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For the first half of 2024, the stock market was a microcosm of the shifts in the music industry’s balance of power. Streaming stocks soared as investors rewarded companies that grew their paid-subscriber bases; radio stocks plummeted as companies struggled through a soft advertising market.
Spotify was the best-performing stock in the 20-company Billboard Global Music Index (BGMI) for the measurement period, Jan. 2-June 28, 2024. Shares of the Swedish company, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange, jumped 67.4% to $314.45 on June 28 and reached as high as $331.08 on June 5 — its highest mark since February 2021, the month that the shares closed at their all-time high of $387.44. Subscribers grew to 239 million at the end of March, up 14% from the prior-year period.
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A year-and-a-half ago, Spotify ended 2022 at $70.05, down 66% for the year. The remarkable turnaround stemmed from a change in business strategy. In its formative years, Spotify funded its rapid growth at the expense of profits. Investors tacitly approved of this strategy. But after a pandemic-fueled boom in streaming stocks, investors tired on growth-obsessed companies and demanded sustainable margins and better bottom lines. (Netflix sank 51% in 2022 and has since recovered, too.) So Spotify moved to become “relentlessly resourceful,” as CEO Daniel Ek put it, laying off nearly a quarter of its workforce and cutting many of its high-cost exclusive podcasts, including its deal with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Archewell Audio. It also raised prices globally — twice in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia — to further boost margins.
The six streaming companies on the BGMI posted an average gain of 21.8%, which bested the 18.3% average increase of all stocks on the index. China’s Tencent Music Entertainment rose 55.8% as first-quarter paid subscribers grew 20.2% year over year to 113.5 million, helping offset a sharply declining social entertainment business. LiveOne improved 12.1% as the company finished its fiscal year (ended March 31) with a 30% increase in paid subscribers and a 19% revenue gain. Anghami, based in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, managed a 2.9% gain and got a lift when video streaming platform OSN+ acquired a 55.5% stake in April. Paris-based Deezer was the exception, dropping 19.2%.
Only companies in takeover acquisitions came close to the streaming leaders’ performances. Listed on the London Stock Exchange, investment trust Hipgnosis Songs Fund rose 42.2% to 1.024 pounds ($1.30) as a result of Blackstone’s offer — which was backed by HSF’s board and accepted by shareholders on July 8 — to buy the company’s shares at 1.05 pounds ($1.31) apiece, a 49.2% premium over the pre-offer price. Likewise, Believe climbed 40.0% to 14.70 pounds ($15.79) after a consortium led by CEO Denis Ladegaillerie raised its stake to 95% through a tender offer at 15 pounds ($16.11), a 21% premium price before the takeover bid was announced.
At the other end of the spectrum, radio companies — iHeartMedia, Cumulus Media and SiriusXM — lost an average of 56.4%. Cumulus dropped 61.7% as first-quarter revenue fell nearly 3%. iHeartMedia dropped 59.2% and lost 36% on May 10 alone after the company’s forecast for second-quarter revenue was below analysts’ expectations. SiriusXM slipped 48.3% after it lost 445,000 self-pay satellite radio subscribers in 2023 and had slow uptake of its revamped, lower-priced streaming app launched in November. Lower average revenue per user and an “uncertain” advertising market means the company expects full-year revenue to drop more than 2% this year.
All four live music-ticketing companies posted gains at the midyear mark and had an average gain of 8.8%. Live Nation probably would have done better than its 0.2% increase had the U.S. Department of Justice not filed an antitrust lawsuit on May 23 that seeks to break up the company’s promotion and ticketing businesses. Germany’s CTS Eventim, which acquired Vivendi’s festival and ticketing businesses in June, climbed 24.4% thanks to a 22% jump in 2023 revenue and expectations for “a moderate rise” in 2024. MSG Entertainment and sister company Sphere Entertainment gained 7.5% and 3.1%, respectively.
Record labels and music publishers dropped an average of 4.4% if HSF and Believe are excluded (and gained 8.6% including them). Reservoir Media gained 10.8%, Universal Music Group rose 7.6%, and K-pop companies SM Entertainment and HYBE fell 12.7% and 13.3%, respectively. Warner Music Group lost 14.4%.
This story appeared in the July 20, 2024, issue of Billboard.
