prevent venues and promoters from adding to the face value of tickets. The ticket purchase is an opportunity for all parties involved to capitalize on fans’ demand for live music. As Bruce Springsteen’s controversial leap into dynamic pricing showed, leaving money on the table is an increasingly uncommon strategy in the modern music business.
Ticket prices occasionally get dragged into the argument, too. Politicians and consumers seem to want a form of price competition that doesn’t exist. Prices for an in-demand concert ticket won’t necessarily become more affordable if they’re sold at, say, StubHub rather than Ticketmaster. The laws of supply and demand say that prices for in-demand, scarce objects like a Swift concert ticket are going to be high no matter who’s selling them.
So, what tangible results might come from the calamitous The Eras Tour on-sale? Sen. Klobuchar’s letter points to customers’ desire for fair access to concert tickets. She asked Rapino, “Generally, what percentage of high-profile tour tickets are made available to the general public compared to those allocated to pre-sales, radio stations, VIPs, and other restricted opportunities?”
Klobuchar wants to know what percentage of tickets the average person has a realistic shot at getting without being the customer of a particular credit card, without buying high-priced VIP packages, without winning a radio station contest or without being a member of an artist’s fan club. In this case, Capital One is a sponsor of the Eras tour and offered a pre-sale to its customers.
But how do lawmakers regulate access? Do they establish rules that dictate what kind of marketing partnerships artists can and cannot establish? Would they tell American Express to stop giving such long-standing perks as pre-sale access and dedicated tickets to its credit card holders? If Congress really wanted to create a more level playing field for fans, they could do what the lawmakers in Victoria, Australia, did in 2021: pass a law that limits the resale value of a ticket to 110% of its face value. That could lower the number of resellers and bots clogging up Ticketmaster’s system for high-traffic on-sales like the Eras Tour. At the very least, price limits would bring a much-desired sense of fairness to the secondary market. Whether the U.S. Congress has the stomach to establish price controls on private companies remains to be seen.
A more likely outcome of the Eras Tour debacle is increased transparency. New York State legislators passed a law in June that improves transparency by requiring all-in pricing and prohibits revealing the ticket’s total cost — face value plus fees — after multiple clicks in a check-out process. The bill could have gone further: a requirement to disclose the percentage of tickets made available to pre-sales and VIPs was in an early form of the bill but not the final version.
But, again, are lawmakers willing to mandate such disclosures from private businesses? This would more likely be a voluntary disclosure done at the behest of the artist – Swift is exactly the kind of powerful artist who could persuade ticket sellers to reveal this information. Transparency wouldn’t immediately translate into greater access for the average fan, but it could fuel a larger conversation about how fans get access to concert tickets. That wouldn’t ease the pain of many Swift fans, but it would be a step forward.
David Nieman was promoted to senior vp of sports & gaming at Interscope Geffen A&M Records (IGA), where he will continue to be the label’s chief liaison with the sports and gaming sectors. During his tenure, Nieman has helped forge partnerships with the NFL, ESPN, the NBA, the UFC, Barstool Sports, Bleacher Report, Epic Games, Ubisoft, 2K, Rockstar, EA, Nintendo and more. “David and his team have built our sports and gaming capabilities into a very important commercial driver for our artists,” said Interscope Geffen A&M vice chairman Steve Berman in a statement. “I am pleased to be able to offer him this expanded role as he continues to create important opportunities for our diverse array of artists.” Nieman can be reached at David.Nieman@umusic. com.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) promoted Jackie Jones to senior vp of artist & industry relations. Based in Nashville, Jones will remain the RIAA’s chief representative in the market. She reports to RIAA chief policy officer Morna Willens and can be reached at jackie.jones@riaa.com.
ASM Global promoted Alex Merchán from executive vp of marketing to CMO. He will spearhead the company’s branding and positioning across key areas including global partnerships, digital and CRM strategy, business development and advisory and investing efforts in the U.S. and internationally. Merchán can be reached at amerchan@asmglobal.com.
Bob Workman was promoted to the dual role of senior vp of international brand partnerships, Warner Music and general manager of WMX UK. In his new international role — which coincides with Warner Music’s UK brand partnerships team becoming part of the global WMX division — Workman will coordinate the work of brand partnership teams outside the U.S. and establish them in emerging markets where Warner Music operates. Workman will keep his place on the Warner Music UK senior management team to ensure close alignment between WMX and the U.K. recorded music business. He reports to WMX president Maria Weaver and will work closely with Warner Music Group president of international, recorded music Simon Robson. He’ll also be working alongside Atlantic Records U.S. chief partnerships officer Camille Hackney and Warner Records U.S. executive vp of brand partnerships and sync Claudia Butzky.
