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Each week we’ll be sharing the most important news from the north with Canada’s top music industry stories, supplied by our colleagues at Billboard Canada.
For more Canadian music coverage visit ca.billboard.com.
Longtime Host and DJ George Stroumboulopoulos Appointed to the Order of Canada
Governor General Mary Simon named 78 new appointments to the Order of Canada on Thursday to recognize “people across all sectors of society who have made extraordinary and sustained contributions to our nation.” This year’s honourees include journalists, politicians, doctors and more, plus prominent figures from music and arts.
One name that stands out is George Stroumboulopoulos. Strombo, as he’s often known, has been one of the most recognizable people in music media for more than two decades.
Stroumboulopoulos has long been a household name in Canada, with some brief crossover moments in the U.S., including a short-lived talk show on CNN and an ABC reality competition show called The One: Making a Music Star.
He first rose to prominence as a VJ on TV music station MuchMusic in the early 2000s and has since hosted a variety of shows on CBC, Rogers and Apple Music. He even dabbled in sports as the host of Hockey Night In Canada from 2014-2016. After Apple Music picked up his House of Strombo concert series in 2017, he became a host and curator on Apple Music Hits when it launched in 2020 as part of Apple Music Radio and has become a tastemaker on the platform. His Up Next Canada series has recently included rising musicians like Punjabi-Canadian producer Ikky and country singer-songwriter Owen Riegling.
“With very rare exceptions, I have been 100% myself the whole way,” he recently told Canadian Press. READ MORE
— Richard Trapunski
The Biggest Homegrown Hits On the Year-End Billboard Canadian Hot 100
The Canadian Hot 100 tallies the biggest songs in Canada each week (whether or not they’re by Canadian artists). This year, the top 10 spots on the year-end Canadian Hot 100 are all dominated by international acts — with Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers”, Rema and Selena Gomez’s “Calm Down” and Morgan Wallen’s “Last Night” claiming honours as the biggest songs of the year — but Canadians made a strong showing on the rest of the top 100.
The year-end chart takes into account chart performance throughout the year, with longevity sometimes counting for more than high placement and measuring charts dated Nov, 19, 2022, to Oct 21, 2023 — which explains why a big song like Tate McRae’s December chart-topper “greedy” got left off.
But Canadian artists still showed up in prominent spots on the Year-End Chart, even beyond the usual high spots for Drake and The Weeknd.
At No. 23 is Ottawa singer Talk’s soulful ballad “Runaway To Mars,” which was released in 2021 but went viral on TikTok this year, shooting it up the charts. It hit No. 1 on the Adult Alternative Airplay chart in January 2023.
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Preston Pablo from Timmins, Ontario, linked up with Quebec production duo Banx + Ranx on melancholy dance-pop track “Flowers Need Rain,” which landed at No. 26.
At No. 29, Quebec pop sensation Charlotte Cardin’s “Confetti” was a major Canadian success this year. The song has spent 34 weeks on the Canadian Hot 100, peaking at No. 10. A hit in both Canada and across Europe, the catchy pop tune is in English but also exists in a bilingual English/French version.
Other hits by Canadian artists in the top 100 include Tiësto’s Tate McRae-featuring “10:35,” “If Anything’s Left” by Ottawa pop singer Jamie Fine, “Next To You” by Canadian-born production duo Loud Luxury, “Whitney” by up-and-coming Montreal singer Rêve and more. READ MORE
— Rosie Long Decter
Music Regulation and AI high on Music Association Agendas for 2024
Billboard Canada asked a number of national music industry association leaders to provide their own unique perspective on 2023 and the year ahead.
“The passing of C-11 (the Online Streaming Act) in 2023 represents both an accomplishment and a challenge,” says Andrew Cash, president of the Canadian Independent Music Association. “Bringing some of the largest, most powerful corporations in the history of capitalism under regulation in Canada is an important step. It has also kick-started a long overdue and much-needed conversation about Canadian content policy in the age of the internet. Even that sentence sounds dated!“2024 should answer some big questions with regards to C-11– the most pressing being: which platforms will be included in regulations currently being considered before the CRTC, how much will these platforms be required to contribute to the Canadian music sector, and where this contribution will go?”
According to Amy Jeninga, president of the Canadian Country Music Association, 2023 has been a big year for Canadian country music.
“The genre continued to outpace industry growth in countries around the world, claiming a bigger piece of the cultural pie than in recent years, including here at home, where Canada saw a 32% growth in on-demand audio and video streams in Q3, outpacing the overall industry growth of 18%,” she says. “We continue to celebrate a growing community and fanbase set to engage and continue propelling the genre forward in 2024.”
For Patrick Rogers, CEO of Music Canada, artificial intelligence is high on the agenda for 2024.
