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More people around the globe are listening to licensed music services than ever before — and are doing so via a growing number of different platforms — but piracy continues to divert cash from creators’ pockets, while a majority of music fans think that artificial intelligence (AI) should not be used to clone music artists’ voices without authorization, according to a new consumer survey from international recorded-music trade organization IFPI.
IFPI’s “Engaging with Music 2023″ study reveals that music consumers are spending on average 20.7 hours listening to music weekly, up from 20.1 hours in 2022 – or the equivalent of an extra 13 three-minute songs per week.
The London-based organization found that 73% of the 43,000-plus music fans it surveyed listen to their favorite artists through subscription or ad-supported audio streaming service such as Spotify, Apple Music or Amazon Music, down slightly from last year’s figure of 74% (IFPI says that the small decrease is down to a change in accounting methodology, rather than a drop in real terms). The proportion of paying subscribers rises from 46% in 2022 to 48% this year.
Audio subscription services are the most used format, accounting for around a third (32%) of music fans’ weekly listening time, closely followed by video streaming via platforms like YouTube or TikTok, which make up 31% of consumption.
On average, people now use more than seven different methods to engage with music, reports IFPI, with other popular formats including radio listening (17%), purchased music (9%) and attending live concerts (4%).
In line with previous years, the adoption of subscription streaming services is highest among younger listeners, with 60% of 16–24-year-olds and 62% of 25-34-year-olds surveyed saying they use subscription music platforms. Usage drops to 28% in the 55-64-year-old age bracket, although consumption is up year-on-year across all age demographics.
Among 16-24-year-olds, short form video platforms such as TikTok are listed as the most popular way that they engage with music on a daily basis, followed by audio subscription streaming services and then video streaming formats like YouTube.
The top five countries where people spent the most time listening to music through a subscription streaming service were Sweden (61% of people surveyed), Mexico (57%), Germany (55%), the U.S. (53%) and New Zealand (52%), with the United Kingdom dropping out of the top five.
Overall, IFPI reports a 7% year-on-year rise in time spent listening to music on paid streaming services – a slower rate of growth than the 10% rise in listening time in 2022.
Artificial Intelligence and the Persistent Piracy Problem
For the first time, IFPI’s research team asked music fans for their views on how they think artificial intelligence will impact on the industry. Nearly eight in ten (79%) said that human creativity is essential to the creation of music and 74% of respondents said that AI should not be used to clone or impersonate music artists without authorization.
The vast majority of people surveyed supported the need for AI systems and developers to be transparent and clearly identify any training data they have used to create new music works, which is one of the key provisions of the recently agreed EU AI Act.
The IFPI report was compiled by surveying internet users aged 16-64 between August and October across 26 countries, including the United States, Japan, United Kingdom, Germany, France, China, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia.
Collectively, these markets accounted for more than 91% of global recorded music revenues in 2022, according to this year’s IFPI Global Music Report. IFPI says the report is the largest music survey of its kind ever conducted.
In terms of genres, pop remains the most popular type of music globally, followed by rock, hip-hop/rap, dance/electronic and Latin. On average, music fans said that they listened to more than eight different genres of music with local-language genres such as K-pop in South Korea or Amapiano in South Africa increasingly popular in domestic markets.
Writing in the study’s foreword, IFPI chief executive Frances Moore says its findings demonstrate how the music industry has evolved to give “artists more opportunities than ever to find audiences,” who are in turn “discovering and engaging with more music in an increasing number of ways.”
Nevertheless, music piracy remains an ongoing issue that has “a severe and direct impact on royalties,” warns Moore. Of those surveyed, 29% of respondents said that use unlicensed or illegal methods to listen to or obtain music, down slightly from the previous year.
Stream-ripping sites remain the most popular way for consumers to access copyright-infringing music, IFPI found, with 41% of 16-24-year-olds confessing to using them. One in five people (20%) said they had used an unlicensed mobile app to illegally download music.
The listening study also contains separate reports looking at music consumption in China, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Vietnam.
In China, which last year overtook France as the fifth-biggest music market worldwide with revenues of $1.2 billion, 96% of people surveyed said they now used licensed music streaming services with the total number of hours spent listening to music each week increasing to just under 30 hours among respondents.
Despite the rapid growth in streaming in China, 75% of people surveyed said that they still used unlicensed or illegal ways to access music, demonstrating that piracy remains a serious issue in the world’s most populous country.
Responding to the report’s findings, Moore said that tackling all forms of copyright infringement on a global basis would continue to be a priority for IFPI to “ensure the most secure digital environment possible for music creators and fans alike.”
Legislators have provisionally agreed to sweeping new laws that will regulate the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in Europe, including controls around the use of copyrighted music.
The deal between policy makers from the European Union Parliament, Council and European Commission on the EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act was reached late on Friday night in Brussels local time following months of negotiations and amid fierce lobbying from the music and tech industries.
The draft legislation is the world’s first comprehensive set of laws regulating the use of AI and places a number of legal obligations on technology companies and AI developers, including those working in the creative sector and music business.