ADA Worldwide named MaryLynne Drexler head of business & legal affairs. Drexler, who arrives at the company from Sony Music’s The Orchard, will help craft ADA’s global strategy while overseeing artist and distribution deals along with acquisitions, JVs, investments, new technologies and partnerships. Also hired is Bryan Roberts, who was named vp of A&R and label acquisition. The New York-based Roberts joined ADA earlier this summer from The Orchard, where he was senior director of A&R. He will spearhead ADA’s development and growth while bringing in new talent and partners. Both Drexler and Roberts report to ADA Worldwide president Cat Kreidich.
Kazuhiro Shimada was named COO of Warner Music Japan. Joining from Amazon Music Japan where he served as director & general manager, the Tokyo-based Shimada will be responsible for the company’s daily business operations, including by leading key initiatives, while also implementing organization-wide strategies and policies. He reports to Warner Music Japan CEO Kaz Kobayashi.
Ulf Zick will return to Universal Music Germany as president of international repertoire on Jan. 1, 2023. He re-joins the label from Utopia Music, where he was hired in March as chief marketing officer. He will take over management of Universal Music International in Germany and oversee the Virgin Music Label & Artist Services operations in the country. Zick previously helmed Universal Music Germany’s international division between 2018 and March 2022.
Tizita Makuria was appointed vp of A&R at Pulse Music Group. Makuria joins the company from Artist Publishing Group (APG), where she served as senior director of A&R. Based in Los Angeles, her responsibilities will include signing and developing Pulse’s roster of artists, songwriters and producers.
Blue Raincoat Music/Chrysalis Records hired James Meadows as senior vp of marketing, Rachel Forde as campaign marketing manager and Aaron Skates as catalogue marketing manager. Meadows joins the company from BMG, where he served as head of marketing. He reports to COO Alison Wenham and CEO Jeremy Lascelles. Forde comes to Blue Raincoat/Chrysalis from Warner Music Group, where she worked at Parlophone Records. In her new role, she will oversee campaigns for Chrysalis Records releases including Emeli Sande‘s album Let’s Say For Instance and Ben Harper‘s album Bloodline Maintenance. Finally, the London-based Skates joins from indie distributor state51, where he served in marketing, A&R and production roles. At Blue Raincoat/Chrysalis, he will coordinate marketing activities for the company’s catalog release schedule while also driving engagement on key releases. He reports to Dermot James, senior vp of Chrysalis Catalogue.
RECORDS hired Jordan Sargent as director of A&R and Jeff Juin as senior vp of A&R. Sargent, a former journalist, joins from Capitol Records. Juin previously signed and developed Shordie Shordie and also signed “Whoopty” singer CJ, among other accomplishments. Sargent can be reached at jsargent@recordsco.com and Juin can be reached at jjuin@recordsco.com.
Mara Frankel was named CEO of companyX, a new brand strategy agency launched by independent music booking agency Arrival Artists and ATC Management. The agency will represent artists on both Arrival and ATC, including Santigold, Hayley Kiyoko, Yaeji, Mayer Hawthorne, David Archuleta, Khruangbin, Mt. Joy and Goose. In her new role, Frankel will oversee strategic brand partnerships for music artists across categories including name and likeness campaigns, ambassador programs, branded editorial content, paid social media, video product placement and other third-party revenue opportunities. She arrives at companyX from Atlantic Records, where she most recently served as senior creative director, brand partnerships.
Chris Schuler departed his role as vp of promotion at Arista Nashville, Billboard has confirmed. Schuler joined the company in April from Universal Music Group Nashville. During his tenure, he was responsible for developing, implementing and supervising the strategic and tactical radio promotional plans for artists on the Arista Nashville roster.
YMU appointed Mike Kadziulis as executive manager & head of radio. Based between Los Angeles and Chicago, Kadziulis joins YMU from his own artist management company Mad Ones. He brings clients Aluna, Kacy Hill and Brevin Kim with him to YMU. In the new role, he will foster the careers of his clients while bringing his marketing and radio promo experience to the wider YMU roster.
