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For decades, the production power of a concert tour was measured in the number of trucks it took to haul its gear across the country.
But bigger isn’t always better, especially in a theater environment where the space across the proscenium arch has to support loudspeakers that maximize coverage without distracting from the look and feel of the show. For The Outsiders musical at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre on Broadway in New York City, that has meant experimenting with the new, lighter, more compact L-Series line source loudspeakers from L’Acoustics.
The speaker deployment is a first for Broadway and part of Sound Designer Cody Spencer’s use of L’Acoustics L-ISA immersive audio technology for The Outsiders. The new show is nominated for 12 Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best Sound Design of a Musical.
Announced last year at L’Acoustics’ keynote event at the Hollywood Bowl, the L-Series speakers are being deployed at a number of new activations in the touring world, including their recent installation at First Avenue in Minneapolis. The L-Series speakers use up to 60% less material to construct, compared to speakers with similar sound power and coverage, and 30% less space. Unlike traditional line array configurations that must be hung at a J-shaped angle, the L-Series can be installed in a fixed configuration, requiring less physical space to deploy while allowing crew to make sound adjustments without mechanical ones.
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The loudspeakers are the latest of the line array speaker system first developed by L’Acoustics founder Christian Heil 40 years ago. Thanks to Heil’s work on Wavefront Sculpture Technology (WST) theory, line array technology has improved sound reinforcement for live performances and become the standard for sound coverage and clarity at large venues and festival spaces, allowing fans in the back to hear vocals and higher frequencies without the sound being distorted.
The new L Series speaker, starting with the L2, a 10-inch progressive ultra line source long-throw speaker “is the ultimate accomplishment of 30 years of technology improvements on the line array,” L’Acoustics CEO Laurent Vaissié said in a statement.
Laurent Vaissié
Hal Horowitz Photography
“When Christian started thinking about this back in the late 80s and early 90s, the idea was to create a fully coherent speaker configuration that was able to get uniform coverage from front to back,” Vaissié said. “With the L series, we’re able to eliminate more of the material and the physical boundaries between the different parts of the speaker and line array to make it even more compact.”
“We did this,” Vaissié explained, “by physically removing the articulation between the parts of the line array and creating the L2’s very specific shape.”
That shape was the result of analyzing “thousands of different shows where we looked at the audience configuration,” Vaissié continued. “We realized if we start with that shape already, we’re almost there in terms of coverage. We realized could eliminate the articulation of the line array and fine tune the coverage with electronics and software. And that’s the reason why I say it’s the ultimate evolution because 10 years ago, we could not have done the L2 because the electronics and the software were not yet at the level it needed to be. But today we finally got to the point where the mechanical design, software and electronics are converging so that we can have an optimized design for the L2, eliminate all the physical material that we didn’t need, make it smaller, and then adjust with software and electronics to get perfect coverage in the vertical domain.”
Spencer said the L2 speakers helped The Outsiders solve an issue created by the production’s use of a rain curtain, which pushed the show’s front-of-house speakers downstage.
The Outsiders
Cody Spencer
“I plugged them into our Soundvision model,” Spencer said in a press release, adding that he found that the L-series speaker “gave us three more rows of coverage in front of the orchestra over traditional line array loudspeakers.”
The L-Series speakers are currently on tour with Italian hip-hop duo Coez & Frah Quintale and will be used on Sarah McLachlan’s 2024 tour.
“We are sold out of L2 right now through the first quarter of next year. We could have more, but we’re trying to balance between the needs for the rental companies and the needs for the installation project,” says Vaissié. “The market has been responding very well and the demand is much higher than we anticipated.”
In 1995, Peter Shapiro purchased the New York club Wetlands. “That was the home of the jam band, Grateful Dead scene in New York,” he recalls. At the time, though, “it wasn’t cool to be a Deadhead. And Wetlands wasn’t necessarily the cool play.”
But styles that were frowned upon by one generation are often taken up by the next. While many artists — and the mainstream music business — ignored jam bands for years, this has started to change. Intrigued by the scene’s genre-hopping open-mindedness and the unwavering devotion of its followers at a time when “superfan” is the industry buzzword of choice, the rest of the music business has started to take an interest in a space it long kept at arm’s length.
“If you’re a pop artist, and you see a bunch of bearded weirdo hippies able to do whatever they want on their own terms, that’s an appealing path to think about,” says Mike Luba, longtime manager of the String Cheese Incident.
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At festivals, “you’re seeing jam bands pop up on lineups that are traditionally more indie rock or haven’t really touched the jam thing in the past,” explains Dave DiCianni, who co-manages Goose along with other jam bands like Eggy and Pigeons Playing Ping Pong. “It’s cool to see it permeating into general pop culture,” he adds.
The Big Bang for jam bands, according to Shapiro, was the death of the Dead’s Jerry Garcia in 1995. “Everyone saw the Dead; they were the number one touring band in the 1990s,” Shapiro continues. “Garcia dies, and that audience of live music, improvisation-loving people splinters. That creates the jam band scene. Phish lifts up” — the band first cracked Pollstar‘s highest grossing U.S. tours list at the end of 1994 — “along with String Cheese Incident, Disco Biscuits, Medeski Martin and Wood,” and more.
Over the years, groups associated with the scene “will pop in and out of mainstream pop culture,” Luba says, pointing to Rusted Root and the Spin Doctors. But many of the acts in this space were overlooked, if not dismissed outright, by the mainstream music industry, in part because they didn’t generate chart hits or millions of streams, even as they moved lots of tickets. Nick Stern, whose management client Karina Rykman is “jam adjacent,” contends that the jam scene is “the most looked down-upon genre in the music business.”
For some artists, that gives it an inherent underdog appeal: “I’m interested in things that are unfashionable,” Vampire Weekend lead singer Ezra Koenig told The New York Times Magazine in 2020. He also noted that he finds Phish “more inspiring, forward-thinking, exciting and talented than a lot of what was higher up in the cool hierarchy;” Vampire Weekend recently hopped on stage with Goose, the new arena-filling stars of the jam scene.
