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It’s time for another spin around the Executive Turntable, Billboard’s comprehensive(ish) compendium of promotions, hirings, exits and firings — and all things in between — across music. Check out this year’s Pride List of top LGBTQ+ executives in the industry. 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.
Universal Music Sweden managing director Joakim Johansson has been promoted to president of the entire Nordics region for Universal Music Central Europe. He’ll continue MD’ing on the Sweden side but adds oversight of UMG operations in Denmark, Norway and Finland, as well as the Baltics (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania). The individual directors of those markets (Casper Bengtson/Denmark, Kimmo Valtanen/Finland and Bjørn Rogstad/Norway) will now report directly to Johannson, who continues to beeline to Frank Briegmann, chairman & CEO of UMCE and Deutsche Grammophon. Johansson’s expanded role aligns with Briegmann’s ongoing strategy to amplify cross-market collaboration and innovations throughout Central Europe. Johansson joined the company in 2013 as GM of Universal Music Sweden, being promoted to MD six years later. “The Nordic countries boast a rich musical heritage and are at the forefront of industry innovation,” he said. “It’s an honor to lead our talented team in this vibrant region, and I look forward to driving our vision into the future.”
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Audacy elevated journeyman Jeff Sottolano to chief programming officer, effective immediately. Sottolano, who joined CBS Radio in 2001 as an intern and has served as executive vp and head of programing since 2021, will now oversee content strategy and creation in all formats across broadcast, streaming and podcasts, as well as work with product and technology teams on ways to improve creator tools and more. Over a 15-year stretch at CBS, which was acquired in 2017 by Entercom (later Audacy), Sottolano held programming roles in Rochester and Philadelphia before joining the front office in 2014 as director of programming. During the Entercom era, he rose to executive vp of programming, which carried over following the post-Audacy rebrand. For most of the last decade, Sottolano’s brand portfolio has gained market share in the A25-54 demo and he has led numerous company-wide initiatives including Audacy Launch, the company’s new music discovery platform for rising artists. “I consider myself so fortunate to work with our programmers, talent, anchors, reporters and producers who, together, build incredible brands, entertain and inform, and make a difference in the lives of millions of consumers every day,” said Sottolano.
Spirit Music Group appointed Lou Al-Chamaa to executive vp of A&R, a role based in Los Angeles and reporting to Spirit’s chief creative officer, Frank Rogers, who lauded the new hire’s “drive, passion and experience in building successful writer rosters” while in senior roles at AVEX USA, Sony Music Publishing and during his time as a consultant. “The opportunity to collaborate with such a forward-thinking team and contribute to the evolution of music creation is incredibly inspiring,” Al-Chamaa said. “I am deeply committed to fostering an environment where artists, songwriters, and producers can thrive creatively.”
Capitol Christian Music Group boosted its A&R efforts at a pair of its most storied imprints. Walter Thomas is promoted from director of artist development at CCMG to the new position of vp of artist development for Motown Gospel and TAMLA. Thomas, who joined the UMG label group last year, reports to CCMG co-presidents Brad O’Donnell and Hudson Plachy. Working closely with Thomas is Alexandria “Dria” Dollar, who joined CCMG in the role of senior director of A&R at TAMLA and Motown Gospel following a stretch as director of A&R at Reach Records in Atlanta. “These iconic labels have a legacy of inspiring and uplifting music,” said Thomas, adding that “Alexandria’s innovative approach and keen ear for talent are unmatched, and I am confident that together we will elevate our artists to new heights.”
Kelly Bolton
Credit: Jessica Amerson
Warner Records added Kelly Bolton as vp of A&R. Working out of Nashville, Bolton will work with Warner co-chairman/CEO Aaron Bay-Schuck on signing, developing, and cultivating country artists for the Los Angeles-based label. Bolton will report to executive vp and head of A&R Karen Kwak. Over the past few years, Warner has added artists including Zach Bryan, Dasha and Warren Zeiders to its roster. Bolton most recently served five years at Ashley Gorley’s Tape Room Music, rising to senior vp of A&R. Prior career stops include Big Deal Music and Black River Entertainment. –Jessica Nicholson
RADIO, RADIO: Vox co-founder Melissa Bell is the next CEO of Chicago Public Media, non-profit owner of WBEZ and the Chicago Sun-Times. She succeeds Matt Moog and officially starts Sept. 3 … Not so fast on that retirement, Joe Verbrugge. SiriusXM‘s chief commercial officer was supposed to depart yesterday (June 27) but will instead remain in place until July 31 before switching to a part-time role as advisor to the CEO through the end of the year.
