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Metallica has always had a strong independent streak for a band that spent its formative years on a major label. Now, a decade after getting the rights back to their biggest albums, the band is buying Furnace Record Pressing, a plant in Alexandria, Va., to serve its vinyl business, which has grown by keeping catalog albums in print and releasing ambitious box sets aimed at its legions of hardcore fans.
For a decade, Furnace has pressed records for the band, which has a reputation for releasing high-quality vinyl. At a time of supply-chain issues and manufacturing delays, the plant helped the group keep most of its albums available, plus a growing number of ambitious box sets. (Its most recent “black album” box set includes a double LP of the album, three live LPs, 14 CDs and 6 DVDs.) Last year, the group pressed more than 902,500 pieces of vinyl for more than 620,000 packages, according to management, not all of which are made at Furnace. The band sells roughly half of these in the U.S.
“We couldn’t be more happy to take our partnership with Furnace,” and its founders “to the next level,” said Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich in a statement. James Hetfield, the singer-guitarist who co-founded the band with Ulrich, said that the plant had been “great to Metallica and more importantly to our fans,” and that the purchase would ensure that potential vinyl buyers “will have continued access to high quality records in the future.”
Those fans are already buying a good deal of vinyl. In 2022 and 2021, Metallica rated among the best-selling acts on vinyl in the U.S., according to Luminate – No. 6 in 2022, with 387,000 albums sold and No. 7 in 2021 with 337,000 sold. That’s especially remarkable for a brand that hasn’t released a new album since 2016. (In 2022, the group’s most popular release was Master of Puppets, which sold 91,000, followed by “the black album” and Ride the Lightning.) In most years, the U.S. accounts for roughly half of the group’s vinyl sales worldwide.
“Metallica over-indexes dramatically with physical product,” says Marc Reiter, who helps run Blackened Recordings, the band’s label. “The fans enjoy owning the physical product.”
Although the band hasn’t released a new album since 2016 – the new album, 72 Seasons, comes out April 14 – there’s plenty of product out there. The band regularly releases box sets devoted to their albums, most recently Bob Rock-produced “black album,” and does a good job keeping in print its older releases.
Its relationship with Furnace, which goes back almost a decade, has been part of that. “The catalog is always being pressed,” says Brant Weil, head of marketing at Q Prime, the band’s management company. A couple of years after the band got back the rights to its older albums, its management team realized that it needed a steady supply of vinyl that could live up to the bandmembers’ high standards.
Furnace, which then also brokered vinyl pressing capacity at other plants, arranged a deal with Pallas, a German pressing plant with a reputation for high-quality work, and Q Prime was able to arrange to essentially lease its own presses there. “We never want to be out of stock on Metallica vinyl,” Weil says. “I didn’t want our release plans to be dictated by manufacturing timelines.”
At that point, “any vinyl shortages ceased to be,” Reiter says. Eventually, as Furnace started pressing more records itself, they started pressing more for Metallica as well.
Gradually, the two companies grew close. “We looked at them as more of a partner than a client,” says Furnace found CEO Eric Astor. (As it happens, the first record Furnace worked on was the 2008 re-release of “the black album” as an audiophile edition.) Furnace, like Pallas, has a reputation for doing quality work at a time when some pressing plants have sacrificed quality for output. “We’d rather throw out some bad records than make as many as we can,” says Furnace COO Ali Miller. (Discarding some vinyl is a factor in quality control.) Furnace has been pressing copies of the band’s forthcoming album, 72 Seasons, since January.
Furnace will not change much, Astor says, and plans call for the plant to keep working on other projects, as well as ones for Metallica. “They want to keep the quality and service the whole industry,” Astor says. “It will give us the opportunity to invest more.”
The hope is that Furnace can grow – as both a partner to the band, as well as an investment the group and its team have come to understand well. “They have the same indie spirit we have,” Reiter says, “and they like doing things the right way, which is also the Metallica way.”
Recorded-music revenue hit an all-time high in Spain last year, growing by double digits over 2021, reports Productores de Música de España (Promusicae), the association that represents 95% of the country’s recording industry.