Jam acts may also be benefitting from the catholic tastes fostered in the streaming era — as DiCianni puts it, listeners’ interests are now “less compartmentalized.” And artists and managers in the jam band scene posit that its emphasis on being present, in the moment, with a like-minded community for an ever-changing live experience offers an increasingly potent antidote to the distracted, frenetic, nichified, social media-driven world.
But there’s another reason why the mainstream music industry is increasingly interested in jam acts. “People outside the jam band space are coming to me almost in awe of the fandom in this scene,” says Ben Baruch, Goose’s other co-manager.
In interviews over the last six months, many of the most powerful executives in music have talked up the importance of cultivating “superfans.” Despite music’s popularity, it is poorly monetized compared to spaces like gaming. This is partially because the music streaming model currently offers artists few ways to foster meaningful connections with followers. Jam bands have been doing this for decades — perhaps because they didn’t get much support from the traditional industry, and have never depended on record sales or streaming.
Jam band devotees are impressively diligent about attending shows, buying merchandise, and streaming live performances, which change nightly. “They almost treat their favorite bands like a sports team, where they’re following along with what happens in every moment in every show,” says Ethan Berlin, who is co-agent for Goose, Pigeons and Rykman, among others. “They’re so invested — for years.”
And these fans have long had “ears that are a mile wide,” according to Rykman. At a time when the walls between the jam world and the rest of the music industry appear more porous, jam enthusiasts have flexed their muscles to help propel some artists from adjacent worlds to greater heights.
Take Billy Strings: The versatile guitarist and songwriter, now signed to Warner’s Reprise Records, has picked up Grammy nominations for Best American Roots Performance and Best Country Duo/Group Performance; he won the award for Best Bluegrass Album in 2021. At the same time, Strings has played with Bill Kreutzmann (a founding member of the Dead), String Cheese Incident and Goose, among others. He saw “there’s another whole world where traditional bluegrass can actually cross over and be accepted,” Luba says. Strings’ current tour includes multiple arenas.
Berlin is also the agent for Khruangbin, a trio whose dreamy instrumental grooves now attract 10,000 to 25,000 tickets per market; Berlin describes them as “not quite jam, maybe not even jam-adjacent, but definitely jam-friendly.” Notably, “they were embraced by that scene early in their career, ” he continues. “One of the first looks they had outside of Houston, where they’re from, was when they were invited to play Lockn’ Festival [one of the leading jam gatherings] in 2016.”
For Rykman, whose 2023 debut album featured guitar from Phish co-founder Trey Anastasio, this is one of “the beautiful things about the jam space.” “Myself, Khruangbin, Vulfpeck, we’re not jam bands with capital J’s — none of us play two sets, we still play three-minute songs,” she continues. “But jam band fans were early” to signal appreciation.
Similarly minded artists — what Rykman calls “singular groovy organisms” — might also want to court this community — music-loving superfans hiding in plain sight who can help them build the sort of formidable live business that ensures a long career. Another one of Baruch’s management clients is the Disco Biscuits; in the past 18 months, he says “they’re growing more than they have in 20 years.”
“What musician wouldn’t want that level of diehard fan?” Berlin asks.
Spotify’s stock price rose 3.9% this week after the company’s announcement of a U.S. price increase on Monday (June 3) sent the stock on a roller-coaster ride. Shares rose to a new 52-week high of $331.08 on Wednesday — its highest point since Feb. 25, 2021 — before closing at $308.11 on Friday (June 7).
After raising subscription prices in the United States and many other major markets in July 2023, Spotify further hiked rates in the United Kingdom and Australia in May. The additional U.S. price increase, which goes into effect in July, will raise individual rates to $11.99 per month and family plans to $19.99 per month. The higher prices will help Spotify cover the costs of bundling music with limited free streaming of audiobooks. The streamer is giving its customers plenty of options, though. A music-only tier has been introduced in the United Kingdom that costs 10.99 pounds ($13.99) per month, compared to 11.99 pounds ($15.26) per month for the music-and-audiobook option. Two-person Duo plans and student plans also offer discounts to the standard individual plan.
The Billboard Global Music Index rose 0.1% to 1,801.44 as Spotify’s gain helped overshadow losses by 13 of the index’s 20 companies. Other of the index’s largest companies posted modest declines this week: Warner Music Group fell 0.9% to $29.51, Universal Music Group fell 1.2% to 28.23 euros ($30.53) and Live Nation dropped 3.4% to $90.56. The index is 2.5% below its high of 1,847.64, set the week ended May 3, 2024.
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iHeartMedia, the index’s greatest gainer for the second consecutive week, rose 35% to $1.25 a week after gaining 6.4%. In just two weeks, iHeartMedia’s year-to-date loss has improved from 67.4% to 53.2% without any major news releases or regulatory filings. At the company’s annual general meeting on Wednesday (June 5), shareholders reelected CEO Bob Pittman and CFO/COO Rich Bressler to the board of directors and approved an advisory vote on the company’s 2023 executive compensation.
SM Entertainment dropped 8.5% to 83,500 won ($60.51) amidst controversy over an alleged sex scandal involving Johnny and Haechan of the group NCT, which SM Entertainment has denied. Such a large drop isn’t uncommon when a K-pop company’s artists are plastered across the South Korean news. In October, K-pop stocks dropped on news that SM Entertainment artist Exo was leaving for a different agency. In April, HYBE shares fell sharply after news broke that Min Hee-jin, CEO of HYBE imprint ADOR, had attempted to take over management of the subsidiary label.
Elsewhere, CTS Eventim rose 4.3% to 82.80 euros ($89.56). On Thursday (June 6), the German concert promoter and ticketing company finalized a $327 million acquisition of Vivendi’s festival and ticketing businesses. Last year, See Tickets sold 44 million tickets and had revenue of 105 million euros ($114 million). The deal does not include See Tickets France.