Wasserman Music added three veterans to its global ranks as it looks to build on the firm’s suite of client services. Joining the London team as manager of tour marketing is Adam Clements, who has 15 years of experience between stops at Birmingham’s O2 Academy and O2 Institute, Eventim UK and AEG Presents. Over in Chicago, Oskar Muller joined as director of pricing & ticketing (Chicago) after serving as pricing director at Live Nation Entertainment. Finally, in sunny L.A., Jenn Rilloraza joined as manager of brand partnerships following time as director of marketing, brands and creative services for Create Music Group’s VRTCL vertical. “We are relentless in continually creating new ways to serve our valued clients around the world, and these important new additions to Team Wass reflect that,” glowed Wasserman Music president Lee Anderson.
The Academy of Country Music made promotions and new hires across several departments. Tommy Moore has been promoted to chief of staff and vp, industry relations & awards, board administration and governance. Kris Reyes has been promoted to senior director of finance, operations and HR. Meanwhile, Jesse Knutson has been elevated to director of publicity and media relations. Haley Montgomery has been elevated to director of industry relations & awards, while Jennifer Davis has been promoted to senior manager of events. Brittany Uhniat has been promoted to manager of content & creative production. New hires include Katie Casserly as coordinator of social media, with Maggie Feyrer hired as coordinator of strategic partnerships and Delaney Loughran as assistant, industry relations & awards. –J.N.
BOARD SHORTS: The Association of Music Producers elected Matt Nelson of Yessian Music as the ad music trade group’s new president of its national board. Nelson, who joined the board’s eastern chapter six years ago, succeeds Carol Dunn as national board president. Succeeding Nelson as president of the eastern chapter will be Made Music Studio executive Amy Crawford … The International Bluegrass Music Association elected two new members of its board and welcomed the return of a third. After a year away, former IBMA board chair Mike Simpson is back, and joins newcomers CJ Lewandowski and Annie Savage as board officers … Musicians On Call appointed True Public Relations co-owner Marcel Pariseau and songwriter Sam Hollander to its national board of directors.
Dylan Brewer, a veteran label executive and experiential marketer, launched a new creative music company dubbed FRAUDULENT. Since forming, the Los Angeles-based firm has already worked on campaigns for Laufey (alongside Microsoft) and Jessie Reyez. The two-time Clio award winner was most recently vp of marketing and head of experiential at Epic Records, working on a roster including Ozzy Osbourne, Madison Beer, Bakar, BEAM, AG Club, Headie One, J Hus and more. Prior to joining Epic in 2018, Brewer was a marketing and strategy lead at Def Jam Recordings for over three years, and earlier in his career produced music campaigns at Google. Reach out to Brewer at hi@fraudulent.live.
WHY&HOW added veteran artist manager Patrick Farr to its management team, based in Nashville. Farr arrives following six years at his own Revelator Management company, and another six at Philymack before that. During his career he has worked with such artists as Nick Jonas, DNCE and Demi Lovato, as well as Sophia Scott, who comes with him to WHY&HOW. “Not only does Patrick bring immense experience, but a fitting addition to our roster in Sophia Scott,” said WHY&HOW founder & CEO Bruce Kalmick. “I’ve been a fan of Patrick’s work ethic and savvy approach to artis development for a long time – we look forward to having him jump in with our team.”
NASHVILLE NOTES: Lauren Thomas was promoted to Columbia Nashville svp of promotion from vp and will have a day-to-day role with both the Columbia and RCA Nashville imprints … Big Machine Label Group promoted Ashley Sidoti to svp of promotion and digital for its Valory Music Co. imprint. Sidoti most recently served as vp of promotion and digital … The Gospel Music Association appointed veteran producer, marketer and network leader Steve Gilreath as executive director of the Christian & Gospel Music Museum at the Dove Center. Gilreath will report directly to Jackie Patillo, president of the Gospel Music Association … The Academy of Country Music is looking for a director of brand creative and design, as well as a director of strategic partnerships. View the listings here.
Influencer marketing agency VRTCL elevated Imani “Mango” Lewis to director, overseeing operations for the entire VRTCL team. Lewis, who is based in Los Angeles, joined VRTCL in March 2021 as music department manager before rising to head of music — and then director of music — last year. Recent wins for the viral content firm include campaigns for Beyonce’s “Texas Hold Em,” Kasha’s “Austin” and Lil Durk’s “All My Life.” “Imani’s exceptional talent and dedication have consistently driven some of our most successful influencer campaigns in recent years,” said Ash Stahl, CEO of umbrella company FH Media. “Her innovative strategies and unwavering commitment to excellence make her an invaluable asset to the VRTCL team.”