“This past year saw rapid advancements in artificial intelligence that can unlock an exciting new era for creativity and content — but which also pose a serious threat to the creative industries and artists if not regulated,” he says. “It’s never been more critical that our copyright and legal frameworks remain strong in the face of bad actors who want to exploit artists’ work, voice and image without their consent, credit or compensation…We’re excited to work with the government and our creative industry peers in 2024 to help set policies that encourage the ethical development of this exciting new marketplace.”
Heads of the Canadian Independent Music Association, Canadian Live Music Association, SOCAN and Music Publishers Canada, meanwhile, highlight modernized rights management, arts funding and increased promotion of Canadian artists in both recorded music and on the live stage. READ MORE
— David Farrell
Illinois-based merch company SCP owes more than $4 million to over 300 clients including Mitski and Brent Faiyaz after abruptly shutting down operations last week, according to internal documents obtained by Billboard. And with plans to file for chapter 7 bankruptcy on Friday, it’s unlikely those clients will ever recover all the money they’re owed.
Some of SCP’s other clients included Father John Misty, Chappell Roan, T-Pain, Finneas, Brand New and Carly Rae Jepsen; record labels Loma Vista Recordings and Triple Crown Records; Pharrell Williams‘ Something in the Water music festival; and online content creators such as the Dungeons & Daddies podcast and YouTubers Team Edge.
On Dec. 17, SCP locked its roughly 150 staff members out of their emails before informing them in a mass email sent to their personal email addresses that they were all being laid off and the business was being permanently shut down the week before Christmas, according to the company’s former head of record label services Eric Weinberg.
Clients, meanwhile, largely learned of the closure by word of mouth until SPC leadership sent an official email on Dec. 19 informing them that the company would be shutting down. Clients who did not owe SCP money were told they would receive a secure folder containing their available e-commerce and customer data, as well as artwork files, and that they would be informed when their remaining merchandise in the warehouse was available for pickup — to be arranged at their own cost — in Batavia, Ill., where SPC was based, about 45 miles outside Chicago.
Any act that owed SCP money would be required to pay that back before collecting any of their remaining merchandise. The deadline to do so is end of day Thursday, but a member of SCP leadership says that if clients haven’t already been in contact with the company about payment, it’s now too late to get that process started. According to the internal documents obtained by Billboard, nearly 600 clients had outstanding balances with SCP for a total of $3.4 million owed.
Clients’ webstores run through SCP were also unexpectedly shut down, while they scrambled to figure out how to retrieve their merchandise from the company’s warehouse. Those clients who were owed money for sales handled during the year’s busiest shopping season were left wondering whether they would ever be paid. Clients including Mitski, Milky Chance, TV Girl, Polyphia and Something in the Water are all owed hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to the internal documents, while dozens of others, including Chappell Roan, Ninja Sex Party, Bruno Major, Mutemath, T-Pain, Lizzy McAlpine and record label Tzadik, are owed in the tens of thousands. Their customers have been left in the lurch, too, with an unknown number waiting for merch that may never arrive. According to an email SCP sent to clients obtained by Billboard, none of those customers will receive refunds for unfulfilled orders.
In a Dec. 18 post on LinkedIn, SCP owner Stevie Hopkins said the company planned to file for chapter 7 bankruptcy. “I ask for everyone’s patience as time is of the essence for me and my team to organize and transition to an orderly winddown and put all available resources into fulfilling obligations to all constituencies,” he wrote at the time.
One music manager who represents three SCP artist clients says rumors that the company was in financial trouble began spreading a few weeks ago, but that he “didn’t really take it too seriously” because the business seemed to be “operating as normal.” He only became aware of the company’s dissolution on Dec. 18 after a colleague flagged a LinkedIn post by his point person at SCP indicating that she no longer worked there. He then texted the employee, who informed him that the company’s entire staff had been let go. After receiving the Dec. 19 SCP email to clients, the manager says he reached out to Hopkins regarding an invoice and was informed that the company was planning to file for bankruptcy.
“I just don’t know how something like this would happen,” says the manager, whose three artists are each owed “in the many tens” of thousands of dollars. “Everyone has been on tour the last two years. It’s been so busy, and I think they’ve been killing it.”
While SCP leadership would not comment on the circumstances that led to SCP’s closure, Hopkins addressed the issue briefly in the Dec. 18 LinkedIn post, saying the company had been struggling to stay afloat for nearly a year. According to Weinberg and a member of SCP leadership, the business made staffing cuts in February when dozens of employees were let go. Weinberg says there were additional smaller layoffs that followed over the course of the year, which the member of SCP leadership characterized as “additional terminations, operational changes or resignations,” adding that “a few departments” were “downsized” over the summer, “but very minimal.”