The precise technical details of those measures are still being finalized by EU policy makers, but earlier versions of the bill decreed that companies using generative or foundation AI models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude 2 would be required to provide summaries of any copyrighted works, including music, that they use to train their systems.
The AI Act will also force developers to clearly identify content that is created by AI, as opposed to human works before they are placed in the market. In addition, tech companies will have to ensure that their systems are designed in such a way that prevents them from generating illegal content.
Large tech companies who break the rules – which govern all applications and uses of AI inside the 27 member block of EU countries — will face fines of up to €35 million or 7% of global annual turnover. Start-up businesses or smaller tech operations will receive proportionate financial punishments, said the European Commission.
Governance will be carried out by national authorities, while a new European AI Office will be created to supervise the enforcement of the new rules on general purpose AI models.
President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen called the agreement “a historic moment” that “will make a substantial contribution to the development of global rules and principles for human-centric AI.”
Responding to the announcement, Tobias Holzmüller, CEO of German collecting society GEMA, said the deal reached by the European government was a welcome “step in the right direction” but cautioned that its rules and provisions “need to be sharpened further on a technical level.”
“The outcome must be a clearly formulated transparency regime that obliges AI providers to submit detailed evidence on the contents they used to train their systems,” said Holzmüller.
Representatives of the technology industry, which had lobbied to weaken the AI Act’s transparency provisions, criticized the deal and warned that it was likely to put European AI developers at a competitive disadvantage.
Daniel Friedlaender, Senior Vice President of the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), which counts Alphabet, Apple, Amazon and Meta among its members, said in a statement that “crucial details” of the AI act are still missing “with potentially disastrous consequences for the European economy.”
“The final AI Act lacks the vision and ambition that European tech startups and businesses are displaying right now,” said CCIA Europe’s Policy Manager, Boniface de Champris. He warned that, if passed, the legislation might “end up chasing away the European champions that the EU so desperately wants to empower.”
Now that an political agreement has been reached on the AI Act, legislators will spend the coming weeks finalizing the exact technical details of the regulation and translating its terms for the 27 EU member countries.
The final text then needs to be approved by the European Council and Parliament, with a decisive vote not excepted to take place until early next year, possibly as late as March. If passed, the act will be applicable two years after its entry into force, except for some specific provisions: bans will apply after six months while the rules on generative AI models will begin after 12 months.
In a statement, international recorded music trade organization IFPI said the first-of-its-kind legislation provides “a constructive and encouraging framework” for regulation of the nascent technology.
“AI offers creators both opportunities and risks,” said an IFPI spokesperson, “and we believe there is a path to a mutually successful outcome for both the creative and technology communities.”
Hipgnosis Songs Fund has found a buyer for a batch of “non-core songs” that have been up for sale since earlier this fall. In a filing Monday with the London Stock Exchange, where it is listed, HSF announced the sale of 20,000 tracks for $23.1 million, which it said reflects a 14.2% discount on the songs’ valuation as of late September.
The company said the sale of the songs, acquired in 2020 from Kobalt, is expected to net $22.6 million, which will be used to pay down a revolving credit facility and provide “greater headroom under its future covenant compliance reporting.” The buyer or buyers were not disclosed. The sale price represents a multiple of 9.6x net publisher share, according to a statement, and makes up approximately 1% of HSF’s investment portfolio value.
The specifics of these “non-core” songs have also not been disclosed. When the proposed sale was announced in September, the company’s board said the songs “require ongoing accounting and reporting obligations that take up significant bandwidth which can be better focused on active song management.”
Hipgnosis is comprised of three companies: Hipgnosis Song Management, Hipgnosis Songs Capital and Hipgnosis Songs Fund. The latter of the three has been mired in controversy in recent months after it was announced that the London-listed trust would not pay its investors a dividend because of new, lower projections for revenue.
On Oct. 26, investors of the fund overwhelmingly demanded structural changes to the music rights company, with more than 80% of Hipgnosis investors voting in favor of the board drawing up “proposals for the reconstruction, reorganization or winding-up of the company to shareholders for their approval within six months.”
Last month the company announced that the fund will not declare dividends before the new fiscal year, which begins next April, in order to ensure it has enough on its balance sheet to pay contractually-mandated catalog bonuses.
In its latest filing announcing the sale of unspecified songs, HSF also said it had appointed Singer Capital Markets as sole corporate broker and financial adviser, and Shot Tower Capital as lead adviser of the company’s strategic review.
Physical and digital media archiving service Iron Mountain Entertainment Services has agreed to fund full-ride scholarships for four students at Inglewood, Calif.-based music education institution 1500 Sound Academy, the organizations tell Billboard.