BSI Merch, a UK-based independent music merch and tech company, selected Charlie Simmonds to lead its expansion into the Asia-Pacific market. Located in Tokyo, the new outpost will primarily focus on e-commerce, merch supply, tour support, sales and superfan-related services. “By focusing on e-commerce and localising our services, we aim to deliver world-class support and grow our presence in this key market,” said Andy Allen, CEO. Throughout his career, Simmonds has worked with such artists as Billie Eilish and Sticky Fingers, and events including New York Comic Con and Signature Brew.
ICYMI:
Cheryl Paglierani
UK Music made it official, appointing interim chief Tom Kiehl as full-on chief executive of the music trade body. He succeeds Jamie Njoku-Goodwin, who left last year to work for soon-to-be former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak … Music agent Cheryl Paglierani joins CAA from UTA, where she served as a partner … Rodrigo Prichard was named general manager of Rimas Entertainment, effective July 1. Meanwhile, Kristen Quintero-Garriga has been named vp of brand partnerships under RIT.MO.
Last Week’s Turntable: SXSW London Staffs Up
Music instruction platform Yousician launched a partnership with Billie Eilish under which all 10 songs from Eilish’s latest album, Hit Me Hard and Soft, will be featured on the platform. Yousician users can now learn Eilish’s new songs on guitar, bass, ukelele, piano and vocals, in addition to more than 20 additional Eilish songs that are already available on the platform. Yousician provides users with lyrics, chords, step-by-step tutorials and real-time individualized feedback. This marks Yousician’s first deal with a major artist since its Metallica collaboration in 2022.
Warner Music Group’s ADA signed a global distribution deal with 11:11 Media, the media and consumer lifestyle company founded by Paris Hilton, who recently announced the Sept. 6 drop of her sophomore album, INFINITE ICON. “ADA gives me the ability to share my music with the world while maintaining ownership of it — which is so important to me, as an artist and entrepreneur,” said Hilton in a statement.
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Warner Music Group acquired a minority stake in the independent Croatian music company Dancing Bear Music. Under the deal, Dancing Bear artists will be able to utilize the services offered by ADA, Warner Music’s global distribution and label services arm, with the opportunity to upstream and become part of Warner Music’s global roster. The deal also includes a renewal of the companies’ licensing agreement covering Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and North Macedonia. Dancing Bear has acted as Warner Music’s licensee in Croatia since 1996, while its sister company, Dancing Bear Publishing, acts as a local representative of Warner Chappell Music. Artists on the Dancing Bear roster include Dalmatino, Bruno Pietri and Pete Spruce.
The BBC invested 500,000 pounds in Condense, a live-streaming platform that allows fans to experience live shows in an immersive virtual space. The announcement follows BBC Radio 1’s New Music Show with Jack Saunders hosting a series of Condense live-streams with artists including Gardna, Charlotte Plank and Sam Tompkins. Jo Sherlock, group rights and commercial director at the BBC, will serve as Condense’s contact at the broadcaster; she will help shape the growth of the partnership as an observer on the Condense board. “By partnering in this way, we can rapidly explore new ways to engage younger audiences who don’t regularly come to the BBC,” said BBC head of ventures Jeremy Walker in a blog post.
Juan Munoz‘s independent label Night Stone Records signed a global distribution deal with The Orchard. Night Stone’s roster includes B. Howard, Otti, RMB Justize, PRIVATEHOUR, Kris Hollis, DJ So Cole and Million$. All will have access to The Orchard’s suite of services, including global distribution, DSP and digital partner pitching, marketing, synch licensing, video services, data analysis, advertising and radio promotion. Night Stone also announced the launch of Night Stone Games, an independent game studio that will be led by Ken Fox, co-founder of Warner Brothers Games San Francisco.
Created by Humans, which aims to create a marketplace where creators can license their intellectual property directly to AI companies, raised a $5 million funding round led by Craft Ventures and Floodgate, with participation from LAUNCH Fund, Slow Ventures, Garry Tan and Walter Isaacson.
Downtown-owned business-to-business distributor FUGA formed a partnership with two labels: Paris-based independent label Record Makers and Potion Records, founded by DJ/producer The Magician. Record Makers, whose roster includes Sébastien Tellier, Kavinsky and Dita Von Teese, struck a global distribution and marketing deal with Downtown that will include expanded services across Downtown’s marketing strategy and marketing accounts offering, as well as synch. Potion Records will utilize FUGA’s marketing strategy and digital accounts offering along with synch and licensing services. The Potion roster includes The Ashton Shuffle, Soda State and Aevion.
Sony Music Entertainment India and Maddock Films partnered to produce music projects that will cover both film soundtracks and independent pop projects featuring Indian talent. The deal launches with soundtracks for the upcoming films Chhava starring Vicky Kaushal and Rashmika Mandanna with music by A.R. Rahman, Diler featuring Ibrahim Ali Khan and Ikkis starring Agastya Nanda with music by Sachin-Jigar. The soundtracks for Luka Chhupi 2, Sector 36 starring Vikrant Massey, Sarvagunn Sampan starring Vaani Kapoor and Rumi Ki Sharafat starring Radhika Madan also fall under the partnership.