If U.S. gymnastics superstar Simone Biles were to perform her triple-twisting double backflip to Taylor Swift’s “…Ready For It?” at the Paris Olympics, as she did at the trials in late June, NBC almost certainly won’t need a costly special license to air the track live. NBC pays performing rights organizations ASCAP, BMI and SESAC for blanket public-performance licenses, and the PROs distribute the royalty payments to their hundreds of thousands of members, such as songwriters, publishers and composers, from Paul McCartney to Dua Lipa to Swift herself.
These payments can add up to big money: The 2020 Olympics drew more than 3 billion viewers, a key factor in determining performance-royalty payments. “The larger the audience for the broadcast will generally result in a higher royalty,” says an ASCAP spokesperson.
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For the live TV broadcast, or online live-streaming, the blanket licenses cover all the necessary song rights — foreign PROs pay for the foreign TV broadcast rights and U.S. PROs pay for the U.S. rights. It gets trickier if NBC decides to use the song later, in a delayed broadcast, highlight video or some kind of YouTube-style on-demand streaming. In such cases, says Joy Butler, a Washington, D.C., entertainment and digital-technology attorney and author of The Permission Seeker’s Guide Through the Legal Jungle, NBC might need a separate synch license, negotiated with a publisher.
“But NBC might have reasons to not obtain that sync,” Butler adds. “They’re reporting on the Olympics, which is a newsworthy event. That gives them excellent reasons to rely on fair use.”
Fair use refers to a U.S. copyright doctrine in which a journalist can air snippets of a recorded song in the context of reporting a news story, or quote lyrics while reviewing a record. If an NBC news report on Biles’ Olympic performance picks up a bit of “…Ready For It?,” that may qualify, but NBC would have to tread carefully. “Fair use is very fickle,” Butler says. “The cases kind of go both ways. So you have to do risk assessment if you’ve got music in the background, and you’ve got a taped version which is delayed or on demand.”
TV producers tend to be disinclined to contact rightsholders and negotiate new (and perhaps costly) new licenses when using a song in the background of a recorded video, Butler says: “It absolutely happens that producers will err on the side of caution, and not have the music playing, just have the video run without the audio.” An NBC spokesperson declined to comment for this story.
This royalty-paying system can be cumbersome, but public venues such as the Bercy Arena in Paris and broadcasters such as NBC are used to it. “This is the same system that is in place for all audio-visual programming, including other sports events,” says the ASCAP rep.
Universal Music Group (UMG) got a boost from physical sales in the second quarter, but the conversation during Wednesday’s earnings call was mostly focused on streaming. Subscriptions, which accounted for more than half of total recorded music revenue, were a key factor in the company’s 8.7% revenue growth in the quarter. Even so, UMG’s streaming business is not firing on all cylinders. Ad-supported streaming continues to show weakness and UMG revealed that Facebook no longer licenses its premium videos.
CEO Lucian Grainge said the industry has entered “the next phase” of the streaming and subscription business, one characterized by collaboration with streaming companies to produce new products and allow artificial intelligence to allow artists to sing their music in different languages. “The amount of work, win-win dialogue [and] creative discussions that are going on between us is really extremely exciting,” he said.
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Here’s what else you should know about UMG’s most recent quarterly earnings and what was said on the call.
Streaming is growing — unevenly
Although UMG’s recorded music subscription revenue improved 6.5%, not all subscription platforms are performing equally well. CFO Boyd Muir cited a “slowdown in subscriber growth at certain platforms” while noting that Spotify, YouTube “and many regional and local platforms” continue to show healthy growth. Generally, UMG is optimistic about the overall marketplace’s ability to find new subscribers. Michael Nash, executive vp of digital strategy, said UMG’s consumer research has identified 180 million consumers from the top 19 territories “that will form the next wave of subscription adoption,” even taking into account price increases.
“Other” streaming revenue dropped 3.9% in the quarter, which Muir attributed to a decline in ad-supported streaming and some platform-specific issues (see Facebook below). UMG warned of weak ad-supported streaming last quarter, and Muir said UMG needs to see “broad-based improvement across multiple partners and geographies over a longer timeframe before we’re ready to adopt a less cautious view.”
Meta is no longer licensing UMG premium videos for Facebook
Another reason for a slowdown in non-subscription streaming revenue was Facebook’s departure from music videos. “Meta had previously offered previous music videos on Facebook,” Muir explained. “This product offering was less popular with Facebook’s user base than other music products, and as a result, Meta is no longer licensing premium music videos from us. As of May of this year, Meta is now focusing instead on other areas involving music content, and we are working together to expand these areas as part of a multifaceted renewal.” Showing premium videos is not the only aspect of Meta’s licensing agreements with labels, however. As Billboard has previously reported, Meta reached a licensing deal with UMG in 2017 that allowed UMG’s repertoire in user-uploaded videos on Facebook, Instagram and Messenger. And a deal reached in 2020 allowed users to add songs from UMG’s catalog to videos on Facebook’s gaming platform.