As news of the shutdown spread, SCP clients began posting about the issues on social media, with some claiming they hadn’t been paid for merch sales stretching as far back as April. One artist manager tells Billboard that their act hadn’t been paid for webstore income from October through December and that they’re currently owed $40,000, with $16,000 of that coming from unfulfilled pre-orders for special edition vinyl records that “were both expensive to us and the customer,” he says.
“Those are currently being manufactured still, so we have to fulfill when they’re done. So, we lose out on all the earnings, most of which would be covering the expensive cost to make it,” says the manager, who drove a cargo van from New Jersey to the SCP warehouse in Batavia this week to retrieve his artist’s merch.
Weinberg says that over the last several months, payment delays had become increasingly common, and he received “tons” of emails from concerned clients wondering why they hadn’t been paid yet. “So many people were experiencing that,” he says, noting that he and his colleagues were unaware of the company’s financial issues because account management and department heads did not have access “to anything regarding statements or overdue invoices or anything like that.”
SCP leadership declined to comment on the claim that SCP was months behind on payments to clients.
Several clients tell Billboard that they’ve set dates to pick up their merchandise from SCP’s warehouse this week, with some hiring companies like Merchtable, Overcast Merch, Downright Merch and Seen Merch to pick up and move the inventory. Only about seven to 15 employees as well as friends and family of Hopkins and SCP leadership have been on hand to prepare those orders. Staff from the other merch companies have also helped lighten the workload by packing orders in the warehouse and communicating with clients for orders they’ve been hired to pick up, according to the member of SCP leadership. A final deadline has been set for noon CST Friday to pick up merch. According to Weinberg, several employees were brought back following the layoffs to help clients retrieve their inventory after SCP got bank approval to temporarily extend its payroll, but most of them left the job shortly after reporting for work at the SCP warehouse on Dec. 18.
“The entire warehouse staff walked out on them Monday morning,” Weinberg says. “All the people that they asked to come in and help clean things up, came in, checked in, saw the mess and what they wanted them to do and just walked out on them…and made it even more difficult to get things in order for anyone who came by to pick up their stuff if they could.” The member of SCP leadership tells Billboard “there were some people who chose not to return” to work but would not comment on the number of those employees “as I do not know those details.”
In an updated LinkedIn post on Sunday, Hopkins claimed that “at least 50%” of inventory for clients with zero debt to SCP had been moved out of the warehouse up to that point.
Under federal bankruptcy law, in chapter 7 cases a trustee is appointed by the U.S. Trustee’s Office to oversee the debtor’s estate in a bankruptcy proceeding. Once a company files its chapter 7 petition, all its assets — including merchandise that remains in its warehouse — become property of the estate and the trustee appointed to the case assumes control of the company’s estate, including all of its assets. Once that happens, the trustee is responsible for the disposition of any inventory, which is then liquidated on the open market, likely for much lower prices than it would have fetched under normal circumstances. The revenue from those sales is then put into a pool of money to be spread among a company’s various creditors.
SCP creditors may not get more than “cents on the dollar” in terms of what they’re owed, says Brian Lohan, a partner at law firm Arnold & Porter who focuses on bankruptcy and restructuring. In typical chapter 7 cases, he says, “creditors often do not get full recovery. If the labels or artists are able to get their merchandise back prior to the filing, that will help them mitigate losses going forward. But if their merchandise has been sold by SCP prior to the filing and they are owed money on account of that inventory, or any inventory is still in possession of SCP at the time of its filing … they’re going to be standing in line as a general unsecured creditor just like everybody else that is owed money.”
According to the member of SCP leadership, based on what they’ve learned during this process, SCP’s bankruptcy case is more nuanced than most due to the fact that it involves licensed merchandise. Due to those licenses, they say, clients should still have the right to recover their merchandise from the warehouse even after the trustee takes over, provided they pay their outstanding balances. They add that they’ve also learned there’s a possibility the trustee will decide that the effort of dealing with the merchandise isn’t worth the potential money it would bring in, at which point they would abandon the merch back to SCP leadership to return it to the clients. “That is what we believe based on our understanding of what the process will be,” says the member of SCP leadership.
Following the liquidation, secured creditors — lenders who loaned money to SCP under agreements secured by a lien on the company’s assets — must be paid off with the value of their collateral. The bankruptcy trustee must also be paid, further diminishing the available pool of money for SCP’s various unsecured creditors, a category that includes artists and labels but also customers, vendors and laid-off employees.
For unsecured creditors, priority is given to certain claims by employees for unpaid wages, as well as creditors who sold goods to SCP “in the ordinary course of business,” Lohan says — most likely vendors. Those creditors are “entitled to receive a priority unsecured claim for the value of its goods received by the debtor within 20 days of the bankruptcy filing,” he adds.