Leading Bulgarian music event organizer Fest Team signed a preliminary contract to acquire East European promoter, talent buyer and artist agency Charmenko, which encompasses Charm Music and Charmworks. With the acquisition, Fest Team hopes to expand its regional presence and operations across Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Turkey, the Baltic regions and more. The acquisition is set to be finalized later this summer.
Primary Wave will acquire the music publishing and select master recording assets of Nuno Bettencourt, the guitar player for Extreme, the company announced Thursday (June 27). The deal — which excludes the band’s aptly titled sixth album, 2023’s Six — includes all of Bettencourt’s publishing, such as administration rights; his share of Extreme’s master recordings in which the […]
More than 50 members of the music industry have joined an advisory committee to help guide an ongoing study by MIT’s Environmental Solutions Initiative.
The report, expected to be released this fall, is designed to provide a comprehensive assessment of the relationship between live music and climate change, to identify areas where the industry and concertgoers can make improvements to reduce emissions and create positive environmental outcomes, and to analyze the latest sustainable technology and systems that can be adopted in the live events space and other areas of the industry.
The ultimate goal of the study is to determine sector-specific and industry-wide decarbonization solutions.
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The new advisory board includes Live Nation president/CEO Michael Rapino along with other Live Nation execs; Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl; and reps from companies including Wasserman Music, WME, Atlantic Records, Upstaging, Inc., Farm Aid, Projects Tait, Global Motion Ltd., Women of Qolor Entertainment and many more.
On the artist side, the committee includes Ellie Goulding, Adam Met of AJR and representatives from the live and touring teams of artists including Billie Eilish, FINNEAS, Harry Styles, Shawn Mendes, Fred again.., Jack Johnson and Coldplay.
Participants also include reps from nonprofits and NGOs like Reverb, Support+Feed, Julie’s Bicycle, Global Citizen and Client Earth. See the complete list of participants here. Anyone can submit data to the report by emailing p1lm@mit.edu.
The MIT study is being executed with the support of Coldplay, Warner Music Group, Live Nation and consulting firm Hope Solutions.
“With the participation of the advisory committee and contributions of data from various sources, we are well on our way to producing a significant contribution to knowledge that can support meaningful actions to address climate change,” said Prof. John E. Fernandez, director of MIT’s environmental solutions initiative, in a statement.
“I would characterize the music industry as risk-averse,” Fernandez told Billboard in March of working within the industry. “It’s a business, and artists are trying to make a living, so we’ve seen an enormous amount of concern over the risk entailed with making a commitment to reduce emissions.”
Over the past decade, as U.S. recorded music revenue grew from $7 billion in 2014 to $17 billion in 2023, the combined market share of music sales and streaming controlled by the three major labels went from 64.9% in 2014 to 64.3% in 2023, Billboard estimates. That modest decline, which counts only music that the majors control rather than just distribute, came even as the companies bought market share with acquisitions of independent labels like 300 Entertainment, 12Tone and Alamo, plus buyouts of joint ventures. And it came about partly because about 5% of the global recorded music market — about $1.5 billion annually, according to a Billboard estimate — is now controlled by digital distribution services that mostly serve DIY and independent artists such as CD Baby, DistroKid and TuneCore, which I founded and ran until 2012. And this part of the market is projected to continue to grow.
This comes as consumers have access to more independent music than ever on the same online services, and even the same playlists, as major label releases. But one of the responses from the major music companies seems to be, if you can’t beat them, push to change the rules to take a portion of their royalties.
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Last year, the three major labels made separate deals with Spotify, as well as with Deezer, on new licensing terms for recordings, to which all other rightsholders on those platforms have to agree. The new agreements changed the policy on when a stream of a recording can generate a royalty, and in some cases the amount earned. In addition, this year, under the rules laid out by the Music Modernization Act (MMA), some portion of the “accrued but unpaid” mechanical “black box” royalties currently held by the Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) become eligible to be paid out to member publishers, some of which have executives on the MLC board, based on their market share on the platform and at the time the royalties were earned. Although both policies apply to the entire market, they will redistribute revenue disproportionately to large labels and publishers, especially the majors, at the expense of smaller companies and DIY and independent creators.
Deezer now applies a royalty multiplier to tracks by artists that have at least 1,000 streams per month from 500 unique listeners, a policy that generally benefits major label artists, who tend to be more popular. Under Spotify’s new deal terms, royalties that previously would have been paid out on recordings with fewer than 1,000 streams over the course of the prior 12 months are now essentially reallocated to recordings that streamed more than 1,000 times over that same time period. And since the majors control fewer recordings that stream less than 1,000 times compared to the vast number controlled by DIY creators and independent labels, those royalties will overall go disproportionately to them.