In 2022, Spain’s recorded music market earned a total of 462 million euros ($494.5 million), marking an increase of 12.4% over the 411 million euros ($440 million) in revenue achieved the year prior, Promusicae reported Monday (March 13).
Eighty-seven percent of last year’s total revenue number — or 402 million euros ($429 million) — was generated by music sales, up 9.3% from 2021. The digital market accounted for nearly 86% of music consumed in Spain last year at 345 million euros ($370 million), 98% of which, or 340 million euros ($364 million), came from streaming. Meanwhile, physical sales, which generated 56 million euros ($60 million) in revenue, continued to decline despite growth in the vinyl market.
In the digital sphere, consumption of both audio and video music streams grew by 13% and 16%, respectively, compared to 2021. That translates to 17 million Spaniards using audio streaming platforms in 2022, with 5.2 million of those listeners holding premium subscriptions — up 18% over the previous year. Overall, nearly 36% of the Spanish population used audio streaming platforms in 2022.
Courtesy PROMUSICAE
The physical music market continued to shrink despite another strong year for vinyl, which grew 15% and generated 29 million euros ($31 million) in sales, compared to 26 million euros ($29 million) generated by CD sales. In units, more CDs are still being bought than vinyl (2.6 million units compared to 1.7 million vinyl records were shipped in 2022), even as more-expensive vinyl surpassed CDs in revenue terms. Rosalía‘s Motomami was Spain’s top seller on vinyl last year, though Promusicae did not provide sales numbers for the title.
The Promusicae report also notes that revenue from intellectual property rights has been booming for record labels, increasing by 42% last year to 56 million euros ($60 million). The report cautions, however, that the increase is distorted somewhat by a return to normal activity in sectors like hospitality and nightlife following pandemic-era restrictions.
Courtesy PROMUSICAE
Meanwhile, Spanish-language music further solidified its dominance in the country, with Bad Bunny, Rosalía and C. Tangana outpacing Anglo artists like Harry Styles and Taylor Swift in overall sales (see charts below).
“Closing 2022, maintaining a sustained growth in the last five years — despite the slowdown of the pandemic — is great news that rewards the effort, work and investment of the entire recording industry in our country,” Promusicae president Antonio Guisasola says in a statement. “It opens a window of hope to reach levels of the previous decade.”
Guisasola adds that other European countries, such as the United Kingdom or Italy, “are achieving great benefits that redound to the brand and culture of the country through music, and ours cannot be left behind in this highly competitive environment in which we have the strategic asset of the Spanish language.”
Courtesy PROMUSICAE
On the downside, piracy continues to be a problem in Spain. Promusicae notes that according to the IFPI Engaging With Music 2022 report, 32% of Spaniards use unauthorized or unlicensed methods to listen to or download music. The percentage is even higher for individuals between 16 and 24 years old, with 49% of that age demographic listening to pirated music.
Top 10 albums by revenue in 2022:
Bad Bunny, Un Verano Sin Ti
Rosalía, Motomami
C. Tangana, El Madrileño
Harry Styles, Harry’s House
Rauw Alejandro, Vice Versa
Sebastián Yatra, Dharma
Bad Bunny, YHLQMDLG
Manuel Carrasco, Corazón y Flecha
Taylor Swift, Midnights
Mora, Microdosis
Top 10 songs by revenue in 2022:
Bizarrap x Quevedo, “Quevedo: BZRP Music Sessions, Vol. 52”
Manuel Turizo, “La Bachata”
Rosalía, “Despecha”
Bad Bunny, “Tití Me Preguntó”
Sebastián Yatra, “Tacones Rojos
Bad Bunny, “Me Porto Bonito” feat. Chencho Corleone
Rauw Alejandro, “Desesperados” feat. Chencho Corleone
La Pantera, Quevedo Juseph, Cruz Cafune, Abhir Hathi “Cayó La Noche (Remix)”
Shakira, “Te Felicito” feat. Rauw Alejandro
Bizarrap x Tiago PZK, “Tiago PZK: BZRP Music Sessions, Vol. 48”
Sean “Diddy” Combs is looking to acquire a majority stake in Paramount’s BET businesses, which includes BET, VH1, BET Studios and the streaming service BET+, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
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As previously reported, if a deal closes, Paramount is expected to maintain a minority stake in the business, as well as a commercial relationship. Scott Mills currently serves as BET’s CEO. In January, the company announced plans to merge its Paramount+ and Showtime businesses.