1500 Sound Academy offers instruction in current and emerging business practices in the music industry via a team that includes Grammy-winning singer-songwriter James Fauntleroy, Grammy-winning producer Larrance “Rance” Dopson and entrepreneur and executive Twila True. The scholarships will be available to prospective students who wish to enroll in one of three 1500 Sound Academy programs: music & industry fundamentals, DJ fundamentals and vocal performance & production fundamentals. Those awarded the scholarships will take part in in-person lectures and labs focused on music production, engineering, songwriting, mixing, music business, DJ fundamentals, vocal performance, vocal production and more.
Students who receive the scholarships will also be instructed in the basics of archiving and restoration through Iron Mountain’s “Smart Vault” digital media preservation solution as well as on-the-ground training at Iron Mountain’s digital studio and vaults.
To be eligible for the scholarships, applicants must meet the enrollment requirements and not have previously attended any course or program at 1500 Sound Academy.
“We look forward to our partnership with Iron Mountain Entertainment Services by offering four fortunate students the opportunity to learn the fundamentals in this industry through one of our programs,” said Fauntleroy in a statement. “With IMES’ global resources in the film, music, broadcast, and sports industries, we’re encouraging new talent to emerge in the field and seeking to help a new generation of music professionals obtain a launching pad into the industry.”
“The 1500 Sound Academy is leading the way for the next wave of leaders in the business of music,” added Lance Podell, senior vp/GM of Iron Mountain Entertainment Services. “We are honored to partner with them and fund student scholarships, as well as provide our Smart Vault solution to all of the students and faculty. Too often we hear about lost lyrics, songs or assets. Our support will provide the solution and training to help a new generation of creators in the discipline of archival preservation, which is a critical but often overlooked aspect of building a music career.”
The application process for the scholarships opens on Tuesday (Dec. 12). Winners will be announced on Dec. 29 or Jan. 5. More details on the submission and application process can be found here.
If YG Entertainment’s re-signing of all four BLACKPINK members is any indication, investors can worry less about K-pop companies’ ability to retain their artists.
YG Entertainment gained 17.2% this week to 59,300 won ($45.00) as investors reacted to news that the four members of BLACKPINK signed to new, exclusive contracts with the agency. (The share price rose 29% the morning the announcement was made.) Uncertainty about contract renewals had caused the company’s share price to decline 16% in the week ended Sept. 22, as news reports out of South Korea said three BLACKPINK members would leave YG and spend just six months out of the year with the group. At the time, the company denied the news and insisted that the deals were still being discussed.
The BLACKPINK renewal appeared to have a positive impact on the stocks of other K-pop companies. Shares of HYBE gained 12.3% to 237,500 won ($180.24), while SM Entertainment shares rose 3.6% to 88,200 won ($66.94). Those improvements far exceeded the 0.5% gain posted by South Korea’s KOSPI composite index.
The Billboard Global Music Index gained 2.2% to a record 1,481.56, surpassing the previous high of 1,426.49 set four weeks earlier. That brought the index’s year-to-date gain to 26.9%. Half of the index’s 20 stocks finished the week in positive territory.
This week’s 2.2% gain outpaced major indexes around the world. In the United States, the Nasdaq improved 0.7% to 14,403.97 while the S&P 500 rose 0.2% to 4,604.37, reaching an all-time high of 4,609.23 on Friday (Dec. 8). In the United Kingdom, the FTSE 100 gained 0.3% to 7,554.47.
Spotify was the biggest contributor to the Billboard Global Music Index’s gain this week. The streaming company — the largest component of the 20-company, float-adjusted index — enjoyed a double-digit increase this week, gaining 9.6% to $198.05 after Monday’s news the company will lay off 17% of its workers. Following Thursday’s news that CFO Paul Vogel will leave the company in March 2024, Spotify shares rose 1.1% on Friday.
Another stock to react to financial news was Sphere Entertainment Co., which announced the sale of $225 million in convertible senior notes that mature in 2028. That sent the company’s shares down 15.5%, but the stock recovered most of its losses and finished the week down only 5.3% to $32.66. Following the debt announcement, Sphere Entertainment was upgraded by Seaport to a “buy” with a $38 price target, representing a 16.4% upside over Friday’s closing price. U2 concerts were doing $500,000 more per show than expected and the $99 average ticket price to the Darren Aronofsky film Postcard From Earth was above analysts’ $84 estimate.
The smallest stock on the index, Abu Dhabi-based music streamer Anghami, dropped 41.3% to $1.35 without any regulatory filings or other news. The stock was trading below $1.00 per share as recently as Nov. 15 but jumped to $3.49 on Nov. 21 on trading volume of 57.7 million shares, or about 50 times the daily average.
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.
Online Streaming Act hearings
For the last few weeks, a who’s who of stakeholders in Canadian music and media have been appearing before the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) — from rights manager SOCAN to Spotify, Sirius XM and even UFC. The occasion is Bill C-11, a.k.a. the Online Streaming Act, which will update Canada’s Broadcasting Act for the first time in decades. The hearings will continue until Friday (Dec. 8).