In 2023, there were 106 million recordings that received between one and 1,000 streams (others generated no streams at all), which together accounted for a total of 13.68 billion streams globally, according to Luminate. Since each Spotify stream is worth a global average of between $0.0038 and $0.0042, that suggests that, although it’s hard to measure the impact of individual services, about $33 million a year could flow from smaller artists to more popular ones that are disproportionately signed to major labels.
To understand what these new policies mean in practice, consider the indie band Head of Femur. Over the last two decades, the band released several albums that include a total of 58 tracks. Under Spotify’s new model, the service will only pay out royalties for the band’s recordings that streamed more than 1,000 times in the prior 12 months, no matter how much the recordings streamed in total. In other words, a band with 58 tracks that stream 999 times each, for a total of 57,942 streams, will make nothing — while a band with a single song that streams 1,000 times will get paid. The royalties that would have gone to those 57,942 streams will go to bigger acts — many of them on bigger labels.
The model for streaming mechanical royalties changed in a way that will benefit the same players. Before the October 2018 passage of the Music Modernization Act and the January 2021 creation of the Mechanical Licensing Collective, Spotify and other streaming services didn’t get the mechanical licenses they needed, and as a result faced multiple copyright infringement lawsuits, with potentially ruinous statutory damages. In addition, services weren’t paying out all, or in some cases any, royalties for some of the songs they had licensed — to the point that the MLC reported that it received $397.7 million in adjusted unpaid “historical” mechanical royalties that had been earned but not paid out. The Music Modernization Act was supposed to address these issues by making it easier to license mechanical rights and accurately pay publishers and songwriters.
In order to do this, the Music Modernization Act made three significant changes to the relevant parts of U.S. copyright law. First, it created a “blanket” compulsory license for digital services for every song ever written, to protect the services from liability for copyright infringement. Second, it shielded the services from liability for infringement before the law took effect. Third, it mandated the creation of a database to be administered by a designated “mechanical licensing collective,” with the goal of accounting to and paying publishers and songwriters billions of dollars in mechanical royalties generated by trillions of streams — promptly, accurately and transparently. The collective was also charged with paying out the $397.7 million in “historical” mechanical royalties earned but not paid out before 2021.
By enacting the MMA, Congress made mechanical licensing easier and protected digital services from liability for infringement. Although the law calls for penalties if digital services do not pay the MLC, it includes no specific regulations about the MLC paying rightsholders or offering rightsholders any remedies if it fails to do so. (The U.S. Copyright Office oversees the MLC and every five years reviews whether it should continue administering the compulsory license.) In fact, the Music Modernization Act states that its regulation of the mechanical licensing collective “shall supersede and preempt any State law (including common law) concerning escheatment or abandoned property, or any analogous provision, that might otherwise apply.”
That means that any unpaid mechanical royalties are subject solely to the Music Modernization Act, which says that after a certain amount of time they become eligible to be distributed according to “relative market share” of copyright owners “as reflected in reports of usage.” Essentially, the money is divided by market share on a given platform during a given time, which means that it will disproportionately go to larger publishers. So far, the MLC has yet to distribute any money based on market share. But as of June 2024, the MLC is sitting on $634 million in “black box” royalties that it has taken in but not distributed, according to the organization; it also received $397.7 million in undistributed historical royalties, of which it is sitting on $285.9 million. Eventually, all of that money — $919.9 million — will be eligible to be distributed by market share on a given platform and time period.
Over the next decade, predictions suggest that consumers will continue to turn their attention to a wider selection of DIY and independent artists. Under these policies, however, some of the revenue generated by their work will be disproportionately paid to the major labels and publishers instead of to the artists and songwriters who earned them.
Jeff Price is the founder and CEO of Word Collections. He previously co-founded and was GM of spinART Records and founded and was CEO of TuneCore and Audiam.
Following the unexpected shuttering of the MTV News website earlier this week, Paramount has now largely cleaned house on the sites for several more of its cable channels, in a potential cost-cutting move.
As of Wednesday afternoon, the sites for Comedy Central, CMT, Yellowstone airer Paramount Network and TV Land were instead directing users to the media conglomerate’s streaming platform Paramount+. On Monday, MTVnews.com was taken down, purging some 20 years of stories from the web.
A pop-up window on the Comedy Central site reads, “While episodes of most Comedy Central series are no longer available on this website, you can watch Comedy Central through your TV provider. You can also sign up for Paramount+ to watch many seasons of Comedy Central shows.” Similar language shows up on the CMT, Paramount Network and TV Land sites, as well as that of MTV (which was separate from MTVnews.com).