In addition to Diddy, possible buyers include BET partner and producer Tyler Perry, as well as Weather Channel owner Byron Allen.
Diddy is a longtime entertainment mogul, and continues to diversify his portfolio of music, fashion, drinks and TV ventures internationally. In 2013, Combs launched REVOLT Media & TV, the first Black-owned multiplatform cable music network, and has since expanded with new businesses like Empower Global formally Shop Circulate, Our Fair Share, Love Records and cannabis distribution by acquiring Cresco Labs.
In February 2023, he rebranded his parent company from Combs Enterprises to Combs Global.
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Billboard is returning to SXSW in Austin this year for three nights of star-studded concerts, an interactive content house and a plethora of panel discussions featuring musicians, music industry leaders and Billboard staff members.
Panels kick off Monday (March 13), while three Billboard Presents The Stage at SXSW concerts are slated to follow later in the week. On Thursday (March 16), rapper and singer Lil Yachty will usher in the trio of shows with opening acts Lola Brooke and Armani White (presented by Doritos), followed by Feid and Eladio Carrión on Friday (presented by Samsung Galaxy) and Kx5 (Kaskade and deadmau5) on Sunday (presented by Carnival).
Warner Chappell’s Guy Moot Leads SXSW 2023 First Round Speakers
03/13/2023
All Billboard Presents The Stage at SXSW concerts are set to take place at Austin’s Moody Amphitheater at Waterloo Park at 7 p.m CT.
Below is a list of where to find Billboard staffers and events at SXSW this week.
Monday, March 13
The Influence of Latin Music on Global Touring11:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. CT | Austin Convention Center, Room 18ABBillboard‘s senior Latin writer Griselda Flores will moderate a panel examining the impact that emerging and heritage Latin artists will have on the future of global touring. More info.
The Power of Connection with Emerging Technologies4 – 5 p.m. CT | Empire, 607 East 7th Street, AustinBillboard‘s senior director of touring/live entertainment Dave Brooks will moderate a panel with Dentity CEO Jefferey Schwartz, Rebecca Thorne of See Tickets, Stephen Chilton of Psyko Steve Presents and Dani Slocki of vSpace to discuss innovations in technology and how that relates to Web3, ticketing, access, Identity verification, fan appreciation, fan clubs, consumer engagement and more.
Tuesday, March 14
The Neighbors Have Money For You: Neighboring Rights Now1 – 2:30 p.m. CT | Parkside, 301 E. 6th St, AustinBillboard‘s deputy editorial director Rob Levine will host a panel of presenters to discuss neighboring rights and explain the different revenue sources and options rightsholders have to collect royalties. More info.
What to know: Royalties, Rights and Recording Artists2 – 3:30 p.m. CT | Courtyard Marriott, Rio Grande Ballroom, 300 E. 4th St, AustinBillboard‘s chief brand officer Dana Droppo will moderate a panel with SAG-AFTRA and top recording artists to discuss how the union can help artists protect themselves and what tools are available to help ensure a long-term career. This event will also be available online. More info.
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Wednesday, March 15
Rebuilding the Touring Industry from Scratch2:30 – 3:30 p.m. CT | Austin Convention Center, Room 17ABBillboard‘s special features/power lists editor Taylor Mims will moderate a panel examining how the key players in the touring industry have rebounded from the ruins of COVID over the past two years. More info.
Featured Session: How Music, Entrepreneurship, & Independence Intersect2:30 – 3:30 p.m. CT | Austin Convention Center, Room 16ABBillboard‘s R&B/hip-hop reporter Heran Mamo will moderate a panel on the steps needed to build a successful entertainment company that transcends cultural boundaries. This event will also be available online. More info.
Thursday, March 16
Featured Speaker: Music Publishing in the New Songwriter Economy11:30am – 12:30 p.m. CT | Austin Convention Center, Room 16ABBillboard‘s editorial director Hannah Karp will discuss the future of music publishing and the new songwriter economy. This event will also be available online. More info.