SiriusXM shares fell 9.5% to $2.56 this week, bringing its year-to-date loss to 53.2%. The satellite radio company, which also owns streaming platform Pandora, is betting on the success of the new streaming app it launched in December and its $9.99-per-month price. The in-car satellite product, which includes streaming access, costs “about $19” per month, CEO Jennifer Witz said at the J.P. Morgan Global Technology, Media and Communications Conference Conference on May 21. The company is attempting to maintain those satellite customers while attracting new streaming customers and reducing its reliance on promotional discounts. “I do think we’ll have opportunities to both capture more demand but also maintain that full price base at those higher price points and implement rate increases over time,” said Witz.
Some U.S. stock indexes reached all-time highs this week. The S&P 500 hit a record 5,375.08 Friday, although it closed at 5,346.99, down 0.1%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite reached a new high of 17,235.73 on Thursday and ended Friday at 17,133.12, up 2.4% from the prior week. In the United Kingdom, the FTSE 100 declined 0.4% to 8,245.37. South Korea’s KOSPI composite index rose 3.3% to 2,722.67. China’s Shanghai Composite Index lost 1.2% to 3,051.28.
The Canadian government has made a major announcement about the implementation of the Online Streaming Act, with implications for artists and music companies at home and abroad.
The CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission) has revealed that foreign streaming services with significant revenues will have to make base contributions to Canadian content. Streaming companies with no affiliation to Canadian broadcasters and over $25 million in annual contributions revenues will have to pay 5% of those revenues into specified funds.
Those contributions will be used to boost Canadian content in the music, news and film industries, generating an estimated $200 million in increased funding altogether.
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The decision comes after a consultation process that included public hearings last fall, as well as over 360 written submissions.
The government specified that these contributions will go towards “areas of immediate need,” prioritizing already existing funds in order to expedite the delivery process. Those funds include FACTOR and Musicaction, which industry groups like CIMA and the Canadian Live Music Association say are in need of increased funding.
The Beaches Awarded Group of the Year at Billboard Canada Women in Music Launch Announcement
Billboard Canada and iHeartRadio teamed up to present a big award to a major Canadian group this week.
The Beaches received the first-ever Billboard Canada Women in Music Award for Group of the Year on Wednesday (June 5), honoring the Toronto quartet’s breakout year. The band was on hand for the announcement of Billboard Canada‘s Women in Music celebration event, which is officially set for September 7, 2024.
The band was presented with the award by Billboard Canada CEO Amanda Dorenberg and CCO Elizabeth Crisante. At the event, more Canadian artists (including a few legends of the industry) will be recognized and honored for their artistry and blazing trails as women in the industry.
Receiving the award as part of a livestream performance on iHeartRadio’s YouTube, The Beaches played a stripped-back set of three songs from their hit 2023 album, Blame My Ex. The acoustic set saw drummer Eliza Enman McDaniel with just a shaker, leaving space for Jordan Miller’s powerful lead vocal and light harmonies by guitarists Leandra Earl and Kylie Miller.
After the performance, iHeartRadio’s Shannon Burns did a Q&A with the group, joking about playing pool with them and asking them audience-submitted questions. The band talked about their experiences as women in the music industry, providing some advice for up-and-coming female artists.
“Make sure you do it with your friends,” McDaniel said. The group spoke about how isolating it can be to be a woman in a still-male-dominated — though gradually changing — industry. It’s important to be surrounded by women you trust, they emphasized, whether in your band or on your team.
Watch the full performance and announcement here.
Lowell Wins the First Billboard Canada Non-Performing Songwriter Award
Lowell has won the first Billboard Canada Non-Performing Songwriter Award (presented by SOCAN), which honors a Canadian songwriter making a big impact behind the scenes.
The win was announced at Billboard Canada‘s Power Players event on Sunday (June 2) at the CN Tower. The award was presented to Lowell (Elizabeth Lowell Boland) by SOCAN CEO Jennifer Brown and vp of creative and member relations Cameron Kennedy.
“Songwriters have it really tough,” Lowell said while accepting the award. “We make no money, and then we very silently make other people really famous and then just cry about it at night because no one loves us,” she joked.
“So it’s really nice that you guys are giving me a little pat on the back — I’m going to take this on behalf of all of my amazing songwriter friends that have not gotten that pat on the back, yet.”
Lowell, who has also released music under the same name, was one of five finalists for the inaugural edition of the award — the first in Canada recognizing songwriters’ work for other artists. Other shortlisted writers included Tobias Jesso Jr., Jeremy Fedryk, Ali Willa Milner and Aaron Paris — an extremely strong initial shortlist featuring a crop of writers responsible for songs that garnered Grammy nominations, top chart placements and millions of streams.
Lowell has had a major year, including co-writing credits on “Texas Hold ‘Em” and “Bodyguard,” two of the biggest hits on one the year’s biggest albums, Beyoncé‘s Cowboy Carter. The award considered songs from 2023 before Cowboy Carter was released, but beyond Beyoncé, Lowell has shown a unique ability to help artists break through to a new level.
Lowell additionally co-wrote and co-produced Blame My Ex, the breakthrough album from Toronto band The Beaches, including the Lowell-penned hit “Blame Brett,” which held No. 1 at alternative radio for 17 weeks and is rising at U.S. and Canadian Top 40. She’s also a close collaborator of Lu Kala, the Congolese-Canadian artist who made her Hot 100 debut this past year, co-writing Kala’s emotional ballad “Nothing But Love.”
In her acceptance speech, Lowell highlighted the importance of supporting Canadian talent.
“Some people think I live in L.A. but I don’t, I live in Toronto,” she said, addressing the room full of powerful and influential members of the Canadian music industry. “I like to find talent here, I like to see who L.A. is not looking for and what the world needs, and that’s a lot of people that are here either in this room or working with people in this room. […] My goal is to largely not ignore the real talent which is in this f—ing city,” she continued to a round of cheers.
It’s time for another Executive Turntable, Billboard’s comprehensive(ish) compendium of promotions, hirings, exits and firings — and all things in between — across music. We also have a weekly interview series spotlighting a single executive and a regularly updated gallery honoring many of the industry figures we’ve lost throughout the year.