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aramount said in a statement, “As part of broader website changes across Paramount, we have introduced more streamlined versions of our sites, driving fans to Paramount+ to watch their favorite shows.”
As noted by LateNighter, the cleaning out of the Comedy Central site in particular wipes out a huge trove of archival material from The Daily Show and other late night series, along with clips from South Park, Key & Peele and Workaholics, among many others. Some of that material is available on YouTube, but it’s not as easily searchable or accessible as it was on the network page. (The oldest video on the Daily Show YouTube channel, for instance, is from 2016, while the show’s history stretches back 20 years before then.)
On Paramount+, only the two most recent seasons of The Daily Show are available. The platform has several South Park specials and the 1999 feature film Bigger, Longer and Uncut, but the show’s primary streaming home is on Max. Paramount+ does have the full runs of Key & Peele and Workaholics.
As of publication time, sites for Paramount’s BET, Nickelodeon and VH1 were still active, while MTV.com offered some episodes and clips.
The website changes come on the heels of Paramount’s co-CEOs — George Cheeks, Chris McCarthy and Brian Robbins — telling employees at a town hall meeting Tuesday that they were embarking on a cost-cutting mission as profits have dropped for the company. Paramount is looking for $500 million in reduced costs, which will mean layoffs for some employees. Cheeks also said at the town hall that “We’re looking at selling certain Paramount-owned assets — in fact, we’ve already hired bankers to assist us in this process — and we’ll use the proceeds to help pay down debt and strengthen our balance sheet.”
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
SXSW will no longer engage in partnerships with the U.S. Army or weapons manufacturers, the event announced Wednesday (June 26). “After careful consideration, we are revising our sponsorship model,” reads a statement posted to the SXSW website. “As a result, the U.S. Army, and companies who engage in weapons manufacturing, will not be sponsors of […]
Given the glacial pace at which federal antitrust litigation moves, the U.S. Department of Justice’s historic lawsuit against Live Nation and its wholly owned subsidiary Ticketmaster is expected to take years to wind its way through the legal system whether it’s fully adjudicated or the live-event Goliath agrees to make changes to its business, which the government often terms “behavioral remedies.”
And though it’s clearly too early to predict how the case will play out, legal expert and antitrust attorney Lawrence J. White from New York University’s Stern School of Business says the potential winners and losers have already been largely pre-determined based on hints found in the 128-page complaint that the DOJ filed May 23 in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York.
“The companies mentioned in the complaint as being the most harmed by anti-competitive behavior are typically the same companies that stand the most to gain in the solution,” White says.
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In the case of Live Nation, the winners will very likely be the company’s main concert promotion rival, AEG Presents; secondary-market ticketing competitor SeatGeek; and a handful of major independent promoters like Chicago’s Jam Productions. The losers would likely be Live Nation; Irving Azoff and Tim Leiweke’s venue owner, management and hospitality company, Oak View Group — which the DOJ alleges “has described itself as a ‘hammer’ and ‘protect[or]’ for Live Nation” — as well as, potentially, major artist management companies and talent agencies, depending on the government’s solution for more competitive ticket pricing.
“The government tends to rely on private companies to carry out its policy goals during the remedy phase of an antitrust case,” explains White, pointing toward the original consent decree drafted around the 2010 merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster. That agreement unsuccessfully propped up two private companies — AEG and Comcast Spectacor — to serve as competitors to Ticketmaster.
Whether the DOJ wins in court or ends up settling with Live Nation, White says it will lean on large corporations to assist with enforcement of the ruling. As Live Nation’s only major competitor for ticketing and concert promotion, AEG, which owns AXS Ticketing, is an obvious choice as a DOJ partner because of the company’s large scale, which will be critical for the DOJ’s long-shot goal to lower ticket prices. (The DOJ is believed to have interviewed more than 100 individuals from the live-music industry as part of its recent antitrust investigation into Live Nation.)
In a May 23 press release that announced the lawsuit filing, Attorney General Merrick Garland said, “We allege that Live Nation relies on unlawful, anti-competitive conduct to exercise its monopolistic control over the live-events industry in the United States at the cost of fans, artists, smaller promoters and venue operators.” He contends that increasing competition among Live Nation’s ticketing rivals and in the artist promotion space will lower the face value prices of tickets.
Prior to the 2010 merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster, four or five ticketing companies were capable of competing with the latter at the arena level. In 2024, only two remain: AXS and SeatGeek, the secondary site that also happens to own one of the only primary ticketing products capable of servicing major arenas and stadiums.
