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Warner Music Group said on Thursday that revenues increased 7% during its fiscal second quarter to $1.5 billion, with the company pointing to the strength of its publishing business and a boost in subscription streaming revenue in recorded music.
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Hits like Teddy Swims‘ “Lose Control” and Benson Boone’s “Beautiful Things” drove an 11% increase in recorded music streaming revenue, including a 13% uptick in subscription streaming revenue. Swims and Boone held the No. 1 and 2 spots on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart in the first quarter, while Megan Thee Stallion‘s “Hiss” debuted in the No. 1 spot in February.
“This quarter, we saw massive hits from artists across different genres and all stages of development – exactly the kind of mix we want,” said WMG CEO Robert Kyncl on a call with investors. “[The increase in streaming revenue] was driven by stronger music performance as well as subscriber growth and subscription price increases.”
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Recorded music revenue grew by 4% to $1.19 billion overall in the quarter compared to a year ago, as the termination of Warner’s distribution agreement with BMG was a drag on the division’s streaming and digital revenue growth and made for a challenging year-ago comparison. Excluding the impact of BMG terminating its distribution agreement and not renewing its digital license deal with WMG, total revenues were up 8.8%.
Music publishing revenue grew by 19% to $306 million as WMG songwriters’ contributions to hits like Jack Harlow’s “Lovin On Me,” Ariana Grande’s “We Can’t Be Friends” and Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign’s “Carnival” drove a more than 30% uptick in music publishing streaming revenue.
Kyncl said Warner’s growing global market share in music publishing was thanks to organic growth — like signing decorated British singer/songwriter Raye early in her career. But it was the company’s inorganic growth plans that generated the first question from analysts on the company’s earnings conference call.
In April, WMG called off plans to submit a binding offer to acquire French music company Believe.
“We decided not to pursue it for a variety of reasons that I cannot go into,” Kyncl said in response to an analyst’s question about the decision. “We have a clear strategy in expanding our offerings to serve more artists across a wider array of their careers. We are building against that … We always look at ways to accelerate beause all of this work takes time. Any time there is an option in the market to accelerate our roadmaps, we will look at it.”
Ultimately, the acquisition and bidding process for Believe pushed Warner to disclose publicly it was considering making an offer, but the time WMG had to conduct due dilligence was brief and “not in our control,” Kyncl said, which also played a part in WMG walking away.
The company is “staying vigilant about M&A opportunities” that could enhance it’s goal of providing “lower-touch services that many independent artists, labels and songwriters rely on.”
Warner Chappell announced a partnership with BandLab and its artist service platform ReverbNation that aims to provide administration and a full-service JV tier to develop BandLab’s most promising writers.
A former YouTube executive and advocate for technology and music, Kyncl ended the call with a plug for “Where That Came From,” an AI-generated song by Grammy-award winning country star Randy Travis. Travis has suffered from aphasia since 2013, limiting his ability to sing. That he was able to release new music for the first time in years last week, was “a wonderful example of what is possible with AI,” Kyncl said.
Blackstone looked poised to take over Hipgnosis Songs Fund (HSF) on Thursday after Concord Music said it would not outbid the global investment firm.
Concord surprised Blackstone and the broader market on April 18 when it announced it had the unanimous support of HSF’s directors to take over the troubled music royalty fund for £0.93 ($1.14), a bid that valued the company at $1.402 billion.
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Concord once raised its offer to $1.25 per share, but Blackstone stole the board’s endorsement when it made it a superior offer that valued the company at $1.6 billion on April 29. Concord said Thursday that its last offer was final and will not be increased, effectively bowing out of the bidding war.
While Blackstone’s bid still needs approval from 75% of Hipgnosis Songs Fund shares, it has been the most likely buyer for shareholders looking for an offramp from the 5-year-old fund’s tumultuous last six months.
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Hipgnosis Songs Fund’s assets, which include stakes in the catalogs of Red Hot Chili Peppers, Neil Young, Journey, Lindsey Buckingham, Blondie and others, are prized by its investors and rival music companies, but the fund has been plagued by management and accounting missteps that overstated both revenue and its portfolio’s valuation, according to a due diligence report by investment bank Shot Tower Capital released March 28. HSF’s share price plummeted after its board cancelled the dividend and slashed the value of its portfolio.