The noncontroversial Spotify bundle controversy
After Spotify began offering both music and audiobooks, the company asserted it can pay a discounted “bundle” royalty rate to publishers and songwriters for premium streams. When asked about the audiobook bundle controversy on Tuesday, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek described it as a not-unusual disagreement between counterparts. “That’s the nature of all supplier and distributor relationships,” he said during the company’s earnings call. UMG had a similarly unsensational response when asked about the bundle controversy. Rather than feeling cheated out of royalties, Muir said UMG “[is] confident our revenue participation reflects the value our artists and our music is bringing to their platform.”
UMG invested 519 million euros ($562 million) in the first half of 2024
Three transactions accounted for 450 million euros ($487 million) of investments in the first half of the year: a majority stake in Nigerian label Maven Global; an investment in Complex; and a $240 million investment in Chord Music Partners, a joint venture of KKR and Dundee Partners that owns over 60,000 copyrights. UMG spent 96 million euros ($104 million) on catalog acquisitions in the half-year, including 75 million euros ($81 million) that had been sitting in an escrow account.
Billboard’s peer-voted Latin Power Players’ Choice Award is back for 2024 and asking music industry members from all sectors to honor the executive they believe had the most impact across the Latin genre in the past year. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Voting is open to all […]
Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department, strong gains in publishing revenue and a jump in merchandise sales propelled Universal Music Group (UMG) to solid revenue growth in the second quarter of 2024.
Despite a fall in ad-supported streaming that hampered streaming revenue gains, UMG’s overall revenue rose 8.7% to 2.93 billion euros ($3.16 billion at the quarter’s average exchange rate), the company announced Wednesday (July 24). Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) rose 17.4% to 580 million euros ($624 million) and EBITDA margin improved 1.1 percentage points to 19.8%. EBITDA was helped by revenue growth and cost savings from layoffs announced earlier in the year, though those benefits were partially offset by an increase in lower-margin revenue from merchandise and physical sales.
In the recorded music segment, revenue grew 5.8% to 2.2 billion euros ($2.37 billion). Subscription revenue improved 6.5% to 1.14 billion euros ($1.23 billion) while other streaming revenue dropped 4.2% to 343 million euros ($369 million). Overall, streaming revenue fell 4.2% due to slower growth at ad-supported platforms and the timing of deal renewals.
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Subscription growth was slowed by two factors, CFO Boyd Muir said during the earnings call. First, price increases in 2023 provided a boost a year ago. Second, while Spotify, YouTube Music and “many regional and local platforms” have continued to show strong growth, some other subscription services “have been less successful in driving global adoption.”
Physical revenue rose 9.5% to 357 million euros ($384 million) thanks to releases by Swift and Billie Eilish, which helped offset a tough comparison against a strong quarter in Japan for physical sales in the prior year, said Muir. Licensing and other revenue climbed 18% to 315 million euros ($339 million). Download revenue fell 21.3% but amounted to just 48 million euros ($52 million).
At Universal Music Publishing Group, revenue rose 10.1% to 511 million euros ($550 million). Digital revenue rose 17.8% to 311 million euros ($335 million) and accounted for most of publishing’s gains. Performance royalties improved 3.1% to 100 million euros ($108 million), while synch royalties grew 1.7% to 61 million euros ($66 million) and mechanical royalties fell 10.3% to 26 million euros ($28 million).
Of the 15 different songs to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 this year, UMPG had songwriters n 13 of them, which CEO Lucian Grainge called “an extraordinary achievement.”
Merchandising revenue jumped 44.6% to 227 million euros ($244 million) due to higher direct-to-consumer sales and gains in touring merchandise sales. Muir credited tours by Olivia Rodrigo, The Rolling Stones, Nicki Minaj, 21 Savage and Morgan Wallen for that growth.
Topline results for Q2:
Total revenue of 2.93 billion euros ($3.16 billion), up 8.7%.
EBITDA: 580 million euros ($624 million), up 14.9%.
Recorded music revenue of 2.2 billion euros ($2.37 billion), up 6.8%.