ByteDance has hired former Warner Bros. Pictures legal honcho John Rogovin as the Chinese company’s new global general counsel, effective immediately. He reports directly to Liang Rubo, CEO of ByteDance. The role includes oversight of TikTok, which has a lot going on right now. Rogovin’s arrival comes as TikTok and ByteDance engage in a monumental battle with the United States government following the passage of legislation requiring the parent company to sell the app or face a national ban. In early May, the company filed a federal lawsuit aimed at overturning the law, calling it an “unconstitutional” action aimed at “silencing” more than 170 million Americans who use TikTok. TikTok chief Shou Chew rightly said Rogovin’s arrival comes at an “important time” for the company. Rogovin, who clocked time at both the FCC and the DOJ earlier in his career before a 14-year run at WB, added that he looks forward to “helping to ensure that our platforms continue to provide a critical forum for more than two billion users worldwide to entertain, teach, and connect with one another.” Rogovin succeeds departing general counsel Erich Andersen, who has shifted to special counsel.
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Federica Tremolada
Spotify
Federica Tremolada was promoted to general manager of Europe for Spotify, effective immediately. Tremolada, who spent the last five years as managing director of Southern and Eastern Europe, fills the shoes of Michael Krause, who earlier this week announced his departure after a seven-year run as GM. Both execs made their own announcements on Linkedin, with Krause calling it a “perfect time to pass the baton” and spend time with family before seeking “new adventures later this year.” Tremolada, meanwhile, called working at Spotify “one of my biggest dreams come true” and listed opening Casa Spotify in Milan, where she is based, and growing the podcast business in the region as some of her tenure highlights. Prior to joining Spotify, Tremolada spent more than a decade at Google, where she rose to head of international partnerships for the YouTube TV squad.
Austin Jenkins was named vp of A&R at Island Records. Based in Nashville, Jenkins started at Island in 2023 and played a pivotal role in the signing and development of artists including Wyatt Flores and Medium Build at the label. He will continue leading Island’s Nashville operations. Jenkins was formerly the founder, guitarist and songwriter for Texas band White Denim. He later founded Fort Worth, Texas, recording studio Niles City Sound with Josh Block and Chris Vivion, where Jenkins and Block co-produced, recorded and mixed Leon Bridges‘ full-length debut album, Coming Home. Jenkins performed guitar and bass on the album and also toured with Bridges as part of his band.
Adam Salomon was named senior director of A&R at Concord Music Publishing. Salomon joins Concord from London-based music management company Chosen Music, where he led A&R efforts. He reports to Concord Music Publishing executive vp of worldwide A&R Kim Frankiewicz. Originally from Sweden, Salomon has held A&R and management roles across independent and major labels in the country, including Universal Music Sweden, where he led the Svenska Inspelningar label.
Producer, songwriter and rapper Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins launched a new record label, Alienz Alive, which Jerkins described in a statement as “a collaborative community of creatives that are Christ-centered where artist development is key. We encourage our artists to use their gifts to uplift and inspire. Sonically speaking the influences are Hip Hop, R&B, and Indie Rock. As long as it glorifies God and it’s dope, all are welcome.” At launch, the Alienz Alive roster includes Jon Keith, GAWVI, IMRSQD Alex Jean and TJ Carroll. Jerkins will be involved in the label’s day-to-day operations.
Madison House is building a bigger booking agency with the hiring of industry veteran Thomas Ponsart as booking agent and Ruby Williams and Madison Dawson as agent assistants. Bay Area-residing Ponsart has more than a decade of experience and learned under the tutelage of Tom Chauncey and Hank Sacks at Partisan Artists. He brings with him a roster that includes John Craigie, Monophonics, Parlor Greens, Madeline Hawthorne, Kelly Finnigan, Anthony Villacari and Goodnight, Texas. Williams arrives from Freshwater Art Gallery & Music Venue in Boyne City, Mich., where she booked artists of all stripes, and is now based in Madison House’s office in Ann Arbor. Dawson is a recent Belmont grad and intern at Madison House in Nashville, where she is based. “The ultimate decision to join forces with Madison House is our shared values, growth mindset, adaptability, freedom to pursue new clients, and their tech forward approach to new systems,” said Ponsart. “Madison House has instilled these values in their team for decades and it makes them a commendable and unique business that I’m excited to call my new home.”
Riser House Records named Amy O’Connor as head of sales and streaming. O’Connor previously served as marketing director at Sony Music/Legacy Recordings, working Sony’s country legacy catalog including music from Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson, as well as working with artist estates including Johnny Cash and Loretta Lynn. O’Connor previously led the streaming team at Better Noise Music, working on projects for Papa Roach, Mötley Crüe and Five Finger Death Punch. –Jessica Nicholson
Filmmaker and music producer Jesse Lauter joined Peter Shapiro’s Dayglo Presents as head of production & media. In this newly created position, Lauter will oversee the creative side of video and audio production for Dayglo venues, including The Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, NY and the Brooklyn Bowl mini-chain (Brooklyn, Las Vegas, Nashville and Philadelphia), along with the newly added Bearsville Theatre in Woodstock. One of his main responsibilities is directing live-streams for FANS.live and Relix out of the Capitol Theatre. Lauter most recently directed Learning To Live Together: The Return of Mad Dogs & Englishmen about Joe Cocker, and is currently working on a film about swamp rock legends Little Feat. He’s also worked with Dayglo on a part-time basis for years. “I’ve been a part of this family for a long time, and have so much love and respect for Pete and what he has built,” he said. “It’s a perfect fit.” each Lauter is reachable at jesse@dayglopresents.com.
Courtney Zeppetella is no longer senior vp, controller and chief accounting officer of Madison Square Garden Entertainment. Zeppetella’s resignation, effective May 31, was disclosed in an SEC filing three days prior to her exit. The NYC-based executive joined MSGE in May 2022 following a 21-year run at KPMG, where she rose to audit partner. Michael J. Grau, the company’s executive vp and CFO, will serve as the company’s interim principal accounting officer until a replacement is named.