Blackstone already owns two other entities under the Hipgnosis name — the private music assets investment fund Hipgnosis Songs Capital (HSC) and the the Merck Mercuriadis-led investment advisor Hipgnosis Song Management (HSM) .
An option in HSM’s contract effectively makes Hipgnosis Songs Fund Blackstone’s to lose. The option, which dates back to the fund’s initial public offering in July 2018, stipulates that the entity that Blackstone owns could match any take-over offer for the fund’s assets, a clause intended to give artists confidence their song rights and royalties would not frequently change hands.
HSF’s board will meet in June and is expected to hold a shareholder vote to approve Blackstone’s bid, with a deal ultimately coming to a close possibly in mid-July.
Influential shareholder advisory groups Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis advised Universal Music Group (UMG) investors to vote their disapproval of a UMG compensation report that details CEO Lucian Grainge‘s 2023 pay package, which included a one-time $100 million stock and options award, when it’s put to an advisory vote at UMG’s annual meeting on May 16.
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It’s the second year in a row that ISS and Glass Lewis have criticized Grainge’s compensation package –with ISS calling it “excessive” and Glass Lewis saying it has “severe reservations” about UMG’s remuneration report – and it could stir opposition among investors, many of whom expressed reservations about payouts at last year’s annual meeting.
UMG did not respond to a request for comment.
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While investor advisory votes are non-binding and Grainge and other UMG executives are expected to keep their compensation regardless of the outcome, they are considered a measure of investor sentiment, which has hardened in recent years.
Last year, a slim majority of UMG investors – roughly 59% of shares – voted in favor of the executive pay packages for Grainge, who has been CEO of UMG since 2010, and his deputy CEO Vincent Vallejo, at the company’s annual meeting.
Other media and entertainment companies have fared worse. Investors in Cumulus Media overwhelmingly rejected CEO Mary Berner‘s $4.5 million 2023 compensation earlier this month. Last June, 53% of Live Nation shares were voted against CEO Michael Rapino‘s nearly $139 million 2022 compensation package.
Rapino and Live Nation’s president/CFO Joe Berchtold, who earned $52.4 million in 2022, were the best paid music executives of that year, and the board of the world’s largest concert promotion and ticketing company said that pay reflected “strong leadership decisions” made during the pandemic that contributed to a record-breaking $16.7 billion in Live Nation revenue in 2022.
Grainge, 64, was the third highest paid music executive of 2022, having made a total compensation of 47.3 million euros ($49.7 million) thanks to a 28.8 million euros ($30.3 million) performance bonus in addition to a base salary of 15.4 million euros ($16.2 million).
For 2023, Grainge’s base salary and cash bonus were reduced by half to 7.5 million euros (just over $8 million) and 15.16 million euros (nearly $16.3 million), respectively. The significant boost to his total compensation is owed to a one-time transition equity award worth 92,406,852 euros (roughly $100 million) that is comprised of 50% restricted stock units and 50% performance stock options. The performance stock options vest over the coming five years and can only be excised once UMG’s stock hits certain thresholds. UMG’s stock last traded at 29.23 euros ($31.44).
Taking into account other short-term and long-term incentives and benefits, Grainge’s total 2023 compensation is 138,814,000 euros or $128,264,000 based on a monthly average foreign exchange rate of 0.924.
The shareholder advisory firms were aligned in their concerns over how UMG’s pay practices compared to similar companies and argued the one-time transition award was not sufficiently linked to the company’s stock performance.
ISS said Grainge’s pay was more than 25 times higher than the median pay of CEOs from a peer group that included companies like Spotify and Vivendi.
In its report, Glass Lewis cited an alert published by Eumedion, the Dutch Corporate Governance Forum for institutional investors, which said it was “unclear if the company can count on societal support for the CEO’s total remuneration … in addition to the dissent shareholders expressed at the company’s 2023 general meeting.”
UMG said in its annual report that “the increase in remuneration year-over-year is primarily driven by the transition to a more performance-based and share-based remuneration package.”
UMG’s stock rose 17% in 2023, “which it believes is indicative of the success of its recent remuneration practices in incentivizing the creation of value,” according to the Glass Lewis report.
ISS also recommended investors vote against the election of Bill Ackman, the billionaire investor whose Pershing Square Capital Management owns 10.25% of UMG, and also against Cyrille Bollore, Manning Doherty, Catherine Lawson-Hall, James Mitchell and Vincent Vallejo, because the board “lacks sufficient independence among its members.”