Recorded music subscription revenue of 1.14 billion euros ($1.23 billion), up 6.5%.
Recorded music other streaming revenue of 343 million euros ($369 million), down 4.2%.
Publishing revenues of 511 million euros ($550 million), up 10.1%.
Merchandising revenue of 227 million euros ($244 million), up 44.6%.
Billboard’s peer-voted Latin Power Players’ Choice Award is back for 2024 and asking music industry members from all sectors to honor the executive they believe had the most impact across the Latin music genre in the past year. Voting is open to all Billboard Pro members, both existing and new, with one vote per member […]
Latin music is the fastest-growing core music genre in the U.S., according to Luminate’s 2024 Midyear Music Report, released last week. And the power driver behind the growth is regional Mexican music.
When ranking by share point growth for the first half of 2024 compared to the first half of 2023, Latin music outpaced genres like country, pop and rock. Latin — which is not a genre per se, but is the name given to music performed predominantly in Spanish — registered a 15.1% growth in on-demand audio streaming volume. This resulted in a total share point growth of 0.51% for the first half of 2024, far more than rock and pop (whose share growth was less than 0.3%) or country and Christian (with a less than 0.2% share growth).
Latin music’s growth has been fueled by two major factors. One is the growth of regional Mexican music, which is now the largest Latin subgenre in the U.S. The other is the fact that new music releases are streamed at a far bigger scale in Latin than in any other genre of music, suggesting that young Latin listeners are over-consuming music, a fact that has been measured by Luminate in different Latin countries before.
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Luminate
Courtesy of Luminate
According to Luminate, on-demand audio streams of regional Mexican music for the first half of 2024 stood at 13.2 million streams. That was more than Latin pop (12 million streams), Latin rhythm (10.8 million streams) and Latin tropical (2.4 million streams).
When looking at Luminate’s comparison of the “release age” composition for genre, Latin’s consumption of current music — music released within the prior 18 months — outpaces all other genres significantly. Latin genre streaming leans the most current at 35%, followed by country at around 30%. In comparison, R&B/hip-hop current streaming is at 25%. By the same token, deep catalog streaming — defined by Luminate as music older than 60 months — is lowest for Latin (close to 40%) when compared to other genres; in rock, for example, 70.5% of streams come from music older than 60 months.
The stats for Latin music are even more remarkable considering that 32% of its streams come from ad-supported on-demand video or audio, more than all other genres. This means the number of average streams needed to equal an album equivalent is higher for Latin than for other kinds of music, whose streaming consumption of premium streams is higher.
Regional Mexican, which encompasses a broad range of Mexican music subgenres, including norteño, banda, mariachi and corridos, had been the leading subgenre of Latin music in the U.S. for decades, in part because people of Mexican descent account for the vast majority of the Latin population in the country. According to the Pew Research Center, in 2022, there were approximately 37.4 million people of Mexican origin living in the United States, making up nearly 60% of the country’s Hispanic population, a percentage that’s remained relatively unchanged for decades.
Luminate
Courtesy of Luminate
But when reggaetón took over Latin music’s charts 20 years ago, the popularity of regional Mexican declined. Now, fueled by an infusion of brash new acts, regional Mexican is dominating charts and consumption.
According to Luminate, four Latin artists earned more than 100 million U.S. on-demand audio streams through the first half of 2024. Outside of Bad Bunny, who is the No. 1-streaming Latin music artist overall, those other three were Regional Mexican artists: Peso Pluma, Fuerza Regida and Junior H.
The growth of regional Mexican in the U.S. reflects a broader international trend. According to the report, Mexico is the top country to grow in global audio streaming share (based on artist country of origin), jumping from 5.29% in 2023 to 6.03% in 2024.
This suggests the base of Mexican music, and Mexican fandom, is not only strong, but has vast room for growth, continuing to fuel consumption in the U.S. and beyond.
Tones And I is the latest addition to the lineup of speakers for Bigsound 2024, Australia’s music industry summit and showcase event.
A one-time busker who was discovered performing in Byron Bay and landed a global smash with “Dance Monkey,” Tones will discuss her vibrant musical journey for an in-conversation with Australian TV personality Myf Warhurst.
Since she unleashed “Dance Monkey” in 2019, Tones (real name Toni Watson) has smashed records with monotonous regularity. The track ruled the ARIA Singles Chart for an all-time record 24 weeks, and held top spot on the Official U.K. Singles Chart for 11 weeks, a record for a solo female artist.
