Business News
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A number of staffers at CMT, the Nashville-based country music and lifestyle programming network, have been let go as part of a broad swath of staff cuts taking place at Paramount Global.
Billboard has learned that among the music and talent team leaving are Stacey Cato (director of music and talent), Quinn Brown (vp of production), Ray Sells (senior director of production), Jennifer DeVault (senior producer), Jordan Walker (senior manager of music and talent), Abbi Roth (senior manager of music and talent) and Bryana Cielo (executive assistant), as well as Heather Graffagnino, vp of production management.
Among those remaining are Margaret Comeaux (senior vp of music and events production), Donna Duncan (vp of music and talent), Melissa Goldberg (vp of digital and social), Yasmin Mohammed (producer) and David Bennett (creative director).
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Sources say that Paramount will continue to support CMT and is positioning the outlet for the future, but what that looks like is unclear.
This week, Paramount Global began a second round of staff cuts, as it continues its aim of reducing its U.S. workforce by 15%, seemingly in preparation for the company’s planned merger with Skydance Media. In a memo to staffers on Monday (Sept. 24), Paramount’s co-CEOs George Cheeks, Chris McCarthy and Brian Robbins stated, “Like the entire media industry, we are working to accelerate streaming profitability while at the same time adjusting to the evolving landscape in our traditional businesses. In order to set Paramount up for continued success, we are taking these actions. Days like today are never easy. It is difficult to say goodbye to valued colleagues, and to those departing, we are incredibly grateful for your countless contributions.”
The cuts come as the company, like many legacy media companies, is seeing a decline in linear television viewership and advertising, and consumers continue to move toward streaming video and digital.
In June, Paramount cut nearly all the content roles across its CMT, MTV, Comedy Central and TV Land websites, while storied news site MTVnews.com was taken down. During a town hall on June 25, McCarthy noted that Paramount’s revenue had grown by 13% between 2018 and 2023, while the company’s operating income before depreciation and amortization (OIBDA) has fallen 61% during that same time frame. Thus, they are aiming at cutting $500 million in costs.
Country radio trade publication Country Aircheck first reported a number of the layoffs.
Reps for Paramount Global had not responded to Billboard‘s request for confirmation by press time.
Global Music Rights (GMR), the boutique U.S. performance rights organization that represents Bruce Springsteen, Drake, the John Lennon estate and among others, is in advanced talks to sell a majority stake to the private equity firm Hellman & Friedman, sources tell Billboard.
Co-founded by Irving Azoff and Randy Grimmett in 2013, GMR’s majority owner, Texas Pacific Group (TPG), has signed a letter of intent to sell its undisclosed majority stake to Hellman & Friedman (HF), according to sources close to the talks. Other sources described the status of the talks as having reached an “understanding” to sell. The Azoff Company, which manages GMR among other companies in its portfolio, will retain its stake and continue daily management of GMR if the deal proceeds, sources say, although some say it, too, has earned a payout by selling a portion of its minority stake in the deal. Music Business Worldwide reported news of the sale on Thursday.
Institutional investors and private equity funds like New Mountain Capital and Blackstone have bought significant stakes in competing U.S. performance rights organizations in recent years, attracted by the key role that PROs play for businesses looking to access music in a commercial context.
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Multiple reports put the price for GMR at $3.3 billion. Sources tell Billboard that is the company’s valuation, and that GMR generates between $450 million and $500 million annually; other informed sources say the valuation is lower than that and dispute that revenue figure. With the Azoff Group retaining part of its stake in GMR, the price TPG fetches for its stake will be less than the headline $3.3 billion figure, those sources point out. GMR is being advised by the investment bank Moelis.
Representatives for TPG, HF and The Azoff Company declined to comment.
Hellman & Friedman is a San Francisco-based private equity firm that specializes in traditional buyouts in the technology and financial services sectors. Among media and entertainment companies, HF previously invested in the German media company Axel Springer and Getty Images. It has since sold its stakes in both companies.
The deal, which is expected to close this year, will not change anything “for the writers or the GMR management team,” a source familiar with the matter says. “GMR’s goal will remain the same: to transform the industry and bring more value to songwriters and their publishers. This is just a deal where one private equity firm investing in a company will be replaced by another. TPG’s exit from GMR is simply an exercise in realizing return on investment.”
Knowledgeable financial sources suggest the complex deal could involve TPG stakes in The Azoff Company, the umbrella holding company that oversees not only GMR but the artist management company Full Stop Management; the private equity-funded investment arm Iconic Artists Group, which buys artist and songwriter music rights; and Giant Music, an independent record label. Other sources say that even though TPG is exiting its GMR investment, it still retains a small minority equity stake in Giant Music.
GMR has built a reputation for being highly selective when it comes to signing songwriters, even more so than rival boutique performance rights organization SESAC.
Founded in 1930, the Blackstone-owned SESAC currently represents only songwriters it has invited to join for representation, an approach that has resulted in a carefully-curated song roster that allows it to command market rates commensurate with its catalog.
In contrast, the two largest U.S. PROs, ASCAP and BMI, operate under DOJ-mandated consent decrees and must accept any songwriter who wants to join. They are also subject to government mandated rates, set through rates courts in the federal Southern District of New York, if negotiations with licensees fail.
GMR has built a reputation for only signing superstar writers. Its limited catalog of about 150-200 artists and songwriters across a number of genres includes Bad Bunny, Billie Eilish, Drake, Eddie Vedder, Harry Styles, Jon Bon Jovi, Prince and others.