How Global Collecting Societies Change Publishing2:30 – 3:30 p.m. CT | Austin Convention Center, Room 17ABBillboard‘s deputy editorial director Rob Levine will discuss how the rise of globalized collecting societies will affect the publishing business and the songwriters who depend on it. More info.
The Creator Boom: How the Industry Can Transform2:30 – 3:30 p.m. CT | Austin Convention Center, Room 18CDBillboard‘s music publishing reporter Kristin Robinson will moderate a panel discussing the rise of AI music companies and music creation tools, as well as DIY distribution services that are enabling bedroom creators — and how both creators and the industry are transforming to keep pace with this new creator paradigm. More info.
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Welcome to the Machine: Art in the Age of A.I.4 – 5 p.m. CT | Austin Convention Center, Room 12ABBillboard‘s deputy editorial director Rob Levine will also discuss the future of artificial intelligence in the music business and how “functional music” can be used to help listeners study or sleep. More info.
Billboard Presents The Stage at SXSW: Lil Yachty7 p.m. CT | Moody Amphitheater at Waterloo Park, 1401 Trinity St., AustinPresented by Doritos, rapper and singer Lil Yachty will perform with opening performances by Lola Brooke and Armani White. Buy tickets here.
Doritos After Dark at Billboard House10:30 p.m. – 1:30 a.m. CT | 800 Congress, AustinDoritos will be taking over the Billboard House for a late-night, one-night-only dining experience featuring an all-vinyl set by DJ Pee .Wee (Anderson .Paak). The experience will be available to SXSW badge holders on a first-come-first-served basis. More info.
Friday, March 17
Billboard Presents The Stage at SXSW: Feid and Eladio Carrión7 p.m. CT | Moody Amphitheater at Waterloo Park, 1401 Trinity St., Austin, TX Presented by Samsung Galaxy, Latin superstars Feid and Eladio Carrión will perform. Buy tickets here.
Saturday, March 18
Billboard Presents The Stage at SXSW: Kx5 (KasKade and deadmau5)7 p.m. CT | Moody Amphitheater at Waterloo Park, 1401 Trinity St., Austin, TXPresented by Carnival, electronic dance titans Kx5 (Kaskade and deadmau5) will perform. Buy tickets here.
Billboard’s parent company PMC is the largest shareholder of SXSW and its brands are official media partners of SXSW.
Wade Jessen, an exacting and encyclopedic country music figure who oversaw the Billboard country charts for two decades, was announced March 13 as a 2023 inductee into the Country Radio Hall of Fame.
Jessen joined Billboard in December 1994, handling the genre’s charts during a difficult period of transition for the industry in which the introduction of streaming technology changed the way consumers experienced music. His work with Billboard included oversight of the Christian, gospel and bluegrass charts, and he played a role in the development of the groundbreaking Hot Country Songs chart — which blends airplay, sales and streaming data — reflecting significant changes in consumer behavior in 2012. Jessen died shortly after his 20th anniversary with the company, suffering a heart attack on March 5, 2015, less than a week after that year’s Country Radio Seminar concluded.
The Billboard charts job was the final entry on Jessen’s résumé, though it was hardly the only significant span in his work history. He held an on-air role in two different stints at KSOP Salt Lake City before taking the music director position at historic WSM-AM Nashville, the home of the Grand Ole Opry, in 1987. Even after he shifted to the chart position, Jessen continued to keep his radio voice in working condition, imparting his knowledge on SiriusXM’s classic country channel, Willie’s Roadhouse.
Jessen was one of six new members announced on the first day of this year’s Country Radio Seminar by Kelsea Ballerini along with the Hall of Fame’s co-chairs, consultant Joel Raab and Audacy/Detroit vp of programming Tim Roberts.
Joining Jessen as off-air inductees are Pam Green, Charlie Morgan and John Willyard. Newly announced on-air members are Trish Biondo and Dollar Bill Lawson.
Green came to prominence during a 13-year run as music director at WHN New York, a station that was among the genre’s first to employ research to connect with the nation’s most diverse local audience. She held a position with Raab’s consultancy and served as United Stations Radio Networks senior director of artist relations, continuing in the post after the company was absorbed by Westwood One. Along the way, she became one of country’s first female music directors.