Mexican hitmaker Peso Pluma has signed with CAA in all areas. The corridos singer has had a massive year leading regional Mexican music’s global movement, all while making history along the way. In 2023 alone, Peso Pluma entered 24 songs on the Hot 100, including the global smash hit “Ella Baila Sola,” his collaboration with […]
Cinq Music has acquired the music catalog of hitmaker Flow La Movie, Billboard can announce. The late producer’s robust catalog includes reggaetón megahits “Te Boté” and “La Jeepeta” — the former topped Billboard‘s Hot Latin Songs for 14 weeks in 2018. The catalog acquisition comes nearly three years since Flow La Movie (born José Angel […]
Shares of Live Nation jumped 7.2% to $94.66 on Friday following the company’s earnings report on Thursday (May 2), which showed the concert promotion and ticketing giant had a record first quarter. Revenue of $3.8 billion was up 21% year over year, and the company said it expects strong results in 2024 from its arena and high-margin amphitheater businesses.
Investors may have been encouraged by Live Nation’s insistence during Thursday’s earnings call that the U.S. Department of Justice does not pose a mortal threat to the company. Commenting about an April 16 Wall Street Journal article about a pending DOJ lawsuit, president and CFO Joe Berchtold dismissed the notion that regulators could force Live Nation to sever its concert promotion and ticketing businesses. “Very little of the conduct the DOJ has raised with us relates to the combination of ticketing and promotion resulting from the merger,” he said. “And most of what does was anticipated and addressed by the consent decree allowing the merger to go forward.
“Based on the issues we know about,” Berchtold added, “we don’t believe a breakup of Live Nation and Ticketmaster would be a legally permissible remedy.”
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Live Nation hasn’t fully recovered since news of a pending DOJ lawsuit broke. Through Wednesday (May 1), Live Nation shares had lost 11.5% since the WSJ article. Friday’s 7.2% gain helped Live Nation recover nearly half of that loss.
Numerous analysts see upside in Live Nation’s stock. On Tuesday, Deutsche Bank initiated coverage of Live Nation with a $120 price target and a “buy” rating. Following Thursday’s earnings release, Jefferies upped its price target to $115 from $114, Wolf Research raised its price target to $131 from $128, and Benchmark increased its price target to $132 from $130. CFRA downgraded Live Nation to “hold” from “strong buy,” however, and lowered its price target to $105 from $120.
Live Nation was one of the best-performing music stocks in a week the vast majority of them posted gains. Seventeen of the index’s 20 stocks gained ground this week, helping the Billboard Global Music Index improve 3.8% to 1,824.29 and nearly match the all-time high of 1,841.66 reached four weeks ago. Two stocks — Abu Dhabi-based music streamer Anghami and New York-based label and publisher Reservoir Media — posted losses and one stock, French music company Believe, was unchanged.
Universal Music Group shares climbed 4.9% to 28.92 euros ($31.16) following its first-quarter earnings release on Thursday and its announcement of a renewed licensing deal with TikTok. UMG’s earnings rose 6% (8% at constant currency) to 2.59 billion euros ($2.8 billion) and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) improved 13.2% to 591 million euros ($640 million).
K-pop company SM Entertainment was the week’s best performer after gaining 5.9% to 85,800 won ($63.27). Warner Music Group rose 5.4% to $34.14. iHeartMedia climbed 5.1% to $2.25. Cumulus Media gained 2.6% — and rose 4.2% on Friday — after its first-quarter earnings showed its 2.7% decline in revenue, to $200 million, was in line with previous guidance.
SiriusXM shares improved 3.3% to $3.12 this week despite falling 7.2% on Monday after its first-quarter earnings report showed the company’s self-pay subscribers dropped by 1.4%. Many analysts cut their price targets in the wake of the earnings. Barrington dropped SiriusXM to $4.75 from $5.75 and maintained its “outperform” rating. Deutsche Bank lowered its price target to $3.75 from $5 and kept its “hold” rating. Goldman Sachs dropped its price target to $3.25 from $3.50 and upgraded its rating to “neutral” from “sell.”