While sources say that GMR often pays the highest rates among PROs, those rates are not disclosed. However, in 2016, in a since-settled Radio Music Licensing Committee (RMLC) lawsuit against GMR alleging GMR engaged in monopolistic practices, the RMLC complaint quantified how large GMR is by citing that its share of radio performances sat between 5% and 7.5%, but it was charging as though it represented 15%. The complaint also said GMR lured songwriters to sign there by promising to pay out 30% more than its competitors.
If the GMR deal closes, it will mark the second time in a year that a U.S. PRO has changed hands. In February, New Mountain Capital acquired BMI in a deal believed to be valued at $1.2 billion, with sources saying that the PRO had about $145 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA). That implies about an 8.25 times multiple. Sources say the constraints of the DOJ’s consent decree weighed down BMI’s valuation. When Blackstone acquired SESAC in 2017, Billboard estimated the PRO’s lucrative business model helped it fetch a nearly 12 times multiple of $85 million in EBITDA for a $1 billion valuation.
Like SESAC and now BMI, GMR is secretive about its financials and none of its data is public. Depending on what GMR’s specific financials are, it could go for at least a 12 times multiple, if not higher, with some financial sources suggesting it could maybe even reach a 17 times EBITDA multiple.
One GMR characteristic that songwriters find attractive is its use of a rate card, a unique feature among U.S. PROs that is considered more transparent and easier to understand than the rate formulas employed by ASCAP and BMI, numerous sources say.
Sources say GMR’s affiliation with Azoff and his portfolio of companies that employ powerful industry executives is one of the keys to its success. In fact, some big-name artists and songwriters handled by Azoff management companies are signed with GMR. Consequently, with Azoff and Grimmett and other top Azoff executives still calling the shots, the company is expected to retain its thus-far unique status as the home of superstar and mega-hit songwriters.
On Tuesday (Sept. 24), singer-songwriter Laufey performed at the launch event for Syracuse University’s new Bandier music business master’s program. Held at Spotify Studios in Los Angeles, the Icelandic/Chinese singer also revealed her new scholarship fund for international students and those with financial need at the event.
The Laufey Scholarship for Graduate Students will provide $100,000 over the next ten years to the Bandier program. In her remarks, Laufey noted that she was inspired to start the fund by her parents, who are music educators, and by her team, many of which attended Bandier for undergrad.
This includes her manager Max Gredinger (2013 alumni), attorney Harry Roberts (2012), publisher Gabz Landman (2012), digital marketing manager Izzy Newirth (2023) and management coordinator Kaylee Barrett (2024).
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“I’m incredibly proud to support this scholarship and be part of such an important moment for the Bandier program. The talent, knowledge and passion that my team brings to our work every day are a direct result of the incredible education they received at Syracuse University,” Laufey said of the scholarship in a release. “I hope this scholarship will help future students find the same success and fulfillment in the music industry.”
Syracuse’s Bandier Program for Recording and Entertainment Industries was established in 2006. Named for alumnus and storied music executive Martin Bandier, the school is a regular on Billboard’s top music business schools list.
The expansion into a master’s program has been in the works by the team at Bandier for the last year-and-a-half, and it is said to offer students many of the same features from the undergraduate program, including hands-on learning experiences and job training to help develop the music industry’s next generation of executives. It is set to begin classes in summer 2025.
The curriculum will introduce students to areas like music law, copyright, social media and the latest data tools used by industry professionals. It will also feature a semester based in Los Angeles where students will be able to apply what they’ve learned in the classroom to the real-world music business.
The Bandier undergraduate and graduate programs are both helmed by former Billboard editorial director Bill Werde.
“An overwhelming percentage of our undergrads are leveraging the skills, network and experiences built in the Bandier program into jobs upon graduation,” Werde said. “We look forward to welcoming these new graduate students into our community and working with them to develop the core that they need to succeed.”
Mark J. Lodato, dean of the Newhouse School of Communications, which is home to the Bandier program, said in a release, “Through the Bandier master’s program, students aspiring to work in the music industry will have exciting opportunities to hone the skills they learn in the classroom in real-world settings. We are so grateful to the Bandier alumni, who play pivotal roles working with such a gifted artist like Laufey, for setting examples for career success.”
Andrew Batey is best known to the music industry as the founder of streaming fraud prevention company Beatdapp. But for the last six years, Batey has been simultaneously building up a venture capital firm called Side Door Ventures. “I always wanted to just be viewed as a founder, but Beatdapp is probably my last company,” says Batey, a serial entrepreneur, who has also built companies in the restaurant and digital marketing industries. “I started thinking about where I want to transition to eventually, and I believe it’s investing.”
For the last 15 years, Batey says he’s mentored hundreds of companies at different accelerators, which is where he got the itch to start stepping into the investor role. After years of angel investing to check his aptitude, he realized, “I feel like I’m really good at picking the right companies.”
Side Door quietly launched in 2018 and comprises 14 different smaller funds covering a wide array of disciplines — space travel, blockchain, manufacturing and more. Investors are also interested in music and entertainment, too, though Batey says it needs to be something he believes he can grow “by 100x” and “there are not that many” entertainment startups that fit that bill. To date, he’s made investments in companies like SpaceX, Pipe, Plaid, Varda and EtherFi, as well as music-related startups like JKBX and the now-defunct superfans app Renaissance, which he felt particularly passionate about.
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In total, Batey says Side Door has averaged 61% gross internal rate of return across all funds since its launch and has over 100 companies in its portfolio.