It’s a major deal for the Canadian music business, whose system of CanCon requirements and public funds have built an industry that can compete — or at least not crumble — in a market dominated by American media to the south. This first round of hearings are focused on major streaming platforms like Spotify and YouTube and potential regulations and monetary contributions they may have to make in order to continue operating in Canada.
“We hope that the CRTC will lean into this idea that it’s a once-in-a-generation regulatory process,” says Patrick Rogers, CEO of Music Canada, which represents the major label. “There are a lot of big questions: Who gets regulated? Who pays? How much? Who has access to the money? Now is when we’re going to figure it out.”
A worry among many is that too much financial regulation of big American tech companies could cause them to scale back their investment in Canada. Something similar recently happened with Bill C-18, in which Meta chose to block all Canadian news rather than pay for it. In Spotify’s hearing, company executives — who have an office in Toronto — said that compelled spending could affect their existing Canadian investments.
“The objective here should be: how do we build a stable, viable, resilient, equitable, middle class of artists and thriving Canadian-owned businesses and the music space that can compete globally?” says Andrew Cash, president and CEO of the Canadian Independent Music Association. READ MORE
How Quebec markets its music to the world
M for Montreal festival took place from Nov. 15-18, bringing Canadian and international visibility to Quebec music and artists. That’s an important objective in Quebec, where francophone music is marketed as much to France and globally as to the rest of Canada, which is divided by language.
According to the Société de développement des entreprises culturelles québécoises (SODEC), one of the festival’s main financial partners, M for Montreal is a significant market. “It’s an extraordinary opportunity to check the interest of foreign professionals in very particular artistic proposals whose potential is not yet known internationally,” says Élaine Dumont, general director of international affairs, exportation and marketing of Cinema at SODEC.
For her, events like M for Montreal are a fantastic way to gauge interest in Quebec musicians. “They are at home with their audience, so they can give the best of themselves, and that is precious,” says Élaine Dumont.
Similarly, SODEC supports collective presence, which means making sure Quebec artists and music industry professionals are represented at festivals worldwide. “We collaborate with M for Montreal, Mundial Montreal, FME, POP Montreal, for example, so that they send professionals internationally,” she adds. Thus, M for Montreal participates in events such as South by Southwest in Texas, Reeperbahn Festival in Germany, The New Colossus in New York and The Great Escape Festival in England.
“The festival has a good network in France, Germany, the UK, the US, and the rest of Canada,” notes programmer Mathieu Aubre. And because the French market is not approached like that of Francophone Africa, for example, SODEC, with an annual budget of over $4 million for the export of Quebec music, also offers specific support to territories. “We distribute various aids that allow us to take risks, support artists’ careers and develop audiences outside Quebec and internationally,” says Dumont. READ MORE
Diljit Dosanjh to play the biggest Punjabi concert outside of India
Diljit Dosanjh is set to make history next year with a just-announced performance at Vancouver’s BC Place on April 27, 2024 — the country’s first-ever Punjabi stadium show. With a capacity of 54,500, it’s expected to be the largest ever Punjabi music performance outside of India.
The BC Place announcement caps off a banner year for Dosanjh. This summer, he became the first artist to perform a fully Punjabi set at Coachella and in September, he released his latest album, Ghost, blends smooth R&B, moody trap and laid-back pop. The album spent seven weeks on Billboard’s Canadian Albums chart, peaking at No. 5. His collaboration with Sia, “Hass Hass,” also went to No. 37 on the Canadian Hot 100.
Speaking to Billboard Canada for a cover story about the popularity of Punjabi music in Canada, talent buyer Baldeep Randhawa recalled taking a job at Live Nation with a goal of supporting South Asian music. At the time, he hinted at big things to come with Dosanjh and said he had already shown there’s a major market for Punjabi music in Canada.
“I told them I was gonna prove the concept, book a 500 cap[acity] room and eventually go bigger,” Randhawa said.
When only a couple of months later, Live Nation booked Dosanjh, Randhawa learned he could skip right over the 500 capacity rooms and book arenas. Dosanjh performed at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, then a sold-out show at Vancouver’s Rogers Arena — which has a capacity of 18,000 — in June 2022.
Dosanjh is a superstar, but he’s not the only Punjabi artist making waves in Canada. Dosanjh collaborator Ikky recently announced a headline tour visiting five Canadian provinces in February 2024. READ MORE
If it’s Friday, you know 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 the global music industry.
Tom Connaughton is out as Spotify’s managing director in the UK and Ireland, he announced this week on social media. The British-born executive joined the streaming giant in March of 2018 as head of artist and label marketing before getting a quick promotion three months later to his most recent role, which centered on driving content strategy and artist partnerships in the two powerful markets. He came to Spotify after seven years at Vevo, including two as senior vp of creative content & programming. In that role, he had responsibility for artist and label relationships across the U.S., U.K. and eleven different international markets and was based in New York at the time.