On Saturday night (April 27), Vancouver witnessed Diljit Dosanjh make history. The artist kicked off his Dil-Luminati tour with a sold-out stadium show at BC Place to a crowd of 54,000 people — making it the largest ever Punjabi music concert outside of India.
The show leaned into its historic accomplishment, with an ominous voice preceding Diljit Dosanjh’s entry, “Remember, firsts are always special and what you witness here will never be repeated.”
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In over two decades in the music and film industry, Dosanjh has solidified himself as a global star. Last year, he was the first Indian-born Punjabi singer to perform at Coachella and has recently made strides for international music amassing hundreds of millions of streams on collaborative tracks with Sia, Saweetie and Camilo respectively. More recently, Dosanjh is fresh off the critical acclaim of his performance of the titular Amar Singh Chamkila, a Bollywood biopic about the life and death of the controversial Punjabi singer who was killed at the height of his fame in 1988.
With anticipation palpable in the air, Dosanjh delivered a high-powered 27-song set with charisma and an undeniable star-power that easily captivated the record-breaking audience. It was an unabashed celebration of Punjabi music and culture.
The artist has a deep connection to Vancouver. Several of his popular Punjabi films that accelerated his career like Jatt and Juliet and Honsla Rakh were filmed across Greater Vancouver, making this moment that much more special for fans who have been longtime supporters far before his recent international successes.
“Now, Punjabis have made it to stadiums,” Dosanjh said. “The next generation won’t be able to say that this has never happened before. Now for generations to come, our kids can dream even bigger.”
During his performance of “Vibe,” the singer scooped up a young fan from the crowd who was dressed in signature Diljit Dosanjh attire, inviting him to dance with him. As the boy, understandably intimidated by the size of the crowd in front him, got more comfortable, he broke into dance himself. It was his hopes for the next generation coming to life right in front of him — a child who can now literally see himself on stage performing for a stadium of fans.
Dosanjh’s tour continues with arena dates in Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, Los Angeles and more, and another stadium date at Toronto’s Rogers Centre on July 13. – Jeevan Sangha
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Rising Canadian Stars Chani Nattan and Owen Riegling Make International Moves
Punjabi powerhouse lyricist Chani Nattan is the next signing to Warner Music Canada and Warner Music India’s joint venture, 91 North Records. Nattan will join fellow Punjabi-Canadian artists Karan Aujla, Jonita Gandhi and AR Paisley on the label, which was created to support South Asian artists.
Born and raised in Surrey, B.C., Nattan has already broken through to Punjabi music audiences around the world. In 2021, Nattan teamed up with Inderpal Moga and released “Daku” — a heady Punjabi hip-hop track that has garnered 247 million views on YouTube, and became one of the most streamed songs on Spotify India. With Sukha and Punjabi singer Gurlez Akhtar, Nattan’s “8 Asle” sparked a viral TikTok dance trend and charted on the Billboard Canadian Hot 100.
Nattan marks the signing with the release of his new song “Facetime,” alongside frequent collaborator Inderpal Moga and iconic Punjabi singer Miss Pooja.
Nattan uses a traditional Punjabi duet style, typically consisting of a playful back and forth between a quarreling couple. “Facetime” blends those old-school Punjabi vibes with the hip-hop elements that he is so heavily influenced by, Nattan tells Billboard Canada.
“The beats are different but the heart and soul of it maintains the sound of Punjab and its concepts,” he says. “It’s about honouring our roots while embracing the evolution of our music.”
Meanwhile, Canadian-based management and production company Workshop Music Group has announced a new partnership with talent representation company The Familie to co-manage rising young country singer-songwriter Owen Riegling. The Familie’s client roster includes Machine Gun Kelly and Avril Lavigne and it recently launched a country music division.
Now boasting over 50M global streams for his songs, Riegling won the 2022 Emerging Artists Showcase at the CanCountry mega-fest Boots & Hearts, then signed his record deal with Universal Music Canada. Last year he was selected for Apple Music’s UpNext Program and is now part of Spotify’s Hot Country Artists To Watch and Amazon Canada’s Breakthrough Artists to Watch 2024. – Jeevan Sanha & Kerry Doole
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Toronto Chinese Restaurant Gets a Boost from Kendrick Lamar’s Namedrop
Toronto caught a few strays in Kendrick Lamar’s “Euphoria,” the first of two diss tracks aimed at hometown star Drake. While listing all the things he hates about Drizzy, Kendrick takes a moment to slip into an exaggerated Toronto accent complete with local slang and a surprising reference to a popular late-night Chinatown restaurant: “I be at New Ho King eatin’ fried rice with a dip sauce and a blammy, crodie,” he raps.