Now that Beatdapp has established itself as an industry leader with partnerships with Universal Music Group, the Mechanical Licensing Collective, Beatport, SoundExchange and more, Batey is ready to talk about Side Door Ventures for the first time.
Why are you making your press debut, six years into Side Door Ventures?
To talk about it too early seemed like a giant, “Look at me! Look at me!” And that’s not really what a founder needs — a founder needs help. I’ve always just felt comfortable being the neck that moves the head, but I’ve lost my ability to be stealthily leading this, the more checks we’ve written.
In the beginning, a lot of startups just thought I was a founder. As soon as we had that founder-to-founder rapport, the person would just start sharing all these things that he wouldn’t have shared with an investor. But none of them were deal breakers. I found the transparency actually really great. There was a strength in meeting a founder at their level, without them knowing you’re the investor.
I named the fund Side Door Ventures because they never saw it coming when I would meet with the founder. They just thought I was mentoring them, and then I would suddenly be like, “I’d like to write a half million dollar check.”
It really favored us well because I wasn’t convincing them why they needed our money. I gave them advice and mentorship first, and then told them I wanted to write the check and that’s the exact thing they want. Many want someone that’s going to be helpful, and not someone just writing a check. In really tight funding rounds where people get pushed out, we often got into them early on when we should never have been.
But the cat’s out of the bag, and I’m ready to just own it.
What makes Side Door Ventures different from others in the field?
Fundamentally, the way we’ve been billed as a fund is entirely different than everyone else. We intentionally started with small funds that are $10 million to $30 million each. We have 14 funds overall.
When I started the fund, I had a big family that offered to give me $100 million to get started, and they wanted to know what my strategy would be. I always felt that big funds are really hard to return. So my strategy was, Why don’t we make a bunch of smaller funds of higher return multiples that traditionally perform better?
When I started talking to fund managers, though, they thought it was crazy. They’re like, “Institutions won’t bankroll that — a pension fund wants to have a check size of at least $10 million.” If you’re building a fund to please people covering their ass, you’re not building a fund for optimal returns. And if I was building a fund for optimizing returns, and if this was my money, I would go the opposite way and make a bunch of small funds. So my customer investor is totally different than most. My customers are high net worth individuals and families who care more about the returns, and less about whether I check a box.
For every small fund we have a slightly different iteration. We have one with the state of Michigan which is just focusing on manufacturing, advanced materials and mobility — things that the state of Michigan has talent resources for. We have a web3 fund which focuses on blockchain. We have a seed fund which is focused on seed investing. We have a European fund focused on European college students, specifically. I don’t know any other funds doing it like this.
Most Billboard readers know you as the founder of Beatdapp. Given that background, do you have interest in investing in companies that are complementary to what Beatdapp does?
Because of Beatdapp, I have views on where the industry could still use a lot of help, and I probably have some unique data insights about where there’s juice to squeeze. But I view Side Door and Beatdapp as entirely separate. We don’t have any of the same investors, so I don’t take money in one entity and then bring it to the other. It’s a fully firewall situation where we have different investors, different teams, different everything.
If there is anything that I’m too privy to because of my work outside of Side Door — let’s say that I have a relationship with founders of a company — I generally sit out of the investment committee and let the rest of the committee decide so that there’s no bias going into the decision making.
I love music and entertainment. It’s a big part of my background, so I obviously want to invest in things that are in that sector. But the majority of all music companies exit for under $15 million. The reality is that music is not the best venture-backable investment, which means that there are very few companies that meet the sort of the requirements to warrant a venture capital investment from us.
We have a bunch of funds, but they’re all basically investing in things we think could [provide] 100x [returns]. So if you’re a music startup valued at $20 million, how many companies have exited that are over $2 billion? The answer is probably only a handful — like Spotify.
That means one of two things. I either have to catch you way earlier, like in your first round, or you need to be such an outlier that I believe the market will move in your direction. For example, we invested in JKBX. Why? If you think about JKBX as a trading entity and the fact that it’s more of a fintech play than it is a music play, you could see a platform getting traction. Now, will they make it or not? Only time will tell. But they have the profile to potentially be worth billions of dollars if they can build that habit formation and become another asset type.
You have mentioned before that you learned a lot from investing in a superfan company, Renaissance, which ultimately went bust. Monetizing the superfan is such a hot topic in the music business right now. What did that experience teach you about the viability of superfan-related startups?
We see 7,000-8,000 deals a year, and I cannot think of another case where I saw a consumer-facing application that was as sticky with their fans as Renaissance. They had a million downloads — all organic, no marketing. They had 47% day-90 retention, meaning 47% of all users stuck with it after 90 days, which is insanely good. I think the average user launched the app 21 times per day — that’s like Instagram level.
The problem is that I don’t think they knew how to fully monetize it. Artists didn’t want to pay for it, labels didn’t want to pay for it. There wasn’t a big enough venture-backable business there. It was more of a $10 million to $15 million business, but how do you make that a $100 million business? They were struggling to figure out what could be scaled.
If this company who had the viral, organic growth and absolutely crushed it couldn’t figure out how to get those customers to pay, and couldn’t figure out how to get artists to pay, and couldn’t figure out how to get labels to pay, then how are any of these other fan apps going to make money?
The only way I think you can build a successful “superfan” business is by owning the merch pipeline itself — basically, you need to be the one that’s vertically integrated. You need to be integrating and selling the actual goods yourself so that you can build enough margins in there to support the business. If you were just a third party marketplace for all these other goods and services — like posters and tickets and merch — I don’t think there’s enough money there. I don’t believe that’s scalable.