Earlier this week, Spotify chief Daniel Ek outlined an aggressive round of job cuts at the company, however a spokesperson for the company declined to comment when asked if Connaughton’s exit was related in any way. He has spent a good chunk of the last year on paternity leave, a perk that was the subject of a recent Fortune profile, and in his LinkedIn announcement, which was gracious and positive in tone, said he’s looking forward to “taking some time out to spend with my young family.” He added in his note: “The UK and Ireland is a massive market for Spotify, and the business today is unrecognisable to what it was when I first joined. That’s all been made possible by the incredible people that I’ve had the pleasure of working alongside. They all care so deeply about giving a platform to artists and creators, and to providing an amazing user experience for all of us to enjoy.”
As Music Business Worldwide noted in their coverage, Connaughton is the second market honcho to exit following last week’s departure of Jenny Hermanson as MD of the Nordics.
Warner Chappell Music tapped Jessica Entner to be its first vice president of creative sync strategy, a multi-faceted role focused on business development, partnerships and working directly with agencies and brands to realize WCM writers’ creative goals. Based in Los Angeles, she reports to Keith D’Arcy, WCM’s senior vp of sync and creative services. Entner arrives with roughly 24 years of industry experience under her belt, dating back to stints at Maverick Publishing, FM Rocks, Elias Arts and Massive Music, among others. Since 2016, she has helmed JEM, a music company focused on guiding creative strategy and production for advertising agencies and brands. “The media landscape is changing, and the creative needs of our clients in advertising, branding, and promotion are changing with it,” notes evp of global synchronization Rich Robinson. “Jessica is the perfect person to work with both our music partners and our songwriters to navigate these shifts and deepen the strategic relationship between music creators and brands.”
Elliot Grainge’s 10K Projects, which recently became a standalone label under Warner Music, named Max Gore to chief financial officer and promoted Blake Brown-Grakal to general counsel and Samuel Cohen to general manager. All three execs are LA-based. Gore swivels over from WMG, where he most recently served as vp of finance and operations at WMX. Brown-Grakal, a former drum tech for Ringo Starr’s band, joined 10K in 2020 as an associate director of business and legal affairs. Cohen has been with the label since 2017 and has worked across A&R, marketing and biz dev. “As we look forward to a new phase of growth at 10K, reinforcing our core executive team is crucial,” said Grainge. “Max brings with him well over a decade of finance experience, the majority within the Warner system. Blake’s facility in communicating with artists and their teams on business matters has been a game-changer for us over these past three years. And Sam has been at 10K since the very beginning, helping to guide every chapter of our development at the label.”
300 Entertainment promoted Lallie Jones to vp of marketing and Josh D’Amore to senior vp of digital and streaming. Jones — who was 300 Entertainment’s first employee, starting in 2015 as co-founder Lyor Cohen’s executive assistant — has overseen marketing campaigns for artists like PinkPantheress, $NOT and Phony Ppl, while D’Amore manages the commerce, digital strategy and streaming operation for the label. “Lallie and Josh are both incredibly valuable members of the 300 Entertainment team,” 300 co-presidents Selim Bouab and Rayna Bass said. “They have been a vital part of some of our biggest success stories, and will undoubtedly play crucial roles in many more to come.” –Dan Rys
Indie distributor TuneCore appointed Brian Miller as the company’s new chief revenue officer — a role last filled by the company’s now-CEO Andreea Gleeson. As CRO, Miller’s M.O. will be to spearhead revenue growth strategies, securing strategic partnerships and developing innovative ways to expand-and-retain TuneCore’s roster of artists and labels. Miller arrives from Angi (formerly Angie’s List), where for nearly three years he was chief growth officer at the popular DIY home services platform. Before that he spent six years in various executive roles at handyman-finding site Handy HQ, which was acquired by Angi in 2018. “Brian’s hands-on experience scaling SaaS businesses, forging dynamic partnerships and leading growth strategies—along with his passion for developing independent artists—make him an invaluable addition to our senior management team as we innovate to drive artist growth,” said Gleeson.
BMI promoted Tim Pattison to senior director of creative, effective immediately. In this New York City-based role, Pattison scouts and signs new songwriters and publishers, plus acts as point-person for various writer-focused showcases including the monthly Acoustic Lounge, the funnily titled Speed Dating for Songwriters, and showcases at Austin City Limits, SXSW and others. Since joining BMI in 2015, Pattison has handled writer/publisher relations for a slew of BMI stars, namely Doja Cat, Ice Spice and Yung Gravy, among others. Prior to BMI, the Ohio University and NYU alum held positions at Spirit Music Group and Fat Possum Records.
All in the Family: Penske Media’s venerable Dick Clark Productions hired veteran executive Sara Kantathavorn as senior vice president of talent strategy and promoted Jeremy Lowe to vp of talent and partnerships. Kantathavorn arrives after a five-year stretch at Apple Music, where she rose to head of global talent development and managed and developed the streaming service’s roster of hosts worldwide. Prior to Apple, she served in vp-level roles at Viacom Digital Studios and Revolt TV. Lowe’s roots run deep at DCP, where he started as an intern in 2009 and was most recently an executive director of marketing and talent partnerships. He and Kantathavorn will work closely together to help shape the DCP talent strategy across its events, which include The Billboard Music Awards, Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest and the Academy of Country Music Awards. “Sara’s experience leading talent teams and strategy coupled with Jeremy’s enthusiasm and passion for artist discovery make for a winning combination,” said Jay Penske, CEO, chairman and founder of Penske Media. “Talent will always be at the core of everything we do at DCP.”