Audacy named Seema Kumar senior vp of advertising platforms. Kumar will lead the team members responsible for the tech platforms for Audacy’s revenue organization, ensuring that roadmaps and requirements are prioritized for vendors and IT ad tech engineers, aligned with ad product strategy and revenue goals and optimized to meet business operational needs. She arrives at Audacy from WarnerMedia, where she served as vp of advertising technology.
Shauni Caballero was appointed senior A&R manager at Sony Music Publishing UK. Based in London, Caballero is responsible for developing the company’s songwriters, fostering collaborations and more.
Capitol Christian Music Group promoted Karrie Dawley to senior vp of A&R (previously vp of publishing), David Gutekunst to senior vp of publishing (previously vp of church resources), Joe Brazil to senior vp of business affairs (previously vp of marketing and operations) and David Sylvester to senior vp of operations (previously head of business affairs). Dawley can be reached at karrie.dawley@umusic.com, Gutekunst can be reached at david.gutekunst@umusic.com, Brazil can be reached at joe.brazil@umusic.com and Sylvester can be reached at david.sylvester@umusic.com.
Ryan Fleming and Victoria Sou launched Disruptive Vision, a creative studio designed to provide artists with services including creative direction, apparel design and production, art direction, brand development, brand partnership strategy, experiential events, marketing strategy, photography, social media management, videography, wardrobe styling and more. Fleming can be reached at Ryan@disruptive-vision.com and Sou can be reached at Victoria@disruptive-vision.com.
Mikaela Duhs and Grace Fleisher were promoted to senior account executives at Shore Fire Media. Both were previously account executives.
Already looking ahead to 2023, Paramount Global is announcing a cross-brand partnership involving its broadcast, cable, streaming and digital brands to commemorate the 50th anniversary of hip-hop. The company’s expansive, year-long slate of programming initiatives also includes an alliance with The Recording Academy.
Today’s announcement (Nov. 17) is an expansion of Hip Hop 50, a three-year initiative that Paramount cable network Showtime launched in late 2021 in association with Mass Appeal, the music label, film and TV company co-founded by rapper/entrepreneur Nas. Focusing on the stories, personalities and legends behind the genre, the partnership has thus far presented several programs on Showtime such as Supreme Team, Cypress Hill: Insane in the Brain, You’re Watching Video Music Box and Ricky Powell: The Individualist, about the well-known New York street photographer.
Moving forward, Showtime will present more programming under the Hip Hop 50 banner from Mass Appeal and other production companies. Those offerings will include a documentary about legendary rapper Biz Markie, a series showcasing the power of women in the genre and another series exploring the SoundCloud scene.
On CBS, Paramount’s cross-company hip-hop celebration will include a special performance at the 65th annual Grammy Awards on Feb. 5, 2023. Later in the year, the TV network will also present a special music event in honor of the genre’s golden anniversary in partnership with The Recording Academy.
Paramount’s year-long celebration of hip-hop’s cultural impact will feature additional new and returning content across its other brands, including:
BET, which will produce a documentary about its iconic series, Rap City, and further honor the anniversary through its longstanding BET Awards and Hip Hop Awards telecasts. BET.com and BET social will also spotlight the culture and profile its legends throughout 2023.
MTV Entertainment Studios, which is set to produce new episodes of Behind the Music and various hip-hop documentaries to be announced at a later date. Fans will also get a chance to celebrate the anniversary via in-show moments during the VMAs and EMAs.
Paramount+, which will continue to stream 50 iconic episodes from MTV Entertainment’s original series Yo! MTV Raps for the first time since it premiered. In addition, the rebooted series is now also available to stream alongside the home makeover series Hip Hop My House.
SiriusXM has launched a new program aimed at developing and breaking emerging artists, the company tells Billboard.
Created by the SiriusXM and Pandora programming and curation teams, the Artist Accelerator program will select six to 12 artists across a wide range of genres over the next year. All of them will receive focused programming for a sustained campaign across SiriusXM channels and Pandora stations, as well as ongoing marketing support from both brands.
The program’s inaugural artist is Def Jam/High Standardz signee Coco Jones, whose latest single “I.C.U.”, from her debut EP What I Didn’t Tell You, has been playing in accelerated rotation on SiriusXM’s The Heat and Heart & Soul stations since Oct. 21. On Pandora, “I.C.U.” has been added to various playlists and radio stations across the platform, including New R&B, Black Music Forever, Adult R&B, PLATINUM, Today’s R&B and Hip Hop Hits, Women in R&B and more. The streaming service is also featuring exclusive audio content from Jones via “artist takeover” modes currently running on the PLATINUM and Women in R&B stations, where she takes listeners through the process of recording the EP and hand-picks tracks from some of the artists who inspired her.