Chapter 7 bankruptcy cases “can take anywhere from months to years” to resolve, Lohan notes. “However, even on the short end, distributions to creditors on account of their claims will take several months,” he adds, noting that the process includes resolving “potential litigation against various parties” involved.
While artists and their teams face the slog of retrieving remaining merchandise and — hopefully — some of their sales money owed, they also must figure out what happens to their merch moving forward. That means new opportunities for SCP’s competitors.
“There’s already like five merch companies that have emailed me being like, ‘Do you need new merch solutions?’” says one manager. “Word is out.”
Deezer shares fell 6.4% this week after France’s National Assembly approved a 1.2% tax on streaming revenue on Tuesday (Dec. 19). The new tax, which is meant to support local cultural programs, taxes effect in January and will be owed on top of existing tax obligations.
Deezer CEO Jeronimo Folgueira called the tax “the worst possible outcome of all the different scenarios” the company faced from the French government. “Adding taxes is the worst way of trying to support the industry,” he told Billboard. France is Deezer’s home and largest market, accounting for roughly 60% of its revenue in the first nine months of 2023, according to the company’s latest earnings report.
Spotify immediately pulled sponsorship support for two local music festivals to help offset the additional tax burden. France is not as important to Spotify as to Deezer, however, and the new tax was probably not a factor in the 1.3% decline in Spotify’s share price this week. Spotify would be far more affected if other countries followed France’s lead — a possibility raised by Deezer’s Folgueira. “It sets a very dangerous precedent for other markets,” he warned.
SiriusXM investors were unfazed by the news that the New York attorney general’s office had sued the company for allegedly making customers go through a “burdensome” cancellation process. The satellite radio company’s stock finished the week up 1.3% to $5.47 despite a lawsuit that alleges SiriusXM “deliberately wastes its subscribers’ time even though it has the ability to process cancellations with the click of a button.” The company said it will “vigorously defend against these baseless allegations” that “grossly mischaracterize” its practices.
The Billboard Global Music Index fell 0.3% to 1,517.98, lowering its year-to-date gain to 30.0%. Nine of the index’s 20 stocks posted gains this week; 11 stocks ended the week in negative territory.
Shares of streaming company LiveOne gained 10% to $2.21 after the company on Tuesday (Dec. 19) raised its guidance for revenue for its fiscal year ended March 31, 2024, to a range of $118 million to $120 million, up from $105 million to $110 million. The company also said that it’s finalizing a restructuring of its merchandising business, first announced on Dec. 14, that will reduce headcount by 75 to 100 staffers and result in $5 million to $10 million of cost savings.
Three other companies in the Billboard Global Music Index posted gains of 5% or more this week. Sphere Entertainment Co. rose 5.4% to $34.32. Warner Music Group improved 5.1% to $35.29. And K-pop company SM Entertainment gained 5% to 90,100 won ($69.32).
Major indexes fared better than music stocks as investors reacted positively to Friday’s announcement by the Federal Reserve that U.S. prices rose less than expected in November. In the United States, the Nasdaq composite gained 1.2% to 14,992.97 and the S&P 500 improved 0.8% to 4,754.63. In the United Kingdom, the FTSE 100 rose 1.6% to 7,697.51, while South Korea’s KOSPI composite index climbed 1.4% to 2,599.51.
Holiday music has exploded in popularity over the last decade as listeners hit play, again and again, on their favorite Christmastime songs on their favorite streaming services. The top 100 holiday tracks — track sales and on-demand audio streams in November and December — rose more than ten-fold from 2014 to 2022 compared to all-genre growth of 165% over those years.
But one group of songs has been left out of the holiday gold rush: religious songs.
Back in 2014, the top holiday song was Pentatonix’s version of “Mary, Did You Know?,” a song penned by Mark Lowry and Buddy Greene in 1991 and originally recorded by Christian recording artist Michael English the same year. In the November to December holiday listening period, that recording of “Mary, Did You Know?” had 276,000 track equivalent units, according to Luminate — with 92% coming from download purchases.
In 2022, the top song was a secular one: Mariah Carey’s omnipresent “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” which amassed 1.6 million track equivalent units in November and December. In 2023, both Carey and Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” are on pace to do even better thanks to constantly growing streaming numbers and the artists’ heavy media presences. Universal Music Group Nashville’s campaign for Lee, which included making an official video and an appearance on NBC’s Christmas at the Opry television special, pushed “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” to No. 1 on the Hot 100 for the weeks ended Dec. 9 and 16.
In contrast, this year’s top religious holiday song, Pentatonix’s “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” ranks just No. 47. That lower ranking means fewer royalties from tracks and streams than the 46 secular songs in front of it. From Nov. 3 to Dec. 14, “God Rest” has only 19% of the track equivalent units of the No. 1 recording, “All I Want for Christmas Is You.”