This summer, the major labels filed a lawsuit against two AI music startups, Suno and Udio, and in early September, it was revealed that the use of AI music was instrumental in the scam alleged in the $10 million streaming fraud lawsuit. Do you see this affecting people’s confidence in AI music startups?
It could affect consumer confidence, but I do not think it will dissuade investors. The reality is, investors aren’t afraid of breaking things. Where a lot of people are mad because the status quo is changing, a lot of investors see that as a positive — as they say, “Volatility breeds profitability.”
However, what will succeed here is whoever comes up with a business model where everyone wins and it’s convenient for consumers, and they enjoy the experience. I haven’t seen one that wins yet. I haven’t seen a business model where consumers actually like it.
Look at the Drake–Weeknd guy [anonymous TikTok user Ghostwriter and his song “Heart On My Sleeve,” which used AI to deepfake Drake and the Weeknd]. His song was listened to millions of times, but it also had a pretty equal number of listeners. What that means is people were only listening to it one time or so and then leaving. It was a novelty. It wasn’t something that people saw longterm value in. Until there’s a product that people see longterm value, it’s not going to work.
Alliance Entertainment recovered from a post-pandemic slowdown through higher demand for direct-to-consumer (D2C) fulfillment, cost savings and continued demand for vinyl LPs and CDs.
For the fiscal year ended June 30, the Plantation, Fla.-based distributor had net revenue of $1.1 billion, it announced Sept. 19, down slightly from $1.16 billion in the prior fiscal year. But by emphasizing cost efficiencies and high-margin products, Alliance increased gross profit 24% to $128.9 million and gross profit margin by 270 basis points to 11.7%. As a result, net income jumped by $40 million to $4.6 million from a net loss of $35.4 million a year earlier.
“Our strategic shift toward higher-value offerings is proving successful, and we expect to benefit from new hardware releases in the coming year,” Alliance CEO Jeff Walker said in a statement. “Similarly, in consumer products, we improved margins and pricing, demonstrating the effectiveness of our inventory rationalization efforts.”
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Music accounted for 42% of Alliance’s consolidated revenues—30% for vinyl records accounted and 12% for CDs. AMPED, Alliance’s independent music distribution business, had net sales of $78 million in fiscal 2024, up from $75 million. AMPED is the exclusive distributor for over 90 record labels and has exclusive relationships with such artists as Usher and ATEEZ.
Video games were the company’s biggest segment, accounting for 31% of consolidated revenue in the fiscal year. DVDs and Blu-Ray products were 19% of revenue. Collectibles and consumer products were 4% of consolidated revenues.
Higher-margin D2C sales accounted for 36% of fiscal year sales, up from 31% in the prior year, and helped improve profitability. “This shift highlights the effectiveness of our approach in meeting evolving consumer preferences, and it is helping to diversify and strengthen our revenue base,” Alliance chairman Bruce Ogilvie said in a statement.
A leading distributor of entertainment products with more than 325,000 SKUs in stock, Alliance counts Walmart, Amazon, Best Buy, Target and Shopify as clients. The company also has a number of owned brands. The DirectToU divisions consists of ImportCDs, Deep Discount, Collectors Choice Music and Collectors Choice, among others. Mill Creek Entertainment is an independent studio for DVDs, Blu-Rays and digital distribution. NCircle is Alliance’s children’s and family entertainment brand.
The latest earnings improved on a sharp drop in sales and a net loss after sales spiked during during the previous two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. From fiscal 2022 to 2023, sales fell from $1.42 billion to $1.16 billion in fiscal 2023 and adjusted EBITDA plummeted from $60 million to a loss of $17.6 million. The company’s debt ballooned to $133.3 in fiscal 2023 from $45.6 million in fiscal 2020. Inventory rose, too, to a peak of $249.4 million in fiscal 2022 from $62.8 million in fiscal 2020. Both debt and inventory came down dramatically in fiscal 2024, to $79.6 million and $97.4 million, respectively.
Shares of Alliance, which trade on the Nasdaq, closed at $2.76 on Monday, up 35.3% since earnings results were released. The company’s shares briefly traded over the counter after a merger with the NYSE-listed Adara Acquisition Corp, a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, fizzled and left the company with a float too small to trade on the NYSE. The company had a small offering on the Nasdaq in June of 2023 and has a float of 3.1 million shares out of 50.9 million shares outstanding.
Incubus, Lollapalooza and music entrepreneur Steve Rifkind are among those who will be honored by Music Forward Foundation at its second annual awards brunch on Sunday, Oct. 6 at City Club Los Angeles. Music Forward Foundation is a national non-profit and Live Nation’s charity partner.
The awards brunch will honor these six individuals or organizations:
Incubus will receive the tour award celebrating not only their music but also their philanthropic efforts through the Make Yourself Foundation. That foundation, established in 2003, supports a wide range of causes including sustainability, disaster relief and arts education.
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Lollapalooza will receive the festival award for revolutionizing the music festival landscape – growing a small, innovative festival in Chicago’s Grant Park in 1991 that blended genres and introduced multiple stages into a global phenomenon, all while supporting arts education in Chicago public schools through the Lollapalooza Arts Education Fund with programs like Immersion Day and the Lollapalooza & Sueños Festival Job Fair.