ALL IN THE FAMILY: Billboard‘s longtime Australian correspondent Lars Brandle is now head of content at The Brag Media, where he’ll oversee strategy across Rolling Stone Australia and New Zealand, Variety Australia, The Music Network, Tone Deaf and more titles. Brandle joined Billboard in 2000 out of the London bureau and for many years served as global news editor and later as overnight editor — along the way amassing a paltry 835 pages of written articles. New gig aside, Brandle isn’t fully free of Billboard‘s clasp just yet — The Brag Media holds the license for Billboard in Australia. Talk soon, mate!
Sphere Entertainment hired industry veteran Chandra Allison as executive vp of sales and service at the Las Vegas megavenue. In her new role, Allison will drive sales strategies, develop conferences and events, oversee service teams, and build on Sphere’s strong relations with fellow stakeholders in Vegas. Allison, who has done consultant work for Sphere, most recently served as senior vp of strategy and growth at Oak View Group, where she oversaw growth and strategy for its OVG360 portfolio. Prior to OVG, Allison put in nearly 25 years at The Venetian Resort, where she rose to svp of sales and marketing. “Sphere is a game-changer in this dynamic market,” she said, “and this is a tremendous opportunity to continue working with the team to develop one-of-a-kind experiences that enhance Sphere’s presence in Las Vegas across a range of event categories and guest experiences.”
NASHVILLE NOTES: Kelli Haywood and Leigh Holt teamed to launch Hsquared Management. The company combines the artist rosters from their respective companies, KCH Entertainment and maddjett, while they also reveal their first signing together, Capitol CMG singer-songwriter Riley Clemmons. The Hsquared client roster also includes Lauren Daigle, Carlos Whittaker, Annie F. Downs and Megan Danielle –J.N. … UMG Nashville‘s director of radio marketing Donna Hughes departed after 13 years. Hughes was previously national director of radio syndication at Capitol/EMI Records before those imprints were joined UMG.
ICYMI:
Lee Anderson
Warner Music Group hired Michael Ryan-Southern to lead the company’s acquisition efforts … CAA appointed Darryl Eaton, Emma Banks and Rick Roskin as co-heads of the global touring division … French collective management organization SACEM extended Cécile Rap-Veber’s term as CEO … MNRK Music Group president and CEO Chris Taylor is resigning effective June 28 and will be replaced by COO Sean Stevenson … Lee Anderson was named president of Wasserman Music … Lionel Ridenour was named executive vp of promotion at gamma. … Dennis Ashley Jr. and son Dennis Ashley III launched a new multimedia firm … Day After Day Productions hired Melanie Davis as head of tour marketing, while promoting Marc Ertel to head of creative and Erin Patterson to head of marketing.
Last Week’s Turntable: PierFerd Partners Up
Veteran music executive Dennis Ashley Jr. is joining forces with his son, Dennis Ashley III, to launch a new multimedia firm, Dash Media Partners, the pair has announced. According to a press release, the company will offer “a comprehensive suite of services in music, gaming, television and film production, events, branding and beyond.”
Ashley Jr. is a former partner at ICM Partners, which he joined in 2006 after two years spent operating his own agency. Beginning in 2016, he served as co-head of West Coast urban music division at ICM, where he first worked as a summer intern in the ’80s. While at the agency, Ashley Jr.’s clients included J. Cole, Missy Elliott, Trey Songz, D’Angelo, PartyNextDoor, Jeremih, Jeezy, Nelly, Mary J. Blige, Machine Gun Kelly, Marsha Ambrosius and Brian McKnight.
Ashley III is an entrepreneur known for successfully launching and scaling ventures across diverse industries, working with companies including Jordan Brand, Nobu, H. Wood Group and Triller.
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“With streaming platforms reshaping the way content is consumed and brand partnerships becoming increasingly integral to success,” the father-son duo is “well-positioned to leverage emerging trends…by merging Dennis Ashley Jr’s wealth of experience and industry connections with Dennis Ashley III’s innovative vision and fresh perspective,” reads a press release announcing the new venture.
“This is more than just a business venture for us,” said Ashley III in a statement. “It’s a chance to combine our passion for entertainment with our shared commitment to excellence and innovation. Together, we believe we can create something truly extraordinary.”
After taking itself out of the bidding for French music group and distributor Believe in April, Warner Music Group (WMG) is shopping for an alternative distribution company that could help it gain market share in the competitive space that serves independent creators and labels — and it’s hired a top music investment banker from Goldman Sachs to lead the effort.
Since taking over as WMG’s CEO last year, Robert Kyncl has said the company is prepared to build in-house the technology and services he thinks it needs. Now he’s ready to buy them as well.
“As part of our mission to be a destination for artists and songwriters at every stage of development, we are expanding our lower-touch services that many indie artists, labels and songwriters rely on,” Kyncl said on a conference call discussing WMG’s quarterly earnings on May 9. “We have a clear plan to develop this area of our ecosystem, and we’re building solutions in-house while staying vigilant about [merger and acquisition] opportunities, which could accelerate our capabilities.”
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On Thursday (June 6), WMG announced the hire of Goldman Sachs’ global head of music & live entertainment investment banking Michael Ryan-Southern to a newly created executive vp role. Reporting to Kyncl, Ryan-Southern will be responsible for acquiring companies and catalogs that can boost WMG’s growth and revenues. When he officially joins in August, the first item on his shopping list will be an independent distribution company, smaller in size and cost than Believe, that an inside source described as a “bolt-on” acquisition to help grow WMG’s market share in the independent distribution and services business without affecting its overall profit margins.
Among the companies that WMG is eyeing, according to sources, are leading independent distributors DistroKid and CD Baby. WMG is “active in the market” but is still in the exploratory stage, those sources say.
A WMG spokesperson declined to comment for this story. A representative for Downtown, which owns CD Baby, also declined to comment, except to say that Downtown “is singularly focused on continuing to grow our business and support our clients’ success.” Representatives for DistroKid did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
WMG approached Paris-based Believe in February with a nonbinding offer to acquire it at a price of “at least” 17 euros ($18.60) per share. It ultimately decided not to submit a formal offer in April. Asked why the company did not pursue an offer for Believe, Kyncl said on the May 9 call that it backed away “for a variety of reasons,” including the brief amount of time it was given to conduct due diligence.