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Earlier this year, “Dance Monkey” clocked three billion streams on Spotify, making her the first female artist to pass that threshold.
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Written by Tones and recorded with Brisbane producer Konstantin Kersting, “Dance Monkey” ruled charts in at least 30 territories and crashed the Billboard Hot 100, landing at No. 5 and securing for Tones top spot on Billboard’s Hot 100 Songwriters Chart. Earlier this year, Tones opened for Pink on the U.S. pop superstar’s Summer Carnival Tour, which sold 970,000 tickets (second only to Ed Sheeran’s Divide tour) and played to 20 stadiums — a national record for a single tour.
Also announced today (July 24), Garrwa and Butchulla songman Fred Leone will deliver a Bigsound keynote on the importance of honoring his role as a custodian of his tribe’s traditional songs, while Emily Copeland, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s new head of music, will deliver her own keynote, recounting her career in media and how its future will connect with the Australian music landscape.
They join the daytime conference lineup that includes previously-announced speakers such as Kelis, Amy Taylor, singer with Amyl and The Sniffers; VibeLab co-founder Lutz Leichsenring; Billboard’s Lyndsey Havens; Vinyl Group CEO Josh Simons; and Music Venue Trust CEO Mark Davyd.
Meanwhile, ARIA Award-nominated indie band Beddy Rays is added to the 120-strong bill of homegrown showcase acts, joining the likes of Stand Atlantic, Miiesha, JUNO, Keli Holiday, Sly Withers, Alex the Astronaut and many more.
Set for Sept. 3 – 6 in Brisbane, the 2032 Olympic city, Bigsound’s day-and-night action will once again make a splash in the vibrant Fortitude Valley.
The event is supported by the Queensland government through Tourism and Events Queensland, and is presented by Oztix and Brick Lane.
Visit Bigsound.org.au for more.
The American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president. The union’s backing comes after a unanimous vote of the U.S. members of the AFM International Board, and what they see as the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to labor. This follows President Biden’s decision not to seek reelection and his subsequent endorsement […]
MARINA signed with Janelle Lopez Genzink (Sabrina Carpenter) at Volara for management. The artist, who previously recorded as Marina and the Diamonds, has released a total of five albums; her most recent, Ancient Dreams in a Modern Land, dropped via Atlantic in 2021. Volara signed a strategic partnership with Red Light Management in 2023.
Canadian rock band Finger Eleven signed with Better Noise Music (Five Finger Death Punch, Asking Alexandria). The label will release the group’s forthcoming album next year, to be preceded by first single “Adrenaline” on Aug. 2. Finger Eleven is currently supporting Creed on its Summer of ’99 tour.
U.K. electronic-pop outfit London Grammar signed with PPL for the collection of its international neighboring rights royalties. The group has released a total of three albums and is due to release a fourth, The Greatest Love, on Sept. 13.
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Phoebe Bridgers‘ Saddest Factory Records signed trans singer-songwriter jasmine.4.t. The label released her latest single, “Skin On Skin” (produced by Bridgers and her Boygenius bandmates Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus) on July 16. Based in Manchester, jasmine.4.t is the first U.K. signee to Saddest Factory.
Italian singer Michele Morrone signed to New York-based indie label 477 Records. Morrone, also an actor who starred in Netflix’s 365 Days, is currently at work on his third studio album.
Country-rock duo Lakeview (Jesse Denaro and Luke Healy) inked with UTA for exclusive global representation in all areas. The duo broke through with the single “Home Team” and recently issued the new song “Money Where Your Mouth Is” featuring Gideon. – Jessica Nicholson
Singer-songwriter JD Clayton signed with Nashville-based roots, Americana and bluegrass label Rounder Records. Clayton released his debut album, Long Way from Home, in early 2023. He’s slated to embark on a fall tour beginning Aug. 30.
Country singer Kashus Culpepper signed with CAA. According to the agency, Culpepper has played sold-out headline club shows throughout the South and opened shows for Charles Wesley Godwin, Charley Crockett and Needtobreathe. He recently signed with Big Loud Records, which released his first-ever single “After Me?” on June 21.
Folk singer-songwriter Olive Klug signed with Tommy Alexander and Paige Maloney at Wasserman Music for global representation. Klug released their first album, Don’t You Dare Make Me Jaded, on Aug. 11, 2023. They toured throughout 2023 with Kevin Atwater, Odie Leigh and Daisy the Great, with more tour dates to come this year, including at the North Carolina Folk Festival in Greensboro.