Rifkind will be presented the executive award by Grammy-winning musician and producer Eric Krasno for his impact on the industry through Loud Records, SRC Records and Spring Sound. Rifkind has been instrumental in the success of such hip-hop acts as Wu-Tang Clan, Remy Ma and Mobb Deep.
BMG will receive the corporate award for its dedication to creating equitable opportunities and supporting the next generation of industry professionals. The company’s innovative approach extends to its partnership with Music Forward, providing paid internships and mentorships to diverse youth since 2020.
Actress, producer and civil rights activist Gina Belafonte and Sankofa.org will be presented the community award by actor Jesse Williams. Founded by Gina’s father, the late Harry Belafonte, Sankofa.org is dedicated to empowering artists to use their voices for meaningful change while addressing social justice issues.
Brooklyn Bowl, co-founded by Peter Shapiro in 2009, will receive the venue award. With locations in Brooklyn, Las Vegas, Nashville and Philadelphia, Brooklyn Bowl has become an institution. The venues are also a leader in sustainability, as the first bowling alley in the world to achieve L.E.E.D. certification, utilizing wind-powered lights and incorporating recycled materials.
The catered brunch will feature live performances.
The charity’s second annual golf classic is set for Monday, Oct. 7 at El Caballero County Club in Tarzana, Calif. Meals, cocktails, activations and gifting will be provided by local vendors. For more information, visit musicforwardfoundation.org.
Last year’s inaugural events raised more than $350,000 for programs empowering youth in the music industry.
Over more than 30 years, Music Forward Foundation has sought to transform young lives, inspire careers and champion a more inclusive music industry. To date, the organization has served over one million young people and provided more than $42 million in scholarships, workforce opportunities, relief funds and more.
Kesha is going independent. Today, the Grammy-winning artist announced a new deal with the independent label and artist services of Warner Music Group, ADA, via her newly launched label Kesha Records.
“I am proud to announce this partnership for the distribution of my music through Kesha Records. My name has become synonymous with transparency, integrity, and safety, and I want to ensure that these values are upheld for myself and any future artists signed to my label,” Kesha said in a release. “Music has the power to connect the world, and I aspire for my work to be a beacon of light and goodness. I am excited to take control of my narrative and rewrite my story in the music business.”
The partnership will see ADA cover global distribution for Kesha’s future releases including her upcoming album due out in 2025, as well as the project’s current single, “Joyride,” which nabbed a top 10 spot on Billboard’s Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart. ADA will also work in tandem with Crush Music, which manages Kesha, overseeing marketing and promotion for Kesha’s forthcoming album. This marks Kesha’s first distribution deal and gives her full creative control and ownership of her work.
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“Since the start of her career, Kesha’s authenticity has distinguished her as a true artist whose vibrant self-expression resonates strongly with her fans,” said ADA president Cat Kreidich in a release. “We believe ADA is the ideal home for her, and we’re honored and committed to supporting Kesha as an independent artist while maintaining her creative integrity and unapologetic bold-spirit.”
Kesha’s latest hit, “Joyride,” recently surpassed 50 million streams across all platforms and landed on the Spotify U.S. and Global Viral charts upon release, according to ADA. The star also recently hit major milestones with updated RIAA certifications. “TiK ToK” is now 12x platinum and “Timber” has become her second Diamond-certified single in the U.S. Other hits like “Die Young,” “We R Who We R” and “Praying” have reached 6x and 5x platinum. These achievements push her total U.S. sales over 75 million, according to ADA.
Kesha’s discography also encompasses two No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 and 10 top 10 singles on the Billboard Hot 100. Kesha’s third studio album Rainbow debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and went on to land a Grammy nomination for best pop solo album in 2017. The album’s lead single “Praying” spent 21 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 and also earned a Grammy nomination for best pop solo performance. Since then, she’s released two critically-acclaimed projects, High Road and Gag Order.
This weekend brought the offical end of brat summer, and Charli XCX is now a week into her 21-city North America arena tour with Troye Sivan. So how much was brat summer worth?
While it’s impossible to know how much Charli made in total from the groundswell around brat, a colorful concept built on spontaneity and living life to its fullest, we crunched the numbers around a few brat summer deals. According to our rough estimate, these deals — specifically her cut of the ticket sales revenue from her co-headlined Sweat tour and other shows, earnings from the revenue generated by her catalog and songwriter share royalties this year, and the H&M ad campaign deal — netted Charli around $9.62 million so far this year.
Brat, Charli XCX’s sixth album, which debuted at No. 3 on the June 7-dated Billboard 200, is the long-time London rave singer’s most commercially successful album by far. Its lime green album art, Charli’s candid, sometimes vulnerable lyrics, and the open-ended conversation about what it means to be “brat” resonated with audiences, putting Charli at the center of the cultural conversation with everyone from Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign for U.S. president to a vegan sausage company embracing “brat” culture.
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“She has got the attention of anybody that she wants right now,” says Jenna Adler, Charli’s agent at CAA. The album’s 23 tracks (including remixes) passed the more-than 1 billion streams mark on Spotify in late August, and, according to Luminate, her catalog has racked up around 2 billion on-demand streams globally. Charli announced brand partnerships with H&M and Skims, and her first North America arena tour with Sivan sold out shows in Boston, Chicago, New York and San Francisco immediately.
Touring
The momentum that built over brat summer helped the pair of Charli XCX and Sivan sell more than 97%, or 261,694 of 269,733, of the total tickets available for their Sweat tour, Adler says.