Clockwise from top left: Trish Biondo, John Willyard, Charlie Morgan, Pam Green and Dollar Bill Lawson.
Courtesy of CRS
Morgan has a lengthy history with Country Radio Broadcasters, where he served as board president. He is the current board chairman for the Country Music Association. Morgan’s tenure was spent primarily in Indianapolis, where he worked on-air at WFMS, rising to program director for the station and country sister WGRL, en route to becoming vp/market manager for the Susquehanna cluster, now part of the Cumulus chain. Morgan shifted to rival Emmis/Indianapolis, including country WHLK, in 2009, adding stints at Emmis/New York and Apple Music, where he is global head of radio and music programming.
Willyard sets a precedent as the first inductee recognized primarily for voice acting and imaging. Boosted by 2012 Hall of Fame inductee Rusty Walker, Willyard became the central voice for more than 100 country stations, maintaining a similarly sized client list for more than 30 years. He has also handled the voiceover work for the Country Music Association Awards for two decades.
Biondo built her Hall of Fame credentials primarily at WUSN Chicago, beginning in research and promotion during college, segueing to board operator and eventually handling the microphone and the music director position. She spent 14 years in mornings before taking on the midday role. She also spent an early portion of her career in Nashville as an intern at MTM Records.
Lawson received the Tom Rivers Humanitarian Award during the opening-day ceremonies at CRS 2019 and returned to the winners circle this year for his work on-air in Birmingham, Ala. He spent 18 years at WZZK, with a decade in the a.m. daypart, and has held the same morning-drive role at WDXB since 2002.
This year’s class will be officially inducted during a dinner ceremony at the Virgin Hotel Nashville on July 10.
In the Napster era, paid downloads were a music industry savior, generating $1.3 billion at their peak in 2012, according to Luminate. But the format seems like it’s headed toward extinction. Digital track sales have plummeted over the past decade, from 1.3 billion in 2012 to 152 million last year, a decrease of 88.6% — in 2022 alone, they dropped 25.1% from the previous year.
The declining importance of the format is evident in the desktop version of Apple’s once mighty iTunes Store, which now buries such purchases halfway down its Apple Music homepage. At Amazon, searching for MP3s diverts consumers to the Amazon Music streaming platform, where options include streaming as well purchasing digital music, vinyl or CDs.
“It’s a business that has been in steady decline for years,” says a source at a major label, adding that the company doesn’t receive complaints from consumers about the lack of prominently displayed downloads on retail sites. “We’re in a streaming economy now.”
That said, the sale of 152 million tracks translates to revenue exceeding $152 million, and many artists and labels say the format remains both useful and lucrative. If an artist racks up a significant number of digital sales — like Bonnie Raitt, who sold 9,000 downloads of “Just Like That” in the week following her February Grammy award win for song of the year — it can boost chart performance and validate career relevance. (A download sale is weighted more heavily in determining Billboard chart metrics than a single stream.)
And download sales can be valuable in other ways. In January 2021, two years after Avery Anna became TikTok famous as a high school student for singing country songs in a bathtub while self-isolating during the pandemic, her track “Just Cause I Love You” shot up the iTunes chart. “When we see something pop up on that chart, that certainly makes us pay attention,” says Warner Nashville senior vp of commercial partnerships Tim Foisset. Downloads are “an early indicator that there is something there — a certain fan base is going to engage with a certain artist.” Five months later, Warner Nashville announced it had signed the Flagstaff, Ariz., singer-songwriter.
“It’s part of the list of tools we employ to move on the chart,” Foisset adds. “While it isn’t crucial to our day-to-day decision-making or overall revenue, this is something that still can be important when we’re building a story for a song or a developing artist.”
Downloads generally appeal to an older crowd that prefers ownership to the song-renting nature of YouTube or Spotify. But younger K-pop and Taylor Swift fans respond to exclusive deals, like Swift’s 12-hour January sale of limited-edition digital copies of Midnights with exclusive cover art. Christine Barnum, chief revenue officer of distributor CD Baby, calls the format a piece of virtual merchandise that is “a much more approachable version” of a non-fungible token.