London-based booking agency One Fiinix Live added veteran agent John Pantle to the team, effective immediately. Pantle joins after a five-year stretch at Sound Talent Group, where he was partner and handled a coming-with-him roster that includes Hatsune Miku, Julieta Venegas and Radwimps, among others. Prior to STG, he spent nine years at APA and three at UTA. “This business was built on creative ideas, entrepreneurship and personalities and John has all these attributes,” said One Fiinix Live founder and CEO Jon Ollier, who personally books the company’s biggest client (rhymes with Ned Beeran). Pantle will be based in Los Angeles but work London hours.
ICYMI:
Paul Vogel (pictured) will step down as Spotify’s chief financial officer on March 31, 2024 … Daniel McCartney and Brandon Frankel joined 33 & West, the L.A.-based booking agency … Luis Fernández is the new chairman of NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises … and Paul Hitchman was promoted to COO at AWAL.
Shane McAnally’s publishing, management and artist development company SMACK backed Molly Bouchon to be its director of marketing & artist development, effective immediately. Bouchon joined SMACK in 2019 as director of digital. In her new role, Bouchon will continue her digital work across SMACK and add SMACKRecords to her list of responsibilities. Bouchon will now oversee label marketing and social strategy, press/partner pitching and distribution for SMACKRecords artists. “Molly has made herself an integral piece of everything we do at SMACK. She has a unique role that interfaces with all the divisions here and works with them all at a high level. This promotion reflects her high quality of work within those roles and expands it with the addition of SMACKRecords,” say Robert Carlton, president of SMACK.
Musicians On Call, the non-profit bringing live music to hospitals, announced the inaugural members of its national Music Industry Advisory Board. The members of MOC’s Music Industry Advisory Board are: Jessica Abel (G7 Entertainment Marketing), Adrienne Assip (Epic Records), Erin Burr (RIAA), Alex Ciasnocha (Warner Music Nashville), Hayden Coplen (Wasserman Music Los Angeles), Stephanie DeMarco (Spotify), Laura Fuller (FlyteVu), Kristen Reed (Universal Music Group), Rachel Inglesino (Jonas Group Entertainment), Sydni Joseph (Big Plan Holdings), Derek Roberge (Sony Music Entertainment), Torianne Valdez (Musicians On Call), Liliana Villarreal (iHeartRadio).
Radio, Radio: Cumulus Media is elevating Collin Jones to president of Westwood One, starting New Year’s Day, taking over for a departing Suzanne Grimes. Jones joined Cumulus in 2011 and later helped with the acquisition of Westwood One before eventually becoming evp of corporate strategy and development. Grimes has overseen Westwood One’s vast network of radio stations since 2015 and was integral in pushing the company into podcasting. She has the dual title as evp of corporate marketing at Cumulus … iHeartMedia restructured its Markets Group to introduce five new division presidents overseeing the company’s region, metro and community divisions. At metro will be Kristin Foley, Chris Soechtig and DJ Hodge. Over in the region division, Bernie Weiss and Paul Corvino will lead … Then, iHeart announced two other division presidents would be departing: markets group president Scott Hopeck and division president Kim Guthrie … Warner Music Nashville‘s national director of radio, Chris Fabiani, is leaving the label in the new year. He joined WMG in 2020 following a decade with UMG.
Last Week’s Turntable: Former Vevo CEO Lands at Lyrics Platform
Dolly Parton has long poured her time and talents into Nashville, and now she’s doing it again. The Dollywood Company, a joint venture between Parton and Herschend Enterprises, has acquired a downtown office and retail building located at 211 Commerce Street in Nashville, the company has confirmed to Billboard. “Since the pandemic, commercial real estate […]
Music tech company Splice has partnered with Billboard to exclusively release key data about what sounds have trended among their usership over the last year. This is the first time the company has made their end-of-year data public.
Since its founding in 2013, Splice has offered music makers a constantly evolving sound library of millions of samples and loops for royalty-free use, ranging widely from kick drum to kopuz (a Turkish string lute) samples. Its sounds are widely used by producers of all sizes — from hobbyists in their bedrooms to the talents making Hot 100 hits with Justin Bieber, Bad Bunny, Taylor Swift and Travis Scott.
Splice has users in virtually every country around the world, but it is particularly popular in its top ten markets: U.S., U.K., Germany, Canada, France, Brazil, South Korea, Australia, Italy and India. 44% of its registered users identify as Gen Z.