The shift to secular holiday music has been abrupt. Pentatonix took the No. 1 spot in 2014 and the No. 2 spot in 2015, but by 2017, the top 10 holiday tracks were filled entirely with secular songs. Since 2018, no religious track has pierced the top 40. One of the top religious songs in recent years, Nat King Cole’s “O Come All Ye Faithful,” was No. 50 in 2022 and No. 46 in 2021.
Secular music’s command of the top 100 holiday recordings has widened over the last decade. In 2014 and 2015, 14 and 13 religious songs were among the top 100 holiday tracks, respectively. In each of the last three years, however, religious songs have accounted for only seven or eight of the top 100.
This change means religious songs have missed out on the recent financial bonanza. As secular songs dominate holiday listening, religious songs have won a smaller share of royalties. In 2014, 14 religious songs accounted for 83% of the top 100 holiday tracks’ royalties, according to Billboard’s estimate based on Luminate data. By 2022, seven religious songs accounted for just 4% of the top 100’s royalties. This year will have a similar disparity as only eight religious songs are currently in the top 100 holiday tracks.
Demographic shifts and the nature of popular holiday music suggest religious music will have a tough time making a comeback. As Billboard has reported, once a track becomes a holiday favorite, it gains a competitive advantage over other holiday tracks. That’s not to say a religious song can’t climb up the ranks in the coming years. But it takes multiple years for a new holiday recording to stick with listeners, and the young recordings with the most success — such as “Merry Christmas” by Elton John & Ed Sheeran and “Like It’s Christmas” by Jonas Brothers — are all secular. And with a declining Christian population in the United States to boot, it seems consumer sentiment is likely to match that trend, favoring songs about a special feeling this time of year over biblical themes.
Each week we’ll be sharing the most important news from the north with Canada’s top music industry stories, supplied by our colleagues at Billboard Canada.
For more Canadian music coverage visit ca.billboard.com.
Bryan Adams Splits With Longtime Manager
After a memorable handshake agreement in Vancouver 44 years ago, manager Bruce Allen and client Bryan Adams have broken up. As confirmed by a source with direct knowledge of the situation, Adams is now self-managing his career.
Bruce Allen
There has been no public announcement of the falling-out, but Bruce Allen Talent’s website no longer lists Adams as a client, and the “Run to You” rocker’s website similarly strikes any mention of Allen as his manager. Insiders say that Adams, short-term, is handling his own affairs.
Allen, now 78, has earned his mostly Canadian client list untold millions of dollars. Among them include some household names such as Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Loverboy and, more recently, Michael Bublé and Jann Arden.
The breach in the handshake agreement is believed to be over artistic direction, in particular Adams’ insistence on investing heavily in new music and videos in recent years. READ MORE
Spotify’s Global Job Cuts Hit Canada
On Dec. 4, Spotify announced it would be slashing its global workforce by 17%. Billboard Canada has learned that Nathan Wiszniak, Head of Artist & Label Partnerships at Spotify Canada, was among those laid off.
At the time of Spotify’s announcement, just a few days after unveiling its popular Spotify Wrapped campaign, it was unclear how many of the roughly 1,500 jobs cut would come from Canada. A spokesperson from Spotify Canada declined to share, but confirmed that Wiszniak was part of the layoffs.
Wiszniak has worked at Spotify Canada for nine years and was one of the founding members when the music streaming company expanded to Canada in 2014. In his role in Music Partnerships, he worked to promote Canadian music and artists and give them a global platform on Spotify.
“From the outset, my mission was to establish and promote an ecosystem that would propel the growth of our industry,” Wiszniak writes in an email to Billboard Canada.
Asked about his accomplishments, he highlights his role in championing Punjabi-Canadian artists like Ikky, Karan Aujla and AP Dhillon (all three appeared on Billboard Canada’s inaugural Punjabi Wave cover) and contributing to their exponential growth and in nurturing the early careers of breakout Canadian artists like Jessie Reyez, Daniel Caesar and Charlotte Cardin.
In the last two years however, he says, Wiszniak’s primary role has been “educating government stakeholders about the intricacies of streaming…during a regulatory phase that occurs once in a generation.” He’s likely referring to Bill C-11, the Online Streaming Act, which will update Canada’s media policy for the first time in decades. Spotify is at the heart of that bill’s implementation, which could require the company to make more direct and mandatory financial contributions to the Canadian music industry via government regulations.
On Nov. 30, just a few days before the layoff announcement, Wiszniak spoke at the Online Streaming Act hearings, arguing that “imposing initial base contributions on platforms before defining critical elements of the broadcast policy is premature, and risks overlooking the many ways that Spotify already contributes to and supports Canadian and Indigenous artists.” READ MORE
New IFPI Report Reveals Canadian Distrust of AI
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has released a new report detailing how music fans all over the world listen to music, with specific stats for participating countries. Music Canada has shared new data about Canadian listening habits from the report.