So far, though, that hasn’t connected with listeners the way that physical formats have of late. According to the RIAA, cassette sales jumped 28.3% from 2021 to 2022, from 343,000 to 440,000. Vinyl’s growth has been well documented, rising 847% from 2012 to 2022. Year-over-year growth decelerated in 2022 to a modest 4.3%, rising from 41.7 million in 2021 to 43.5 million.
Overall sales of physical product are dwarfed by streaming, which accounted for 84% of the industry’s total 2021 revenue of $12.4 billion. But revenue for physical sales reversed a decline during the pandemic, rising in 2020 for the first time in 16 years from $1.1 billion in 2019 to $1.2 billion in 2020, then continuing to grow to $1.7 billion in 2021.
Fans can’t hang downloads on their walls, though, and the format continues to slide. “Not very important,” says Ben Swanson, COO of top independent Secretly Group. “We still track it and sell it, but we don’t use that data meaningfully in budget discussions or anything like that.”
While Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers” has topped Billboard’s Digital Song Sales chart for the past five weeks, Jonathan Daniel, manager at Crush Music, says the revenue is not very significant for a pop star on her level. The download success, though, is useful to show that an older audience has come around to the former teen star’s work. “It’s a relative gauge of a slightly older listener — more of a [adult top 40] or adult contemporary format than, say, a pop or alternative-format listener,” says Daniel, who also represents Sia, Green Day, Lorde and Fall Out Boy.
Amazon and Apple representatives didn’t respond to requests for comment. Several online retailers, however, still emphasize downloads. Beatport’s customer base relies on them for its DJ sets — its download sales have increased by 5% to 10% every year since 2017, according to CEO Robb McDaniels. “We’re probably one of the only places in the world where download sales are increasing,” he says. “I think the labels are happy to see that.”
Barnum adds that downloads remain crucially important for indie artists who make far less than Cyrus’ level of revenue. “It’s a great tool — ‘I bought your download’ as opposed to ‘I played something on Spotify,’ ” she says. “Point zero-zerozero-something cents versus a dollar.”
Belmont University has appointed Brittany Schaffer, Spotify’s head of artist and label partnerships in Nashville, as the new dean of the Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business, effective May 1.
“My career has focused on being a champion for people and ideas and innovations that have brought the music and broader entertainment industry together. At the same time, I have always been passionate about Nashville and its potential to be the creative center of the music business and a big player in the entertainment space at large,” Schaffer tells Billboard. “It’s an opportunity to align all the passions I have and all the work that I’ve done since starting my career into one place. It’s really exciting to be able to think about the legacy that the Curb College can leave on its students and how that influences the future of the music and entertainment space.”
Schaffer is the first female dean of the Nashville-based Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business since it launched in 2003; she fills the role held for seven years by Belmont alumnus and longtime music industry executive Doug Howard, who retired last fall.
Dr. Sarita Stewart, associate professor of creative & entertainment industries, served as the interim dean for this academic year. Stewart will take on a new role as senior associate dean for Curb College, working alongside Schaffer on programming and curriculum.
Schaffer will report to the provost/executive vice president of Academic Excellence and will be responsible for the College’s academic programs and student enrichment initiatives. She will serve approximately 100 faculty and staff and more than 2,700 students in Curb College programs.Belmont’s music business program will celebrate its 50th anniversary during the 2023-24 academic year.
“I think it is a moment to celebrate the incredible work Belmont has done to get to this point,” Schaffer says of the milestone. “It is a program that is already recognized as one of the top entertainment and music business programs in the country and we need to celebrate that.”
She continues, “At the same time, I think the music industry and entertainment space are at a really exciting point of innovation. The landscape is changing faster than it probably ever has—the technology and business models that exist when students enter may look different by the time they graduate. It’s an exciting challenge to take on to think about how we prepare students to have a strong foundation in the fundamentals of the business, creativity and storytelling so they are prepared to navigate the changes that come that we can’t even anticipate. Also, right now, everyone wants to talk about Gen Z and those are our students. How do we create an environment where we are learning as much from our students as they are learning from us?”