CityNews spoke to New Ho King owner Johnny Lu for a TV segment. Playing him the track, they get his live reaction to the nametrack: “I see, Kendrick’s a good guy. Oh my God!” he says.
CityNews also caught up with residents who are fans of Kendrick who made trips just to give the fried rice dish a try. “I came all the way from Markham just to see this fried rice,” one says. “Kendrick Lamar, man. You gotta pay respect to K. Dot, man. Ever since he dropped the diss track I was like, ‘I gotta visit this place.’”
The reference may have had a darker meaning than just fried rice, with some fans believing it was a sly reference to Drake’s 2009 armed robbery. Toronto rapper Sizzlac, who was rumoured to be part of the robbery, once filmed a music video at New Ho King, which may be how the restaurant hit Kendrick’s radar. But New Ho King is reaping the rewards. Since the track dropped, New Ho King has been showered with five-star reviews on Google and Yelp. – Richard Trapunski
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Independent talent agency 33 & West has hired veteran music agent Christianne Weiss to support the agency’s expansion. As part of her multiyear deal with 33 & West, Weiss is bringing the multiplatinum Grammy-nominated artist Starship to the company’s artist roster, with more to be announced in the coming weeks. Explore Explore See latest videos, […]
Chinese music streaming service provider NetEase Cloud Music entered a licensing agreement with K-pop label JYP Entertainment, granting it the right to digitally distribute JYP’s catalog in China. JYP artists include J.Y. Park, TWICE, Stray Kids, BOY STORY, ITZY, Yao Chen and NMIXX.
TikTok announced a partnership with European ticketing provider CTS Eventim through which artists can now promote their live dates in their TikTok videos and sell tickets via the CTS Eventim platform. The feature is available to any certified artist on TikTok in Germany, with additional markets to follow.
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Warner Music South East Europe launched Balkan Electro, a new EDM-focused label, in collaboration with Ensis Records. Through the deal, Ensis artists can be distributed, upstreamed and marketed through the new label. Warner Music Poland will also collaborate to sign new local talent to Balkan Electro, which will additionally team with Amsterdam-based Spinnin’ Records and the dance-focused teams at Warner Music Central Europe and Warner Music France. The first releases on Balkan Electo are Prisko and TBX’s “Back to 95” (April 19), Melli’s “Losing My Mind” (April 26) and Kevin’s Palacios and Jordan’s Grace’s “Bright As You” (May 10).
The City of El Paso has approved a $30.9 million performance-based incentive agreement to support the creation of Notes Live‘s new $80 million, 12,500-capacity open-air amphitheater in El Paso, Tex., to be named the Sunset Amphitheater. According to a press release, the project will support more than 2,000 direct and indirect jobs with the potential to generate a $5.4 billion impact for the El Paso community. Construction is slated to begin in late 2024 with an opening set for early 2026.
Concert discovery app Songkick teamed up with Black music and culture ticketing and marketing company Shoobs in a deal that will see Songkick list and promote Shoobs events to its 155 million users via its app, website and eCRM. The partnership is designed to boost the visibility of Black culture events and performers including Afro Nation Portugal, Burna Boy and Piano People in the Park.
Ticketing company AXS acquired a majority stake in WRSTBND, a provider of access control, credentialing and point-of-sale solutions for live events and venues. WRSTBND will use the investment to grow its capabilities and offerings to clients while integrating AXS’ Mobile ID technology with WRSTBND’s ecosystem. “[WRSTBND’s] hardware and software technology combined with the scale of AXS’ premier festivals and live event clients, including Coachella, New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Fest, and Hyde Park BST will create the most seamless and cutting-edge access and payment solutions available anywhere,” said AXS chief strategy officer Marc Ruxin in a statement.
Celebrity Coaches, which provides transportation and logistics for live events, acquired Nashville-based entertainment coach leasing company Moonstruck Leasing. The acquisition will add several luxury Prevost motorcoaches to Celebrity’s existing fleet. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The Irish Music Rights Organisation (IMRO), an international performing rights organization, partnered with music recognition technology company Audoo to implement its Audoo Audio Meter in select public spaces and retail locations in urban areas across Ireland, with plans to expand it to all business types in the country. The partnership is designed to help promote a more accurate and transparent breakdown of royalty distributions to music creators by recognizing background music being played via Audoo Audio Meteres and reporting the data back to IMRO. Business owners in Ireland can request an Audoo Audio Meter free of charge.