To organize its ever-growing library, Splice uses a tagging system, adding genre and subgenre signifiers to help users find the sample they need. Some sounds have multiple genre tags. As the company’s creative director of Splice Sounds, Jay “Capsun” Pulman, explains, “when we have sample packs that are released that are tagged as K-pop, for instance, the vast majority of the time, they’ll be made by an artist, producer, or songwriter who is actively involved in K-pop in some way. They’re involved in that scene. The samples come out of the genre, as opposed to tagging every sound that could be used from Splice and made into K-pop.”
In sharing this data, Pulman, says the company can shine a light on the “very starting point of music making…It shows us the start point of where eventual trends bubble, even before getting to see [the trends] in mainstream hits.”
African Music
Most notably, downloads for sounds tagged as “amapiano,” a South African dance music genre often featuring log drums, are up 826% year-over-year. Its searches are up 309%, and it is trending in 17 cities. In Los Angeles, the highest trending city for the genre, its growth is up 1,003% year-over-year. It is also popular among Atlanta producers, surging 956% in the city this year.
According to Pulman, the discrepancy in downloads versus searches for amapiano suggests that users might not know to look up this nascent genre by name through their search bar. However, they’re still gravitating towards it when it’s featured in other ways on the site. On the Splice home page, the Splice team often creates groupings of sounds for different genres, moods and other categories to entice users to download sounds.
In the last year, African music has become popular on the Billboard charts as stars from the continent like Rema, Burna Boy, and Tems, crossed over into the American mainstream. “Calm Down” by Rema, with an assist from popstar Selena Gomez, peaked at No. 3 this year on the Hot 100 and even made the difficult move to No. 1 on the pop radio airplay chart for five straight weeks. In an acknowledgment of African music’s growth, Billboard launched a dedicated U.S. Afrobeats chart in association with Afro Nation, and Billboard reporters Heran Mamo and Dan Rys frequently cover the latest in the genre with their monthly roundup, Afrobeats Fresh Picks.
Amapiano’s growth on Splice represents the continued proliferation of African music globally. To further fuel growth in trending genres, Pulman says Splice’s Sounds team watches their data carefully and hires musicians native to those genres to amass more authentic samples for the platform to offer its users.
Meanwhile, sounds that are tagged as “afrobeats” or “afropop” have declined by 45%, particularly in African metropolises like Lagos, Nigera. Splice believes this is because “users want authentic sounds from more specific Afro genres rather than generic samples that fall under a larger umbrella.”
Hip-Hop / Rap
Hip-hop remains the most popular genre on Splice, accounting for 19% of total downloads. Still, the genre is down 11% from 2022. This may foreshadow continued difficulties for hip-hop music on the charts. This year was widely considered to be an especially stagnant year for the highly-streamed genre, and that was reflected on the Billboard charts: August 2023 marked a full year since a rap song had been No. 1 on the Hot 100 – the first time this has happened in 23 years.
Splice has found that downloads of trap sounds are down by 14% globally since last year, even in the genre’s birthplace of Atlanta, where those downloads fell by 20%. (Meanwhile, Atlanta saw a 50% growth in techno downloads, a 21% growth in dubstep, and a 20% growth in soul).
Still, 86% of Splice users downloaded a hip-hop sample in 2023, and 57% of Splice users told the company in a recent survey that hip-hop interests them most when searching for samples. Pulman adds that producers who are making hip-hop, for example, might use sounds tagged as other genres in eventually creating hip-hop songs.
Phonk
This year, Splice introduced a tag for phonk music, and so far, the genre has seen growth of 1,246% year-over-year to more than 1 million downloads since the tag first became available. (This percentage is available because Splice says it has retroactively applied the “phonk” tag to older sounds in its catalog, created prior to the tag). Phonk samples are trending primarily in cities like Los Angeles, Tokyo, Berlin, Chicago, and Seoul. The new genre, which sounds like slowed down Memphis rap samples set to lo-fi beats, is especially well-known among gamers and car enthusiasts who are passionate about “drifting.” It is often used by those communities to soundtrack their social media videos. While phonk still isn’t well-known among the general public, it’s gained a much wider reach this year, thanks in part to its inclusion on the latest Fast and Furious mixtape, which was released alongside the franchise’s 10th movie earlier this year.
Electronic / Dance
Dance music genres saw a comeback this year on Splice. The company says drum & bass was one of the fastest growing genres this year, ranking as the 10th most downloaded genre in 2023 with 85% growth year-over-year. Jersey Club, a fast-paced subgenre that fuses elements of house and rap, also saw major growth with a 178% increase in downloads year-over-year. It’s trending in Nashville and six other cities.
Sounds tagged as “U.K. garage” are trending in nine cities Pulman says that while “it’s a fairly niche genre, it has made its way into larger genres like K-pop, for instance.” It also made its mark on Western pop through the work of PinkPantheress.
Various subgenres of house are also growing in popularity on Splice. Downloads for house samples are up 27% overall, and searches for the genre are up 17%.