Most notably, it includes some vital Canadian perspectives on one of this year’s hot-button topics in the music industry: artificial intelligence. Many are not in favour, at least not of the wild west version of AI that has flooded the internet this year. 76% of Canadians believe that AI shouldn’t be employed to impersonate or clone a musician without their approval.
Even more Canadians — 85% — believe that music created solely using AI should be labelled as AI-generated, and also that human musicians are an essential part of music creation. The data indicates that in ongoing debates over the role of AI in music, Canadian consumers could support certain amounts of regulation and protections for artists.
AI music is already flooding streaming services, and Spotify allegedly removed tens of thousands of AI-generated songs from its platform earlier this year, to prevent those songs from acquiring fake streams and inflated royalties. Meanwhile, TikTok user @ghostwriter977 released an AI-created fake Drake and The Weeknd song earlier this year, gathering millions of streams before the song was taken off streaming platforms. According to the IFPI report, 77% of Canadians agree that AI systems should list which music has been used to train their tools.
The report included over 43,000 respondents from 26 countries, and concludes that globally, we’re listening to more music in more ways than ever. People around the world listen to an average of 20.7 hours of music per week — up from 20.1 hours in 2022 — and the use of paid streaming platforms is rising. For the 16-24 demographic, though, short-form videos are the top method of music listening, not audio streaming services.
On average, Canadians use 7.2 different methods to encounter music and hop between eight different genres. Half of Canadians subscribe to audio streaming services, while a quarter access music through unlicensed methods. In addition to how we listen to music, the report also highlights what music does for us: 83% of Canadians say that music is important to their mental health. READ MORE
Last Week’s Headlines: Top TikTok Tracks, Montreal’s Music and Noise Laws
If it’s Friday, you know it’s high 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.
BMG made a switch in Brazil, promoting Daniel Fernandes to general manager as Jasmina Zammit departs to take on an international role at the music company’s Berlin headquarters. During his short time at BMG — he joined in 2022 as senior director of A&R — Fernandes is credited with signing Élcio di Carvalho, Ariel Donato and Raffa Torres. He was previously at Sony Music-owned Brazilian label Som Livre. BMG Brazil is based in São Paulo, where Fernandes and his team will work closely with Julio Vieira, vp of finance & operations for Latin America. BMG’s operation in São Paulo was launched in 2016 and evolved from managing existing repertoire to developing its own local signing strategy, offering music publishing and recordings under one roof. “I thank Jasmina for her trust and am looking forward to working with our amazing Brazilian roster and to further grow our local catalogue,” said Fernandes. “The opportunity to lead BMG Brazil’s team is both an honor and a privilege and I am thrilled and excited about the journey ahead.”
Daniel Fernandes and Jasmina Zammit
BMG
German-born Zammit is what you’d call a BMG lifer, having joined as an executive assistant in 2008 — the year it relaunched after Bertelsmann sold its stake in Sony BMG — and rising over the years to vp of international licensing and marketing in Berlin before making the move to Brazil, as general manager, in 2018. Two years later she was appointed managing director. “Setting up and heading the Brazilian operation has been quite a challenge, but foremost an amazing experience!” she writes on LinkedIn. “I am truly grateful for everyone who has helped me navigate through the peculiarities of the local music industry. Thank you to all the business partners, artists and writers for their trust!”
Zammit’s new role back home in Berlin is focused on Latin America and emerging markets.
Warner Music Group‘s global catalog team hired Jeremy Sponder as vice president of U.S. marketing for international repertoire. In his new role, Sponder manages stateside marketing activations for UK/international catalogs of both the shallow and deep persuasions. He’s based in NYC and reports to team vp of communications Lauren Papapietro, while also working closely with Katie Graham and Stuart Wheeley. Sponder shimmies over to WMG’s catalog team from ADA Worldwide, the company’s artist and label services arm, where he has been vp of catalog since 2021. Prior to ADA, Sponder marketed deep/shallow catolog content for UMG’s catalog division, UMEe, and before that spent time five years at at Sony Music-owned indie distributor The Orchard.