Ryan-Southern is a former EMI publishing executive who, along with Goldman’s global head of entertainment investment banking, Aaron Siegel, was on some of music’s biggest deals. These included New Mountain Capital’s acquisition of BMI and the spinoff of Sphere Entertainment, which owns the Sphere in Las Vegas, MSG Networks and Tao Group Hospitality, from Madison Square Garden Entertainment, which owns and operates the Garden and Radio City Music Hall among other venues in New York and Chicago. Ryan-Southern and Siegal also advised Believe founder/CEO Denis Ladegaillerie and his consortium with investment funds EQT and TCV on their effort to take Believe private.
Buying or building something that can leverage WMG’s independent distribution and services division, ADA, would help the music company recruit more early-stage artists, something its executives consider core to its success.
WMG launched ADA in 1993, roughly 20 years before Sony bought a stake in The Orchard and Universal Music Group launched Caroline International as an indie-label distributor that was later rebranded as Virgin Music Group. And though WMG was the first major to carve out a presence serving the independent artist market — renting its major-label services to indies, as industry sources have described it — competition in the market has heated up.
UMG and Sony have invested tens of millions in recent years buying rival startups in the space. A minority shareholder since 2006, UMG acquired Ingrooves in 2019. In 2022, UMG acquired Mtheory Artist Partnerships as well as a 49% stake in [PIAS]. Sony closed out its full acquisition of The Orchard in 2015 and then bought AWAL in 2022.
The Orchard now holds a commanding lead in the U.S. market with a 7.27% current market share, according to Luminate. UMG’s Virgin Music Group, which comprises Ingrooves, Mtheory and Virgin Music Label & Artist Services, holds around 3.42% of the current market. ADA has a current market share of 1.68%. Its biggest client, BMG, which contributes 0.94% to ADA’s current share, is winding down its distribution agreement.
WMG now needs to “turbocharge” this part of its business to capitalize on the fast-growing independent sector, says Fred Davis, partner at The Raine Group.
“The world now is divided into three categories of artists: those signed to major labels, those signed to indie labels and indie artists without a label,” Davis says. “Distribution platforms are proving to be a viable source of A&R for the major labels.”
Focusing WMG’s A&R more on capturing opportunities, particularly in genres that are just beginning to experience growth, was one of Kyncl’s top 2024 agenda items highlighted in a New Year’s Day note he sent to all staff. In April, WMG’s publishing division, Warner Chappell Music (WCM), partnered with ReverbNation, BandLab Technologies’ premium artist services platform, to identify and sign emerging songwriters. WCM administers music rights for any users who enroll in a new program through ReverbNation Publishing Administration, and signed songwriters gain access to WCM’s services.
WMG has acquired majority stakes or launched joint ventures with a few distribution-oriented companies in recent years — some before Kyncl joined WMG — primarily in emerging markets in the Middle East and Asia. Among them: a majority stake in Africori, the leading digital music distribution, music rights management and artist development company in Africa, in January 2022. That March, it also acquired Qanawat Music, a leading distributor in the Middle East and North Africa.
Last year, WMG did two deals in India: It acquired a majority stake in Indian digital media company Divo and formed a joint venture with Sky Digital, which aggregates releases from Punjabi and Hindi labels.
While WMG has made acquisitions in other geographical regions, rival majors have bought companies serving the U.S. market for independents. “It would make sense for [WMG] to augment its distribution with an acquisition,” says a source familiar with the company’s strategy.
Under normal circumstances, Sean “Diddy” Combs and R. Kelly would each own a valuable catalog of music rights, worth tens of millions of dollars apiece in a market of music investors hungry to purchase new prize assets. But because R. Kelly has been convicted of sex trafficking, sexual abuse and child pornography, while Combs is currently facing a reported federal sex trafficking investigation as well as several lawsuits alleging sexual assault, the only value each will likely get these days from those music assets is their annual income from sales and streams.
That’s because corporations and private-equity music asset investors would be wary of buying either catalog if they were put up for sale, music-asset investors and traders say.
As it is, Diddy owns his master recording catalog and his publishing — though they are under various identities, such as alter egos Puff Daddy, Diddy-Dirty Money and Love — which combined have generated about 147,000 album consumption units annually over the last three years. Billboard estimates that brings in about $2.4 million in master recording revenue, while the publishing from those recordings comes to about $600,000 annually. Combined, his share of that would come out to an estimated $2.625 million annually during that time period, which, if it attained a standard 16-times multiple, would work out to an estimated sale value of around $42 million. (For a detailed breakout on Combs, click here.)
Comparatively, the activity on R. Kelly’s catalog is more than twice that of Diddy’s, at an average of 315,000 album consumption units annually over the last three years. Unlike Diddy, however, Kelly doesn’t own his recordings or publishing catalogs, sources tell Billboard — or at least the music he created through 2010. The music he issued up to 2010 comprised about 90% of his U.S. activity last year, while music he released after 2010 — in which he may have an ownership stake — only generated about 10% of his catalog’s overall activity. Consequently, unlike Combs, Kelly likely gets a master recording royalty calculated as a percentage of revenue for his master recordings.
Billboard estimates that his catalog earned about $4.1 million in master recording revenue annually over the last three years, while the publishing revenue for songs on his albums comes out to about $2.3 million. Billboard further estimates his share of that is about $2.3 million, which if it obtained a 16-times multiple, could also reap in the neighborhood of $37 million. (For a detailed breakout on Kelly, click here.)
Combs’ representatives didn’t respond to a request for comment. A lawyer for Kelly disputed Billboard’s estimates, calling them “speculative,” and wouldn’t provide further information.
One major caveat: both artists have extensive credits and royalties for music assets far beyond their own catalogs. In recent public interviews, Combs has said he owns the catalog of his longtime label Bad Boy Records, and he also has extensive producer credits and collaborations with other artists; R. Kelly not only has his own extensive record of productions and collaborations with other artists, but worked for years as an outside songwriter as well. (Diddy also recently sold his shares in media company REVOLT.) These other assets for both Combs and Kelly likely retain their value, even if the two artists’ own catalogs — at least for the near future — are considered undesirable assets.