With an average ticket price of around $90, Billboard estimates the tour has grossed roughly $23.5 million. After touring’s various costs, including the artist manager’s fee, touring artists usually take home around 34% of ticket sales, or in this case about $8 million. If it is a co-headline tour, that would likely be split 50/50, with Charli earning $4 million.
To build excitement ahead of the arena tour, Charli headlined a handful of sold-out shows branded Charli XCX Presents: PARTYGIRL shows, that were intentionally small to allow fans to feel part of a Charli XCX-DJ’d dance party, Adler says.
Three of those shows — held in London, Los Angeles and Sao Paulo in June — grossed $377,300 from a combined total of 7,413 tickets sold, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore. Billboard does not have data on two additional shows Charli headlined in Brooklyn and Chicago, and our calculations do not include Charli XCX’s many festival performances this year or revenue from merch sold at concerts — an area of touring that can be quite lucrative.
The Sweat tour marks the first time either Charli or Sivan will headline arenas in the world’s biggest music market, and tickets went on sale to the public on April 26. Roughly 70% were sold by the end of May, rising to 80% by mid-June and over 90% by the end of July, Billboard reported.
Total estimated touring income (for 3 party girl shows and Sweat tour): $4.1 million
Streaming
Kamala Harris’s campaign for president leaned into brat summer on July 21, the day President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race and endorsed Harris. Charli XCX posted on X (formerly Twitter) “kamala IS brat,” Harris’s campaign briefly adopted brat’s lime-green hue on social platforms, and the week of the 2024 Democratic National Convention, from Aug. 19 through Aug. 25, it was the sole sponsor of Spotify’s official “This is Charli XCX” playlist.
While Charli did not directly benefit from the sponsorship—the Harris/Walz campaign paid Spotify an undisclosed amount—the popular playlist with 2 ½ hours of her most popular songs got a boost in listeners and followers.
Roughly 127,000 Spotify users follow — or have saved — the Spotify playlist, which gained 12,400 new followers between Aug. 10 and Sept. 10, with around 5,000 users piling on during the Harris campaign’s sponsorship, according to Chartmetric.
Spotify monthly listeners of the playlist rose by 8.6 million, or 23.4%, to 45.5 million between Aug. 12 and Aug. 27. Listenership declined slightly during the three days that led up to Aug. 19, the first day of the DNC convention, but that trend reversed with the biggest single day boost occurring on Aug. 20. By Aug. 28, brat’s 23 official tracks, remixes and bonus tracks had nearly 1.08 billion streams on Spotify, Chartmetric says.
Globally, Charli XCX’s catalog has accumulated nearly 2 billion on-demand streams, according to Luminate. So far this year, her recorded music catalog has generated 722,000 album consumption units in the United States, as of Sept. 9, compared to an average of 216,000 album consumption units from 2021-2024, according to Luminate. Her songs have generated 781.13 million on-demand streams in the U.S. this year, primarily from audio on-demand streams. Programmed streams topped 10.73 million or double her three-year average.
That translates to nearly $6 million in revenue for her U.S. label and $13.4 million globally so far this year, based on Billboard estimates which were calculated by using RIAA U.S. data to determine wholesale rates, and per-stream rates provided by financial sources at major and indie labels. If Charli XCX gets traditional superstar royalties of 22% for “sale” formats like CDs, vinyl and downloads; and a 37% rate for on-demand streaming, Billboard estimates her take-home pay so far this year, minus the traditional 4% producer’s fee, would be nearly $4.1 million.
Charli’s master recordings have produced $1.52 million in royalty revenues for the publishers of the songwriters she has used and nearly $3.5 million in publishing royalties when extrapolating for global publishing revenue, according to Billboard’s estimates.
Billboard estimates Charli XCX has a 30% songwriter share for the songs on her album, which means her publisher would realize roughly $1.05 million for her catalog’s global activity so far this year. If Charli has a traditional 50/50 publishing revenue split deal, she would receive $525,000; if she signed a co-publishing 75/25 deal, she would net about $788,000; and if she owns her publishing royalties and has signed an administration deal, which can run from 85/15 to 94/6 with as much as 94% of the publishing revenue going to the songwriter and 6% going to the administrator, she could net as much as $922,000. (Calculations are based on a typical 88% administration rate.)
Total estimated streaming, catalog and publishing income: max $5.02 million.
Brand Deals
In the past month, Kim Kardashian’s SKIMS and H&M have both launched campaigns featuring Charli XCX. The SKIMS campaign, launched Aug. 21, has Charli modeling its new cotton collection of boxers, bralettes and fleece pants. For H&M, Charli stars alongside other culture shifters Arca, Lila Moss, Ajus Samuel, Loli Bahia, Wali Deutsch and others in the global retailer’s A/W 2024 campaign. Financial details of these deals are not public, but sources estimate Charli was paid a sum in the mid-six-figures for her deal with H&M.
Billboard has reported in the past that branding deals contribute $2.6 billion in revenue annually to the music industry, with sponsorship spending on music tours, venues and festivals comprising more than 60% of that amount. The remainder comes from fees paid for the use of music in ads, films, games and TV shows, with endorsement payments, such as clothing brand partnerships, contributing the smallest portion of revenue.
Marcie Allen, the MAC (Marcie Allen Consulting) president known for orchestrating some of the highest-profile brand partnerships in the music industry, says these kinds of deals, and what it takes to land them, are rarely about the money.
To attract attention from top companies serving the Gen Z market, “it isn’t just about awareness, recognition or buzz. It is about puncturing through culture to create an entire subculture, a new vernacular, and ultimately becoming embedded into identity.”