Nashville-based live entertainment promoter Outback Presents promoted Jenny Reid to vice president of ticketing, overseeing all ticketing operations and focusing on country and comedy events. Reid and her ticketing team have managed tours in North America for artists and comedians including Alabama, Nate Bargatze, Taylor Tomlinson and John Crist. Reid has been with Outback Presents for four years and previously worked at Huka Entertainment, Ticketfly and Eventbrite. “Jenny has built an incredible team that we are extremely proud of,” says Smardak. “With over ten years of experience in ticketing and box office operations, Jenny has lead the force to establish a powerful ticketing team at Outback.” –Jessica Nicholson
Board Shorts: Music Venue Trust, the UK charity that looks after the interests of some 900 grassroots venues, added four folks to its board of trustees. Joining are Ausa Qureshi, music program manager at Summerhall in Edinburgh; Emma Bownes, a programmer at The O2; Jane Beese, director of music at Factory International; and musician Rhoda Dakar. They join existing trustees Bonita McKinney, Phyllis Belezos, Scott Taylforth, Chris Prosser, Simon Hilton, Sarah Thirtle, Jason Dorman, and Jeremy Pritchard. Exiting the board are Sarah Clover KC and Lohan Presencer … Hipgnosis Songs Fund appointed Christopher Mills, the CEO of North Atlantic Smaller Companies Investment Trust, as an independent non-executive director of the company. HSF also disclosed the committee chair positions of the following members: Cindy Rampersaud, audit and risk management; Robert Naylor, nomination; Simon Holden, portfolio; and Francis Keeling, management engagement.
Last Week’s Turntable: New Leaders at Kakao and Vibe
Hipgnosis Songs Fund capped off an eventful 2023 by lowering the value of its music catalog amidst internal conflict over exactly what the company’s star-studded catalog is worth.
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The publicly listed royalty fund said its operative net asset value per share declined 9.2% to $1.74 on Sept. 30 from $1.92 on March 31, according to its half-year earnings report on Thursday (Dec. 21). The sharp decline stemmed primarily from a “material reduction” in expectations for CRB III and CRB IV income.
The company’s self-reported valuation has long exceeded the value implied by its share price and estimates of equity analysts. In recent months, Hipgnosis Songs Fund has proposed and completed partial catalog sales at discounts to their net asset values.
New board chair Robert Naylor‘s statement to investors described a strained relationship with the fund’s investment advisor, the Merck Mercuriadis-led Hipgnosis Song Management, over the valuation of the five-year-old company’s catalog that includes stakes in songs by Neil Young, Journey and Fleetwood Mac.
Two days earlier, the board postponed the release of half-year earnings after the investment advisor produced a “heavily caveated” opinion on the catalog valuation provided by independent firm Citrin Cooperman that was “materially higher than the valuation implied by proposed and recent transactions in the sector.”
Internal conflicts continued while the results were delayed. According to Naylor, the board’s request of Hipgnosis Song Management about “the matter to be published on the Company’s website in order to provide transparency for shareholders” was rebuffed “under the confidentiality clauses of the Investment Advisory Agreement.”
On Thursday, Naylor urged Hipgnosis Songs Management to provide an opinion on the valuation of Hipgnosis Songs Fund “without caveats” to provide greater transparency to shareholders. In the absence of a caveat-free opinion, the board urged investors to use “a higher degree of caution and less certainty” than normal when considering its fair value and operative NAV.
Hipgnosis Songs Fund shares fell 1% to 0.70 GBP on Thursday.
Gross revenue from continuing operations declined 26.9% to $63.2 million from $86.4 million in the six-month period ended March 31, 2023.
Net revenue from continuing operations declined 29.7% to $54 million from $76.8 million. About half of the decline came from a $11.9 million reversal of accrued royalties in October. Excluding those accrued revenues, net revenue grew 14% to $65.8 million.
Pro-forma annual revenue (PFAR), which measures gross royalties received and excludes revenue accruals, grew 10.4% to $64.9 million.
Following shareholders’ vote against continuation at the annual general meeting on Oct. 26, Hipgnosis Songs Fund transformed its board of directors by naming Naylor to succeed Andrew Sutch as chairman and adding Francis Keeling, a former Universal Music Group executive, and Christopher Mills, CEO and investment manager at North Atlantic Smaller Companies Investment Trust, to replace Andrew Wilkinson and Paul Burger, both of whom left prior to the annual general meeting.
The new board undertook a strategic review and named Shot Tower Capital as lead advisor to conduct due diligence on the catalog. On Thursday, Naylor said he was pleased with the strategic review’s progress thus far. “This process will help the new Board bring forward proposals for delivering value to shareholders,” said Naylor.
But Naylor also described “ongoing failures in the financial reporting and control process” since he joined the board. “Whilst we consider substantial progress has been made in identifying and rectifying these issues,” Naylor added, “we have had to suspend the dividend for at least the remainder of the year in order to ensure compliance with our banking covenants.”
12/21/2023
The year saw both record revenues and widespread upheaval amid the rise of new technologies and existential questions about the future of the industry.
12/21/2023
Vinyl Group announced on Thursday a binding agreement to acquire The Brag Media, publisher of Australian and New Zealand editions of Rolling Stone and Variety, as well as publisher of its own tiles including TheBrag. com, Tone Deaf and industry news outlet The Music Network.