Last year, Diddy told Billboard that he had received several offers to sell his catalog during the catalog gold rush of the pandemic, but had turned them down. Now, one key music asset buyer says, “We wouldn’t buy it for reputational reasons, but also because our investors wouldn’t want to be associated with such an acquisition.” Even if offered at a discount, the executive continues, “Zero chance, at no price.”
The same goes for R. Kelly. An executive says he was offered a chance to look at the Kelly catalog a few years ago by a representative of the artist who was shopping the assets; he turned down that opportunity then for the same reason, even though the artist had at that point yet to be convicted.
Various allegations against Kelly have been around for well over a decade, and he was acquitted on child pornography charges in 2008. Then in 2019, a documentary called Surviving R. Kelly was released that rehashed many of the old allegations against the artist and revealed a stream of new allegations and new investigations, all culminating in multiple indictments for sexual abuse. In 2021 he was convicted in New York and sentenced the following year to 30 years in prison; in 2023, he was convicted on child pornography charges in Chicago and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Nineteen of those years from the two sentences will be served concurrently, according to press reports.
Another big music-asset buyer agrees with the first investment executive, saying, “Our investors have a fiduciary responsibility. You wouldn’t get a potential acquisition like Diddy’s or Kelly’s past an investment board.”
Even if Diddy were never charged or convicted, the second music-asset buyer says the market for the catalog doesn’t exist. “Nope, he’s done,” the person says. “He’s got too many weird allegations against him.”
Not everyone agrees with the assessment that Diddy’s catalog is now undesirable, however. A third music-asset investor urges caution: “Not so fast,” the person says. “You can’t lump Combs into a Bill Cosby category.” (Diddy, while reportedly under investigation, has not been indicted, let alone convicted. Cosby’s conviction was also ultimately overturned.)
That investor acknowledges that most institutional and corporate investors won’t touch the Diddy catalog right now, but that doesn’t mean they won’t consider it if circumstances change. “The FBI have raided plenty of places and many times no one is ever charged,” that executive says. “Let’s see if Combs gets indicted.” (Those comments were made before CNN published a video from 2016 that appeared to show Diddy assaulting his ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura.)
As all investors and traders tell Billboard, corporations and institutional investors won’t touch catalogs that carry the type of baggage and stigma that Kelly’s catalog — and now maybe Diddy’s catalog, too — come with. Prior to the Surviving R. Kelly doc and the subsequent legal cases, Kelly’s U.S. radio presence averaged nearly 120,000 plays per year between 2015 and 2018. From 2019 onward, his radio plays have averaged fewer than 5,000 spins a year. Likewise, Diddy’s radio play plummeted by 88% since Cassie filed a lawsuit in November 2023 alleging abuse and rape, which was settled.
Similarly, music investors predict that whatever synchronization revenue the catalogs once enjoyed, is likely to slow or dry up completely for Diddy, and probably already has for Kelly.
But the fans of the artists will continue to enjoy their music regardless, investors say.
Between 2021 and 2023, Kelly’s U.S. on-demand streams averaged 472 million annually; in fact, in 2018 — when the Time’s Up movement launched the Mute R. Kelly campaign — and in 2019, when Surviving R. Kelly preceded the stream of troublesome news reports on new revelations and developments toward what would eventually be an indictment, Kelly’s streams jumped to 733 million and 809 million, respectively, before falling back down to 496 million in 2020.
Meanwhile, Diddy’s streams have fallen off slightly; in the first quarter of this year they totaled 51.9 million, down from almost 61 million over the same period last year, or a decline of 14.9%, Billboard estimates based on Luminate’s stream counts combined for his five main catalogs.
But it’s the royalties from songs recorded by artists that both Diddy and Kelly have produced and written for that could be worth selling, because they would likely land interested buyers, sources say.
In Kelly’s case, that includes music by Aaliyah, Sparkle, the Isley Brothers, Billy Ocean, Janet Jackson, Toni Braxton, Maxwell, Michael Jackson, B2K, Britney Spears, Whitney Houston, Jennifer Hudson, Jordin Sparks, Bryson Tiller and Celine Dion, among others. For Diddy, that includes music from Jodeci, Mary J. Blige, The Notorious B.I.G., TLC, Faith Evans, New Edition, Boyz II Men, Mariah Carey, Busta Rhymes, LL Cool J, Ma$e and Jennifer Lopez, among others.
“The other artists they have worked with have nothing to do with the bad actions on [Kelly and Diddy’s] parts,” says one music asset buyer. “Those other music assets have value.”
Additional reporting by Elizabeth Dilts Marshall and Bill Donahue.
During the years of 2021 through 2023, R. Kelly’s music catalog averaged nearly 315,000 album consumption units each year in the U.S. — which, Billboard estimates, has generated about $2.3 million annually for the singer, adding together earnings from his master recording and publishing from those works.
But assessing Kelly’s earnings isn’t that simple — this estimate doesn’t include royalties he derives from his outside work for other recording artists as a producer and songwriter, nor does it include royalties from cover versions of songs he recorded or that he wrote for other artists. Sources familiar with Kelly’s royalties say these additional income sources amount to several million more per year.
And there are other factors that play into how much Kelly himself earns from his works. In total, Billboard estimates that Kelly’s recorded master catalog generated an average of $4.1 million per year in revenue for the three years under consideration, while his publishing catalog — bolstered by Kelly being the sole writer on the majority of his songs — generated about $2.3 million per year in total for all stakeholders during the period.