Schaffer co-leads Spotify’s Nashville music team including overseeing the development and execution of Spotify’s global strategy to expand the country, Christian/Gospel and Americana genres. During Schaffer’s tenure, country music listening on Spotify grew by double digits annually, according to the streamer. She joined Spotify in January 2018, after serving as senior counsel for Nashville-based Loeb & Loeb, LLP.
Schaffer, who has been named to Billboard’s Country Power Players list for the past four years, is a magna cum laude graduate of both Vanderbilt University and Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law. She currently serves on the board of directors for the Country Music Association and Country Radio Broadcasters, as well as the St. Jude Country Cares Advisory Board. Schaffer is a Class of 2022 Leadership Music graduate.
Belmont president Dr. Greg Jones said via a statement, “Belmont’s Curb College has long been recognized for developing artists and executives who bring innovative leadership and creative storytelling to their roles throughout the entertainment industry. We are delighted Brittany Schaffer has accepted the role of dean, and I am confident that she will elevate our programs even further, deepening our connections within music, motion pictures and media while establishing new partnerships in Nashville, across the U.S. and around the globe.”
Belmont Provost Dr. David Gregory added, “Brittany will bring extraordinary passion, faith and experience to her new role as dean of Curb College. Her legal background and familiarity advocating for artists, writers, producers and more within the industry provide a unique perspective on the holistic education our students need to be successful in a variety of entertainment fields. Plus, though her time with Spotify, she has been on the leading edge of where these content rich fields are heading and is well prepared to ensure Curb College stays at the forefront of modern storytelling.”
Belmont alumni have risen to the highest ranks in Nashville’s music industry and include Universal Music Group Nashville president Cindy Mabe (class of 1995), Sony Music Publishing Nashville CEO Rusty Gaston (class of 1998) and Warner Chappell Music Nashville president and CEO Ben Vaughn (class of 2000).
Lewis Largent, the influential alternative rock radio DJ and MTV VJ that hosted 120 Minutes, died on Feb. 20, a representative confirmed to Billboard.
He passed away after a long illness, Variety first reported.
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Largent grew up in Southern California and launched his career in music at L.A.’s KROQ, with an internship that turned into a full-time role in 1985. Four years later, he was named musical director at the alternative radio station.
In 1992, Largent shifted over to MTV, where he landed as a vp of music programming and became the host of 120 Minutes, bringing artists including David Bowie, Bjork, Trent Reznor, Radiohead and PJ Harvey to television screens everywhere on Sunday nights. He was the face of the show through 1995, though he stayed with the company in his programming role until 1999.
His role as host was next appointed to Matt Pinfield, who upon hearing of Largent’s death tweeted Friday, “I am completely gutted. I loved Lewis very much. I am at a loss for words.”
Following his years with MTV, Largent went to Island Def Jam Records, where as svp of A&R he signed artists such as Sum 41 and Andrew WK. He left IDJ in 2004.
Later in life, he went back to college to study creative writing, earning a bachelor’s degree from Sarah Lawrence College and his Master of Fine Arts in 2015.
Largent is survived by wife Julie Greenwald, Atlantic Music Group chairman and CEO, and their two children.
The battle for control of K-pop company SM Entertainment has been a boon for its shareholders. SM’s stock rose 14.4% this week to 147,800 won ($111.95) after Kakao launched a tender offer to seek a 35% stake at 150,000 won ($113.62) per share. Korea’s largest music company, HYBE, previously sought to acquire up to 40% of SM shares at 120,000 won ($90.89) per share. Its tender offer largely failed, however, with HYBE’s stake increasing just 1% — from 14.8% to 15.8% — as investors held out for a better offer.
SM was one of just three stocks in the 20-company Billboard Global Music Index to be in positive territory this week. Abu Dhabi-based music streamer Anghami rose 5.5% and German concert promoter CTS Event rose 1.5%. The overall Global Music Index declined 3.9% to 1,192.56.
Shares of Spotify declined 1.7% to $121.67 this week after it unveiled a slew of new product features at its annual StreamOn event on Wednesday. The company announced it has already surpassed the 500 million monthly active user target for the first quarter with an entire month remaining.