The proposed takeover of Brag Media, pending certain conditions and expected to close by Jan. 31, is being funded by an $11 million AUD ($7.5 million USD) round of investment in Vinyl Group by billionaire Wisetech Global chief executive Richard White, who when completed will own more than a third of the ASX-listed business. With funding in place, Vinyl Group’s purchase of 100% of Brag Media will break down as $8 million in cash and a further $2 million in deferred compensation through cash or stock.
Brag Media originated as Seventh Street Media in 2017, launching local trade outlet The Industry Observer and youth-focused title Don’t Bore Us, before rebranding as The Brag Media in 2019 — the same year it partnered with Billboard parent Penske Media to launch Rolling Stone Australia. Brag also represents the digital audiences in the market for Billboard and The Hollywood Reporter, as well as Rotten Tomatoes, Hypebeast and others. In 2022, Brag bought The Music Network and shuttered Industry Observer. Based on unaudited figures disclosed in the announcement, The Brag Media generated $8.39 million in revenue in its current fiscal year, generating a net profit of $334,824.
Once the acquisition is complete, Brag Media’s portfolio will join a Vinyl Group that also includes music credits specialist Jaxsta, social networking platform Vampr and online record store Vinyl.com. As part of the deal, Brag Media’s co-founder and CEO Luke Girgis is set to remain as publisher and managing director of the company’s publishing business.
“Vinyl Group’s suite of products work together to empower participants of the music ecosystem and reach all corners of the creator economy, and we can’t wait to start working with the iconic mastheads that Luke and The Brag Media have successfully developed in Australia,” said Vinyl Group CEO Josh Simons, who took over the top job in late June following the departure of Beth Appleton. “We’ve identified several impactful synergies between the two businesses that will deliver immediate cost efficiencies and revenue, including streamlining Vampr’s in-app ads business and leveraging The Brag Media’s impressive audience reach to bolster Jaxsta, Vinyl.com and Vampr in the market.”
Girgis added that he “couldn’t be happier about” the consolidation. “Right from the earliest discussions we had, it was clear that the Board, Josh and the team shared our vision for the future of the business, and I’m thrilled that they’ve made this commitment with us.”
White said there is “no doubt that iconic brands like Rolling Stone and Variety make sense and add value to VNL. Combined under the leadership of Josh and Vinyl Group, the consolidated business and team will have a lot more growth levers and options.”
Vinyl Group is Australia’s only ASX-listed music business and trades under the ticker code VNL (it was JXT before a recent parent company name change). Its share price jumped 22% to .055 following the acquisition announcement.
Medallion, a direct-to-consumer platform that helps artists build relationships with their fans, has raised $13.7 million in Series A funding, the company announced Thursday (Dec. 21). The funding will help Medallion, which is led by former Songkick CEO Matt Jones, “to accelerate an ambitious technical roadmap,” the company said in a statement.
The round was co-led by Dragonfly and Lightspeed Faction and included Coinbase Ventures, Infinite Capital, J17, Third Prime, Zeal Capital and previous investor The Chernin Group. Also taking part in the round were music industry investors including Metallica’s Black Squirrel Partners; Bill Silva Entertainment; Guy Lawrence of electronic duo Disclosure; Foundations Artist Management; producer duo Jungle; the band Mt. Joy; management company Method; DJ and producer Tiga; and TAG Music, a joint venture between Gabe Saporta and Atlantic Records.
This marks Metallica’s third notable investment in 2023 via Black Squirrel. In March, the band purchased Furnace Record Pressing, a vinyl manufacturer in Alexandria, Va. Then in August, Black Squirrel was the lead investor in a $5 million funding round for Word Collections, a publishing administration firm launched by TuneCore founder Jeff Price.
Launched in 2022, Medallion provides a white-label platform for artists to create online communities that deliver experiences and products to their fans. Its client roster includes such artists as My Morning Jacket, Sigur Ros, Santigold, Tycho, Greta Van Fleet and two of its investors, Mt. Joy and Jungle.
For Rob Hadick, general partner at Dragonfly, Medallion represents a shift in thinking about providing fans with more than music and content. “Medallion is building the infrastructure to enable artists to directly interact with their highest intent customers through new and exclusive products and experiences, while simultaneously owning the customer relationship themselves and driving net new revenue opportunities around their IP,” Hadick said in a statement. “We believe this paradigm shift will permeate across the entirety of the creator economy.”
“Artists only have direct relationships with a fraction of their fanbase. Medallion solves this problem by unlocking direct artist-to-fan connection,” said Will Leas at Lightspeed Faction in a statement. “The team has a history of building pioneering technology for the world’s biggest artists, and we are thrilled to back them on this journey.”
Medallion previously raised $9 million in seed funding from Betaworks, POAP Ventures, Polygon Ventures, The Chernin Group, Red Light Ventures, Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda and Tycho.