“The concept of ‘going viral’ is fundamentally changing and Charli XCX’s ‘brat summer’ is a perfect example.”
Additional reporting by Ed Christman and Eric Frankenberg
This is the first of a new column Billboard is launching in which we will unpack one financial issue a week for an artist in the news. Thanks for reading, and if you have suggestions or tips, email me at ediltsmarshall@billboard.com.
Shares of Spotify rose 8.0% to $365.00 this week to lead all music stocks in a week the Billboard Global Music Index reached a new high and many of its largest components posted mid- to high-single digit gains.
The Swedish music streaming giant was boosted by a report by Pivotal Research Group that increased its price target to $510 from $460 and reiterated its “buy” rating. Spotify’s intraday high of $368.29 on Thursday set a new 52-week high for the stock and was its best mark since Feb. 21, 2021.
Spotify led the 20-company Billboard Global Music Index (BGMI) to a record high 1,873.87, up 4.1% for the week, as ten of the stocks posted gains this week, nine lost value and one was unchanged. After a 4.8% drop the week ending Sept. 6 and stagnating since March, the BGMI has gained 7.4% in the last two weeks and raised its year-to-date gain to 22.2%—more than two percentage points above the gains of the Nasdaq composite (up 19.6%) and the S&P 500 (also up 19.6%).
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Stocks generally had a good week after the U.S. Federal Reserve announced on Wednesday a rate cut of half a percentage point, the first time the central bank lowered the overnight borrowing rate since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Investors had expected the Fed’s move, though, and had priced the effect of a rate cut into stock prices. Still, the Nasdaq composite climbed 1.5% to 17,948.32 and the S&P 500 rose 1.4% to 5,702.55. South Korea’s KOSPI composite index improved 0.7% to 2,736.81 and China’s Shanghai Composite Index rose 1.2% to 2,736.81. In the United Kingdom, the FTSE 100 fell 0.5% to 8,229.99.
Warner Music Group gained 4.9% to $30.44. WMG’s Atlantic Music Group laid off about 150 people Thursday as part of a restructuring plan that began in February. The week’s intraday high of $30.88 was WMG’s highest price since reaching $32.34 on July 24. The company also announced in an SEC filing this week it secured a $1.3 billion term loan that will be used to repay an existing loan and pay associated fees and expenses.
Live Nation shares also gained 4.9% to $103.65 and brought its year-to-date improvement to 10.7%. Thursday’s intraday high of $105.42 was its highest mark since April 1 and less than $2 below its 52-week high of $107.24. The concert promoter scored a win in Portland, Ore., this week after the city council upheld an August decision to allow the development of a 3,500-capacity music venue that will be operated by Live Nation.
Two other promoters also posted gains this week. MSG Entertainment, rose 4.6% to $42.16, while CTS Eventim improved 1.2% to 87.90 euros ($98.23). Another live entertainment company, Sphere Entertainment Co., dropped 2.7% to $41.09.
K-pop companies’ modest decline was an improvement from their consistently steep drops in recent weeks. The four South Korean companies had an average loss of 1.2% this week. HYBE fell 2.4%, JYP Entertainment dipped 1.2%, YG Entertainment slipped 0.9% and SM Entertainment lost 0.2%. After surging in previous years, the quartet has an average year-to-date loss of 40.4%.
Universal Music Group fell 3.6% to 22.75 euros ($25.42) following its Capital Markets Day on Tuesday. Analysts generally felt UMG set reachable financial targets and presented a believable roadmap about its strategy for the next four years. The Amsterdam-listed company laid out a strategy to achieve 8% to 10% cumulative annual growth rate (CAGR) for its subscription revenue and above 7% CAGR for total revenue.
Music streamer LiveOne had the biggest decline of the week, dropping 6.1% to $1.38. That put shares of LiveOne into the red for 2024 with a 1.4% year-to-date loss.
The 2025 Juno Awards will include awards for reggae recording, Christian/gospel album, and children’s album, after all.
CARAS, the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS), has reportedly reversed a planned decision to put those three categories on hiatus, as well as the award for international album, the fate of which remains unknown.
Earlier in September, The Canadian Press obtained a letter which revealed the planned suspension of the four categories, part of a “broader set of updates” still to be announced.
Response was swift from the music industry and beyond, with many citing concerns that reggae recording and Christian/gospel album, especially, are categories that honour genres led by Black musicians.
“There’s a lot of anger among us reggae folks,” Juno nominee Jason Wilson told The Canadian Press, adding that the removal of the reggae award could only “ring alarms of racism.”
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“While (the Junos) might be saying the right things about inclusion, in the very same breath they’re ditching reggae and gospel. How can this be reconciled?” Wilson said.
Politicians spoke out as well, with federal MP Michael Coteau — also the former Ontario Minister of Culture — advocating for the reggae, Christian/gospel, and children’s album categories to be reinstated. “Revisit this really bad decision,” Coteau said on X. City councillor Josh Matlow added his voice to the chorus as well.
Juno Awards president and CEO Allan Reid announced the decision to reinstate the categories on Tuesday, September 17.
“I want to personally address the recent discussions surrounding changes we were considering for the 2025 Awards,” Reid wrote on Instagram. “Over the course of last year, CARAS underwent an extensive process reviewing all Award categories, taking into consideration data such as consumption, number of submissions, and other metrics,” Reid explained. “Given the feedback from the community, CARAS will not put these three categories on hiatus this year.”