“Introducing our audiences to new artists and investing in those artists’ development is a core value of both SiriusXM and Pandora and we are excited to unveil our Artist Accelerator program to the industry,” said Steve Blatter, senior vp/general manager of music programming at SiriusXM. “The program brings together SiriusXM and Pandora to accelerate the growth of artists across our combined massive listener base.”
In addition to her burgeoning music career, Jones has been working as an actor in TV and film since she was a tween. The 24-year-old currently portrays Hilary Banks on Peacock’s Fresh Prince reboot, Bel-Air. On TikTok, where she boasts nearly 2 million followers, she is dedicated to upping representation for dark-skinned Black women.
“I genuinely could not be more excited to be partnered with SiriusXM and Pandora,” said Jones. “The way that they’ve supported me and found new ways to highlight my future while acknowledging my past, is iconic. There’s definitely more to come, this is just the beginning! I’m excited for y’all to come with me through the whole journey!”
SiriusXM is just the latest platform to introduce an artist development program. In 2017, Apple Music launched the artist spotlight program Up Next, while SoundCloud introduced First on SoundCloud the following year. And in 2021, Spotify launched Fresh Finds, an extension of the playlist hub of the same name that provides emerging acts with on- and off-platform support.
SM Entertainment, home of such K-pop groups as NCT 127, SuperM and Girls’ Generation, had revenue of 238.1 billion KRW ($165 million at the Sept. 30 exchange rate) from July 1 to Sept. 30 — up 65.4% year-over-year and a 29.1% improvement from the previous quarter, the company announced Monday (Nov. 14).
Operating margin — operating profit as a percentage of revenue — improved to 12.5% in the third quarter of 2022, up from 6.9% in the prior-year period. Net income was 29.2 billion KRW ($20.2 million), up 129.5% year-over-year and 15% higher than the second quarter.
The company’s multi-pronged business, which generates revenue across all facets of its artists’ careers, improved across the board: Recorded music revenues grew 46.6% to 135.1 billion won ($93.6 million). SM Entertainment’s album sales improved from 3.25 million units in the prior-year period to 4.7 million units. It had two standout releases in the quarter: NCT 127’s 2 Baddies peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 albums chart and Aespa’s Girls: The 2nd Mini Album topped Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart.
Concert revenues climbed to 10.9 billion won from virtually nothing a year ago. In the quarter, Revenue from appearances — including television, advertising and events — grew 96.4% to 24.3 billion KRW ($16.8 million). Licensing revenue improved 76.1% to 26.4 billion KRW ($18.3 million).
Revenue at SM Entertainment’s subsidiaries grew 119.5% to 136.9 billion KRW ($94.9 million). These companies include Dream Maker, a Hong Kong-based concert booking agency; SM Culture & Contents, a content production and advertising business; and Keyeast, a Korea-based merchandising and licensing business. According to the release, these subsidiaries benefitted from the reopening of domestic and international touring and increased demand for advertising promotion and business-to-business travel.
Several SM Entertainment artists are on tour in the fourth quarter: NCT 127 has nine dates in Korea, U.S., Thailand and Indonesia; Super Junior has six concerts in Indonesia, Hong Kong and Taiwan; and Ryeowook and NCT Dream have six and five concerts in Japan, respectively.
The company’s fourth-quarter release schedule includes new mini albums by Chen, BoA and Red Velvet and Red Velvet member Seulgi. Red Velvet’s Feel My Rhythm album peaked at No. 20 on the Billboard Global Excl. US chart in April; it also landed on the Indonesia Songs (No. 3), Malaysia Songs (No. 5), Phillippines Songs (No. 15) and Taiwan Songs (No. 16) charts. The group’s The ReVe Festival: Finale EP reached No. 40 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart in January 2020.
SM Entertainment’s shares rose 0.5% on Monday to 65,800 KRW. Down just 11.3% in 2022, SM Entertainment’s share price has fared better than Korean music companies HYBE (down 61.2%) and YG Entertainment ( down 26.4%) but lags behind JYP Entertainment (up 12.0%), home of Twice, Stray Kids and iTZY.
SM Entertainment’s shares rose 19% on Sept. 16 after the company announced would prematurely end a contract with a production company owned by the company’s founder and largest shareholder, Lee Soo-man. Its share price, however, has fallen 14% since then.