Sources say that Kelly doesn’t own the master recordings he made during his period as a chart-topping artist, which accounts for the majority of the activity on his catalog. (His later period recordings, which Kelly may own, don’t fare as well in generating sales and streams.) So if he earns a blended royalty rate of 35% — a common rate for superstar artists — Billboard estimates he earned approximately $1.425 million per year from his master recordings. Even if Kelly doesn’t own his publishing from his most popular music, he doesn’t have many co-writers, so he lays claim to a large share of his publishing. Considering that songwriters later in their career tend to own their publishing or sign new contracts where they have a share in their publishing, Billboard estimates that Kelly’s royalties from his master recordings publishing comes out to about $865,000. When added to his estimated master recording royalties, that comes out to the $2.3 million figure.
A lawyer for Kelly disputed Billboard’s estimates, calling them “speculative,” and wouldn’t provide further information.
Beyond Billboard’s estimates, Kelly’s royalties include production fees for other artists in the Sony Music Entertainment system — for example, Aaliyah’s 1994 debut album Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number, originally released on Jive but now available through Sony’s Legacy label, which means Sony pays him the royalty for that recording, too. Sony also pays him publishing royalties on recordings that it owns. (Kelly himself had been signed to a publishing deal through Universal Music Publishing Group.) But it’s unclear how much additional revenue that generates for him per year.
In terms of the publishing revenue generated by Kelly’s own artist catalog, Billboard’s ballpark estimate is buttressed by financial data supplied to the Eastern Division of the Federal Court of Illinois, with regards to restitution needed in that court case.
According to the court documents, Kelly (who under a traditional publishing deal would receive 50% of the revenue generated by the publishing catalog) was paid $442,0000 on Aug. 28, 2022 for the first half of the year; and, as of Dec. 31, UMPG was holding another $384,000, for a combined annual total of $826,000. That implies total full-year publishing revenue of $1.65 million, which is below Billboard’s overall publishing estimate of $2.3 million. But the UMPG statement excludes his performance royalties paid directly to him by performance rights organizations.
In a few years, his publishing royalties could grow thanks to the U.S. Copyright Law, which allows, after 35 years, for writers to reclaim ownership of creative works issued after 1978. As Kelly’s first song appeared in 1992, that means that in 2027, the songs issued that year would become eligible for copyright termination and reversion for the U.S. portion of his publishing catalog if he or his representatives follow the regulations to affect termination. However, a search of the U.S. Copyright Office public database does not turn up any “notice of termination” filings from Kelly. While the law allows for notices to be filed up to 10 years before the 35-year period expires, Kelly has until 2025 to file for the songs issued in 1992 in order for termination to come into effect by 2027.
It would be difficult for Kelly to have his own catalog sold, considering his convictions in New York and Chicago that have him spending decades in prison and that have scared away many music-asset investors. But using a blended 16-times multiple on Billboard’s estimate of his $2.3 million average annual revenue, that estimated value is around $37 million.
But Kelly likely has a very valuable income stream from his works as a songwriter and producer for other artists, which could very well reap a nice valuation should it ever come to market.
Additional reporting by Bill Donahue.
Over the past three years, Billboard estimates that the revenue generated by Sean “Diddy” Combs’ master recording catalog, as well as the publishing for songs he wrote that appear on his albums, reached about $3 million annually.
The biggest asset he has in his favor — and not included in the above estimate — is his ownership of Bad Boy Records, through which he owns his own masters and publishing.
But the activity generated by his own artist catalog — an average of about 147,000 album consumption units each year over the past three years — is not particularly large for someone generally regarded as a superstar. And even setting aside his current circumstances — several lawsuits alleging sexual assault; a video published by CNN showing him physically assaulting his ex-girlfriend Cassie in 2016, a situation that was included in her own since-settled lawsuit against him last fall; and a reported federal sex trafficking investigation, among other things — the catalog is a challenge for music-asset traders who would consider purchasing it.
One reason, in addition to the public accusations, is that his catalog is not out under a single, identifiable brand like most artists’ catalogs are — it has been put out under five main artist names: Puff Daddy, Puff Daddy & the Family, P. Diddy, Diddy and Diddy-Dirty Money. That makes it harder to market, music industry executives say. To further confuse matters, in 2017 he decided he would henceforth be known as Love, or Brother Love, under which he released his last album, Off The Grid, though neither name appears to be connected with any Combs music activity in Luminate’s database.
Confusingly, that most recent album, Off The Grid, technically released under the name Diddy, was credited with 453,000 units in 2023, according to Billboard’s math based on Luminate’s data from the weekly Billboard 200 chart. However, the songs with the most activity on those albums are collaborations, like “Creepin’” — a remix credited to The Weeknd, Metro Boomin and 21 Savage that seems to capture all of the song’s streams, not just the Diddy remix. Consequently, those streams aren’t counted on his artist page, which only gives Diddy credit for 97,000 album consumption units in 2023 for all his albums, including Off The Grid, put out under the Diddy handle.
Given the lower-than-expected activity and sales volume of his catalog, Billboard estimates the combined Combs catalog brings in about $2.4 million in master recording revenue; while his publishing catalog, which has an extensive list of co-writers, generates about $600,000 annually for Diddy. Given all of his co-writers, his share of the publishing generated by his own albums is probably about $225,000. Combined, that comes to about $2.625 million per year, and at a blended 16-times multiple — a rate at which many high-profile catalogs have sold in recent years — that would put Diddy’s artist catalog’s worth at about $42 million.
Reps for Diddy did not respond to a request for comment.
There are several caveats to that assessment — chief among them that Diddy was, for years, also a prolific producer for many of the artists on the Bad Boy label, and that the master recordings he owns by other artists are likely still desirable for music investors. However, in September 2023, he announced that he was reassigning the publishing rights he owned back to the songwriters and artists who helped build Bad Boy, including Ma$e, Faith Evans, the LOX, 112, and the estate of the Notorious B.I.G.
According to that story, Combs had turned down offers to sell that publishing catalog. While most of those writers were eligible to terminate and reclaim their publishing at the 35-year mark, that is only for American publishing rights, not global, which Combs otherwise would have continued to own under U.S. law. What happened to those global rights is still unknown.
But overall, given all the other artists he has worked with, his ownership of the Bad Boy master recordings catalog provides considerable income and possibly a potential valuation far beyond the estimates cited above for his own master recording catalog.