Speaking with the Toronto Star, publicist and cultural commentator Dalton Higgins (who previously called the decision to eliminate reggae “a slap in the face to…the Black community” and “a PR nightmare of epic proportions”) emphasized that CARAS shouldn’t have considered eliminating those categories without consulting the communities that contribute to them.
“To not engage the Jamaican community or the broader Caribbean community in a healthy two-way dialogue,” Higgins said, “it felt like we were taking 20 steps backwards.”
This isn’t the first time artists have called out the Junos on issues of recognition and representation, including previous boycotts by hip-hop artists Rascalz and Drake.
More information about the 2025 Juno Awards category changes will be announced on Sept. 23, Reid clarified in his post.
The 2025 Junos will take place in Vancouver. -Rosie Long Decter
Jeremy Dutcher Becomes The First Two-Time Polaris Music Prize Winner
Jeremy Dutcher has won the Polaris Music Prize. Again!
The Indigenous singer-songwriter of Neqotkuk (Tobique First Nation) became the first two-time winner in the history of the music award, which celebrated its 19th edition this week (September 17) at Massey Hall in Toronto.
With the album Motewolonuwok, Dutcher beat nine other shortlisted albums: Cindy Lee’s Diamond Jubilee, NOBRO’s Set Your Pussy Free, TOBi’s Panic, DijahSB’s The Flower That Knew, Allison Russell’s The Returner, Bambii’s Infinity Club, Elisapie’s Inuktitut, The Beaches’ Blame My Ex and Charlotte Cardin’s 99 Nights.
Dutcher wins the $50,000 prize donated by the Slaight Family Foundation, which goes to the best Canadian album of the year, as determined by a jury of experts based solely on artistic merit.
“Six years ago, I put out my first record [and] this award changed my life,” he said. “I have unending gratitude to this music community. Not a single album on this list sounded like each other. That speaks to the breadth of music in this place.”
The night included performances by most of the nominated artists, with creative substitutions for those who couldn’t play: The Beaches’ Jordan Miller playing with teen band Thunder Queens, a string section playing along with a taped performance by Charlotte Cardin, a Cindy Lee video premiere, and a ballet inspired by Allison Russell’s “Eve Was Black.”
Read about the best moments of the the 2024 Polaris Prize gala here. -Richard Trapunski
Shaboozey Honoured at Toronto Concert as ‘A Bar Song (Tipsy)’ Hits 16 Weeks at No. 1 on Billboard Canadian Hot 100
Shaboozey has this year’s longest-running No. 1 hit on the Billboard Canadian Hot 100 with “A Bar Song (Tipsy), and last week he got to celebrate it in a big way.
At his concert at Danforth Music Hall on Friday (Sept. 13), he welcomed Billboard Canada‘s Richard Trapunski, Mo Ghoneim and Jackson Turner onstage to present him with a plaque for the achievement.
“This is crazy man, this is nuts,” he said, raising the plaque triumphantly as the crowd cheered. “Y’all did it first!”
Shaboozey played the hit three times a row during his encore, with the crowd clearly loving every second of it.
The song has now spent 16 weeks atop the Canadian Hot 100, surpassing last year’s 15 weeks for Miley Cyrus’s hit “Flowers.” Lil Nas X has the current record at 19 weeks for “Old Town Road.” Shaboozey only needs three more weeks to tie it and four more to beat it.
“Let’s see if we can do it,” said the country star in his green room before the show, sitting backstage next to a portrait of Charley Crockett.
“A Bar Song (Tipsy)” hit No. 1 in Canada before the U.S. Hot 100, where it currently sits at 10 weeks at No. 1.
“I guess you guys got a lotta drinkers here, huh?” he joked, when asked why the song was resonating in Canada. “It just shows that you guys love to have fun. Every day is a celebration when people are listening to this song.”
The song is an ode to forgetting your troubles with a double shot of whiskey that interpolates rapper J-Kwon’s 2004 song “Tipsy.” An addictive country song that plays with elements of hip-hop and is easy to sing along to, “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” has shown to unite different kinds of listeners and get airplay in a variety of different radio formats.
Evidently, it also has a lot of staying power. -R.T.
Lisa Grossi Named Director of National Radio Promotion & Media Relations at Warner Music Canada
Warner Music Canada has announced the appointment of Lisa Grossi to the position of director, national radio promotion & media relations.
Grossi joins the company from Bell Media, where she served as the national music director for Virgin Radio & Move Radio, as well as music director & assistant program director for CHUM 104.5. She becomes the first woman ever to lead Warner Music Canada’s promotion department.
“Music is my passion. I live and breathe it,” Grossi says. “Growing up, it was my dream to work for a record label and I am so excited that this is now a reality. I’m thrilled to join Warner Music Canada to help break new artists and have continued success with their roster of established artists.”
Grossi has over 18 years of experience as a radio programmer, and the label heralds her appointment as a step to bring “Warner Music Canada’s radio team into the future.”
Madelaine Napoleone, vp of marketing, says “Lisa is a highly respected leader in the radio industry, bringing a fresh perspective on how we can enhance our partnership with radio both now and in the future. I’m also proud to share that with her appointment, we are the only major label in Canada to have an all-female radio team.”
Lisa Grossi was recently celebrated in the Industry Spotlight of Billboard Canada Women in Music. She gave this advice to the next generation of women in the industry: “Trust your gut. Speak your truth. Be authentic. Always give your honest opinion even if it’s not the popular opinion.”
That advice has led her into new terrain as she moves into the new role at Warner. –Kerry Doole