Private equity firm PAI Partners acquired a majority stake in Audiotonix, which designs, engineers and manufactures professional audio mixing consoles, production software and ancillary products. Investment house Ardian (which acquired Audiotonix in March 2020) will retain a minority stake alongside Audiotonix management. The U.K.-headquartered Audiotonix specializes in designing, engineering and manufacturing products that help enable high sound quality for several formats, including concerts, theater shows and sporting events. Its products have been used on tours by artists including Coldplay and U2 as well as at the Super Bowl and Sphere in Las Vegas.
RoEx, a tech startup driving intelligent audio production tools, was awarded a 250,000 pound ($313,000) grant by national innovation agency Innovate UK as part of a funding competition called Creative Catalyst: AI in the Music Industry. The grant will support the research and development of RoEx’s new model, ProStyle, which will provide a platform for mix engineers to partner with RoEx to train a machine learning model that captures their individual mixing style, thereby allowing them to monetize their sonic identity. Through this, the goal is for musicians and creators to have the ability to mix tracks in the engineer’s style using ProStyle.
Full-service entertainment marketing company FlyteVu and Club CMO, a community of more than 1,500 chief marketing officers across 30 cities globally, struck a partnership through which FlyteVu will offer Club CMO members “backstage” access — both in-person and virtually — to FlyteVu-marketed sports, music and pop culture events. Through the partnership, Club CMO members will be offered a closer look at FlyteVu’s industry expertise and knowledge, which they can then take back to their own organizations.
K-pop giant HYBE posted its lowest total revenue in two years as its recorded music segment sank to its lowest level in seven quarters, the South Korean company announced Thursday (May 2).
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HYBE had first quarter revenue of 360.9 billion won ($271.5 million), down 12.1% year over year and the lowest since posting 285 billion won ($214.4 million) in the first quarter of 2022. Operating profit fell precipitously to 14.4 billion won ($10.8 million), down 72.6% from the prior-year period.
HYBE’s share price was barely affected by the slowest quarter in years. The share price initially rose 1.7% to 205,500 won ($149.23) but my midday had fallen to 201,500 ($146.33), down 0.2%. The stock is down 13.7% year to date, however, and fell 12.6% last week following news that HYBE will report the CEO of its ADOR imprint, Min Hee-jin, to the police for “breach of trust and other related allegations.”
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Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), a measure of profitability that strips out non-cash items, was 39.8 billion won ($29.9 million), down 45% year over year and the lowest since the first quarter of 2021.
Concerts revenue of 44 billion won ($33.1 million) was up 74.5% year over year. Although that was the biggest year-over-year increase of any category, the first quarter of 2023 was abnormally slow. HYBE’s latest quarter was on par with 45.3 billion won ($34.1 million) of concert revenue in the fourth quarter of 2021, the first quarter the company had performances after COVID-19 restrictions shut down the touring industry.
Recorded music, the company’s largest segment at 40.2% of total revenue, fell 21.3% to 145.1 billion won ($109.2 million). HYBE successfully debuted two new groups during the quarter. Sparkling Blue, the debut EP by PLEDIS Entertainment boy band TWS, sold 260,000 units in its first week for and accumulated 500,000 units in the first nine weeks of release. Girl group ILLIT’s EP, Super Real Me, released through BELIFT LAB, sold 380,000 units in its debut week and reached the 500,000-unit mark in just four weeks. The single “Magnetic” debuted at No. 91 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in April.
Merchandising and licensing fell 11.9% to 60.7 billion won ($45.7 million). Contents fared worse, dropping 29.8% to 61.1 billion won ($46 million).
Weverse, HYBE’s social media platform, saw its monthly active users (MAUs) decline for the second quarter. After reaching a peak of 10.6 million MAUs in the third quarter of 2023, MAUs fell to 10.1 million in the fourth quarter and 9.2 million in the first quarter. Both average revenue per paying user and payment amount fell below levels reached in 2022 and 2023; HYBE does not provide specific numbers for either metric.