In the U.S., the Dow index fell 1.1% and the S&P 500 declined 1.5%. The big news in the financial markets on Friday (March 10) was the closure of Silicon Valley Bank, the country’s 18th largest bank with assets of nearly $213 billion, according to the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council; it was a major player amongst the region’s tech companies and venture capital firms. It’s the second-biggest bank failure in U.S. history behind Washington Mutual at the height of the 2007-08 financial crisis. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation was appointed SVB’s receiver on Friday and will give insured depositors access to their funds no later than Monday.
The U.K.’s FTSE 100 Index declined 1.7%, Japan’s Nikkei 225 index declined 1.7% and Korea’s KOSPI index declined 1.0%.
This article was written in paid partnership with Triller.
Triller, the U.S.-based answer to foreign social media video sharing services, is poised to have a big 2023. The startup first rose to prominence in 2020, as it made headlines for producing blockbuster pay-per-view boxing matches as well as launching careers for a slew of up and coming combat sports athletes. Beyond its emphasis on sports promotion, the company was also embraced by many creators in 2020 as its China-based competitor faced increasing hostility from Congress and former President Donald Trump. While its competition readies itself for its first-ever testimony before Congress later this month, the future couldn’t look brighter for Triller, who is currently on the cusp of being publicly traded on the NYSE under the ticker symbol “illr.”
For Triller Executive Chairman and Owner Bobby Sarnevesht, the company’s success is due in no small part to the fact that it’s the only big tech company that isn’t owned by big tech. “Our primary stakeholders are the artists and the influencers themselves,” Sarnevesht says. “What people don’t understand is that we aren’t just ‘for the artists,’ we are the artists.” With a string of celebrity endorsements spanning social media, music, sports, and more, Sarnevesht claims that Triller might be “the largest creator owned company ever to exist.”
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While Triller does see itself as a bold competitor to other video sharing social media platforms, it does not define itself as such. “A lot of people came rushing onto Triller a few years ago when Trump first brought up the idea of a ban [on the foreign competition],” Sarnevesht says. “We definitely leaned into that…but that is not who we are, that is not how we define ourselves.”
Sarnevesht knows first hand how hard it is to build an audience on social media, and prides himself on Triller’s creator-first positioning. “I hear daily horror stories about hard working artists who spent the last three years building their following – whether it’s to 5,000, 500,000 or 50 million people – only to wake up and find that [their platform] is literally blocking them from marketing to their own audience if they don’t pay [them]. [These platforms] put up a paywall where they actually block you from posting to all your own users without paying for…access [to] them,” Sarnevesht says.
On Triller, Sarnevesht explains, companies are set up to actually give the creator direct ownership of the relationship with their followers and maximize their revenue. “That’s why our products like Cliqz, our SMS app for influencers, get over a 70% open rate and an unheard of over 30% click through rate,” Sarnevesht says. “Creators literally can make 10x or more on Triller [than] they can on any other platform.”
Triller alleges to be majority owned by actual artists, influencers, and talent who in turn can maximize engagement with their followers and take home more revenue versus other platforms where big tech takes the lion’s share. According to Sarnevesht, the company’s “secret sauce” lies in its use of AI. “Triller at its core is an AI company. Its base of AI comes by way of an acquisition approximately two years ago [when Triller bought AI startup] Amplify.AI,” Sarnevesht says. Sarnevesht and team refer to Triller’s Conversational AI system as “ChatGPT for Brands,” claiming that to date, the technology has enabled over 20B conversations with more than half a billion users. “While others are just discovering ‘ChatGPT’ and trying to find some AI angle for valuation purposes, Triller literally is built on AI and always has been,” Sarnevesht says.
Ahead of what could surely be the brand’s biggest year to date, Sarnevesht and team have launched a custom social media converter for creators to transfer their entire video sharing accounts, including usernames, to Triller. “This is our coming out party,” says Sarnevesht. “Transfer your [other accounts] now.”
For Sarnevesht and team, Triller isn’t just a social media app but an entire creator ecosystem unto itself. According to Sarnevesht, Triller has conducted 10 acquisitions since 2020, making it more than a single app but a marketplace setup to allow influencers to, as Sarnevesht puts it, create the best content and share it as broadly as possible across all other social media networks while retaining control of their own users and maximizing what they can make.
Keep your eye on this space for more from Triller and Sarnevesht.