In a statement released to Billboard, SeatGeek said, “We are hopeful that the Department of Justice’s antitrust lawsuit to break up the Live Nation-Ticketmaster monopoly will restore fair market competition to live entertainment.” On the concert promotion front, there are far fewer major independent promoters now than there were prior to 2010 and only a handful capable of touring major arena acts across the country. In addition to Jam Productions, they include Nashville’s Outback Concerts and Another Planet Entertainment in the San Francisco Bay Area. All three promoters declined to comment for this story.
In a May 31 letter to his staff, AEG chairman/CEO Jay Marciano outlined how the DOJ could make concert promotion fairer and drive down the cost of ticketing by dismantling Live Nation’s “flywheel” business model, which is cited in the DOJ’s complaint and described in its May 23 press release as “a self-reinforcing business model that captures fees and revenue from concert fans and sponsorship, uses that revenue to lock up artists to exclusive promotion deals and then uses its powerful cache of live content to sign venues into long-term exclusive ticketing deals, thereby starting the cycle all over again.”
Marciano’s letter said Live Nation’s flywheel model “deploys the excessive profits of its ticketing monopoly to outspend what the concert market can profitably sustain.”
Under this theory, ticket prices would drop if Live Nation was prevented from using its other revenue sources to overpay artists and compete with other promoters offering artists an 85/15 or a 90/10 split on ticket sales.
Although the theory is not widely accepted by most major talent agents or managers — IAG executive vp/head of global music Jarred Arfa calls it “unrealistic” and “illogical” — it is gaining popularity among large indie promoters and DOJ lawyers, sources tell Billboard. White notes that whether the government settles or takes Ticketmaster to trial will depend on “the time and resources the DOJ wants to expend on the case and the evidence against Live Nation it has collected.”
When the Black Music Action Coalition (BMAC) releases its annual Music Industry Action Report Card, co-founder and president/CEO Willie “Prophet” Stiggers says a barrage of distressed phone calls from executives inevitably follows. The assessments grade music companies on how well they’ve kept promises made in 2020 to diversify their executive ranks, among other measures; the executives call, he explains, to complain that the grades affect their bottom lines.
“That’s what we want to do,” says Stiggers, who is also the CEO of artist and brand management company 50/50 Music Group Management. “You can’t continue to operate with false promises after saying that you stand in solidarity with your Black brothers and sisters and then don’t promote the Black executive and don’t ensure that a woman is in an environment where she is protected and her vision is executed.”
BMAC was established in June 2020 following the movement #TheShowMustBePaused to advance racial diversity, equity and inclusion in the music business. But this year’s mass industry layoffs, which included many DEI executives, has “unrolled some of the progress we were making,” Stiggers says.
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As a result, BMAC will present a new version of its report before its fourth annual gala in September. The organization has sent a link to executives that asks them to anonymously indicate whether they have seen true change, what has worsened and what still needs to be addressed.
The early results, Stiggers says, are “almost a slap in the face — a ‘whitelash,’ if you will, to the commitments that were made in 2020. The question has become, Was this s— really performative or not?”
The National Action Network Award that Stiggers received this year — “a 360 moment for me because my activism began with [NAN founder and president] Al Sharpton. I created and led [the organization’s] youth division.”
Diwang Valdez
Why are there fewer Black executives in the music industry now than in 2019?
The major labels, I’m sure, would tell you AI [artificial intelligence]. The uncertainty of that realm has caused them to tighten up. But my suspicions are, there’s a bit of that, but these positions [for Black and women executives] were not permanent. A lot of the people were put in these positions in 2020 — managers became senior-level directors, for example — and then in 2024, they have been asked to go back to that lower position or exit altogether. When you have the RIAA report record-breaking revenue that the industry generated in 2023, it’s a little lost on me how that translates to the lack of employment.
What are your thoughts on the DEI positions that have been eliminated since 2020?
The reality is that a lot of these commitments from the labels were three-year commitments. That seemed to be the hot number where they thought maybe at the end of the three years this s— would go away or we would be on to something else. Seemingly, the contracts that these DEI executives had were three-year deals. Once they were up, [the labels were] like, “We did that. We checked the box. Now let’s go back to business as usual.” There was so much potential for us to set this thing on the right course. So for us to go backward is really embarrassing, and history is going to reflect this.
How are you counseling these companies to elevate people of color and women?
A lot of our conversations with these labels, we do confidentially. Here’s what I can say about it. We bring all kinds of stats to prove how profitable diversity is; how profitable it is when you let women lead; how profitable historically it has been when people of color — those who make the product, who consume the product — lead [in terms of] how that product is distributed. This is not even a moral conversation at this point. I’m telling you how it impacts your bottom line.
The prototype of the first BMAC Award, which was given in September 2021 to The Weeknd at the first gala. “He said, ‘This is the greatest award I ever received.’ ”
Diwang Valdez
What do you think of the Recording Academy’s attempts to diversify the voting membership for the Grammy Awards?
Racism is a 450-year-old issue. It is not going to be solved in three or four years. What we can do is talk about the progress that has been made. We have, for the first time, a Black CEO of the Recording Academy. That’s progress. We watched new categories get introduced [like] best song for social change. That didn’t exist prior to Harvey Mason jr. as CEO. He’s up against decades of systems that we are slowly chipping away at. The mere fact that there is a Black Music Collective. The fact that Jay-Z stood on the stage and held a Grammy named after Dr. Dre. We’re not going to act like that is the liberation of our people, but we’re not going to act like that’s not change.
You say BMAC has moved from protest to policy. How?
In 2022, it came to our attention that there were over 500 cases of Black men that were locked up for lyrics. That became a problem for us. So BMAC created the federal legislation called the RAP Act. The work that we did on that federal level created all these statewide bills like what Gov. [Gavin] Newsom signed in California last year. That was a direct result of our work. We are working with the group around Fix the Tix and are working with the groups around AI protection. Our work around legislative policy is as loud, as real and as meaningful as the work we’re doing with pipeline programs.
What are some of those pipeline programs?
Three years ago, we partnered with the RIAA and Tennessee State University and [Nashville Music Equity’s] Brian Sexton, who is an alumnus there, to bring a unique commercial business school to young people who want to get into the industry. We bring in executives and artists from all over the industry. They get paid internships that come out of that every year. We’ve had several people get gainfully employed at record labels and music studios. Most recently, Live Nation hired one of the participants. Tri Star [Sports & Entertainment] hired a young woman from this year’s classes.
A portrait of Stiggers; his wife of 29 years, Fatima; and three of their children, from left: Zaira, Nailah and Willie III. They have since been joined by daughter Safra-Cree. “We met in high school and started [our] family young, which defined my greater purpose,” he says.
Diwang Valdez
That’s not your only Nashville-related initiative.
BMAC also put out a report in 2022 called Three Chords and the Actual Truth: The Manufactured Myth of Country Music and White America. When we released that report, there was a call to action for the music world to join us in addressing the structural racism on Music Row in Nashville and creating access. We were inspired by a guy named Michael Tubbs from Stockton, Calif. He created Mayors for a Guaranteed Income and got mayors from all over the country to create these pilot programs where they would give [citizens of their city] guaranteed income of up to $2,000 a month. He got the qualitative and quantitative data needed to show the positive effects of small increments of money going to people directly.
We felt we could bring the same concept to the music industry and creators. The Academy of Country Music was the first to raise their hand and join us. A year to the date of that report, 20 young Black kids [in the music community] started receiving $1,000 a month, plus mentorship and [other] services.
BMAC is also working with the live industry.
We did a partnership with Live Nation and created BMAC Live, a 10-day intensive program in California as part of Live Nation’s School of Live. They allowed BMAC to come in and carve out a program specifically geared toward young Black non-college-bound students who have a desire to be in the live space. We’ve had 3,000 applicants already, and we are going to pick 20 of the best of that group and fly them out to Los Angeles for a full week. Each of those young people will go to their respective cities and receive a paid internship from Live Nation for six months. [Then] they will be eligible for the Live Nation apprenticeship program. That’s another six months that will then lead to employment. That’s the type of access and training we talked about, and that program will scale and grow annually.
A plaque commemorating the first Music Business Accelerator Program created by BMAC in partnership with the RIAA that started at Tennessee State University in 2021.
Diwang Valdez
Is there anything else you would like to highlight?
We’re working on something really special with Apple Pathways. [We are training young people] around spatial audio, spatial visual and preparing them for the technology of tomorrow. This is where we are going, and if we don’t create the accessibility to the technology, another divide is about to happen. Another shift will take place in which Black America is left out once again.
Is BMAC looking to expand its staff as these programs and initiatives develop?
Yes. We will be expanding and looking at college representatives. Young people are ready. They’re not moving with the same barriers and the same willingness to allow norms to continue to separate people. It’s a different spirit among this generation here.
One thing we realized is that this fight for justice isn’t just here in the U.S. We are in partnerships with organizations in the United Kingdom and Australia, and we are forging a tremendous movement with several key organizations throughout the continent [of Africa]. I’m very concerned about what’s happening with Afrobeats. If we don’t get over there and start working with our African brothers and sisters to understand the industry, the cultural appropriation that took place in hip-hop, blues, rock, country will happen over there. If we do not protect the [intellectual property], it will be cultural colonization all over again.
Blackstone doesn’t intend to increase its latest offer to acquire Hipgnosis Songs Fund (HSF), the London-listed investment trust it first launched a takeover bid for on April 20. The private equity firm said in a regulatory filing Tuesday (June 25) that the financial terms of its June 3 offer “are final and will not be […]