K-Pop
Sounds tagged as “K-pop” have declined 17.97% on Splice in 2023, but the company states that this “may not be indicative of the genre itself declining,” given that K-pop is an amalgamation of various influences spanning from U.K. garage to trap.
In Seoul, the epicenter of the K-pop industry, Splice has seen sounds from amapiano, phonk, Jersey club, Baltimore club, U.K. garage and big room house trend in the last year.
Latin
Despite breakout stars like Peso Pluma and Grupo Frontera hitting the charts this year, Splice has not seen a notable uptick in the use of regional Mexican samples, including the subgenres ranchera, norteño, banda and mariachi. Splice says this is likely because most regional Mexican music makers do not heavily rely on sampling.
Reggaeton sounds saw 23% growth in downloads year-over-year, making it the 29th most downloaded genre on the platform. Reggaeton’s top city on the platform is Los Angeles, where the genre grew 26% year-over-year.
Sounds tagged as “baile funk,” or “funk carioca,” has also grown this year by 107% globally. This is likely thanks to exposure on TikTok with viral hits like “Automotivo Bibi Fogosa” by Bibi Babydoll, Dj Brunin XM, and KZA Produções and “Tuburao Te Amo” by Dj LK da Escócia, Tchakabum and MC Ryan SP. Downloads for the genre have grown especially quickly in Sao Paulo (92%), Mumbai (179%), Tokyo (81%), and Guadalajara (888%).
Country
Country music is not considered a sample heavy genre, but it is still growing among Splice users. Over the last year, Splice saw downloads for sounds tagged as “country” grow by 67%, while searches are up 21%. This mirrors the genre’s growth on the Hot 100 this year as country hitmakers like Morgan Wallen, Luke Combs, Jason Aldean and Zach Bryan became mainstream stars.
The slowdown in corporate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives inspired the theme at this year’s ADCOLOR Conference: “Double Down & Double Up,” representing a call to expand DEI efforts in the advertising industry. And the speakers, nominees, and honorees at this year’s event — held Nov. 9–11, 2023, in L.A. — provided numerous examples of how different experiences, viewpoints and backgrounds expand the reach to audiences.
Since Tiffany R. Warren founded the conference in 2005, ADCOLOR has brought LatinX, Black, Asian, LGTBQ+ and disabled creatives to the forefront of a conversation that had long excluded them. The upbeat and informative event celebrated how far the industry has come, yet reminded attendees of the importance of sharing knowledge and opportunities to ensure that progress continues.
This year’s event was the first since the United States Supreme Court further weakened affirmative action policies in a decision handed down in June. A video highlighting the decision was displayed on video screens as attendees participated in panels and workshops, serving as a constant reminder of what was at stake.
In a panel titled “Men of Color in the C Suite,” Epic Records president Zeke Lewis, Mediahub executive vp/executive director Alejandro Claiborne and Billboard president Mike Van shared insight on what it means to be part of a rare club and the unique responsibility of being a trailblazer in the top job.
“Race and gender manifest differently,” Claiborne noted in response to a question about making space for women on their team. “My job is to advocate, to create a safe space…psychological, socially, physical. When in mixed company, I try to make sure her voice is heard so others know I have her back.” Van also shared that the Billboard executive team is majority women: “The sooner I can work with women on a team, the likelihood of success is very high.”y
As Van noted, the journey to the C-suite will include failures along with successes. “Figure out and understand what you stand for,” he said. “Don’t expect success to be linear.”
ADCOLOR Nominees and Winners
The ADCOLOR 17th annual awards ceremony was held on the final night of the conference, with the black-tie event celebrating creators of inclusive advertising. Below, the winners of Ad of the Year and Most Valuable Partnership honors shared their thoughts on their respective wins.
Ad of the year
Campaign: “The Black Elevation Map”
Client: Black & Abroad
Agency: Performance Art
Honorees: Eric Martin (co-founder/chief creative officer, Black & Abroad) and Kent Johnson (co-founder/chief strategy officer, Black & Abroad)
The Black Elevation Map is a digital app that was created for Black and Abroad, a travel and lifestyle company that focuses on unique experiences for Black travelers. Inspired by the Green Book, a guide for black roadtrippers that highlighted businesses that would welcome them, the app “takes cultural data, including Black population data, historical markers, Black-owned businesses and social media activity, and visualizes it as points of interest on a dynamic, searchable elevation map of the United States.”
How does it feel to win Ad of the Year on your first try?
Eric Martin: It’s exhilarating. Mainly because when we started the work, we had no idea of where we were heading as a business. This was in the prime of the pandemic. There was literally no signals of when this thing would be over. …We just worked with what we had. We spent almost a year putting this together. When we launched it [during] Black History Month 2022, we had no idea where it would go, we just knew we were doing what we could. We were keeping it authentic, and we had an amazing pool of talent that we were able to tap into. An amazing run of businesses that were willing to participate and enlist themselves. And then we had the support of our community.
Why was the message of the ad important to you?
Ken Johnson: I think the Black community was looking for a way to share that information. There had been a consolidated moment. We were sharing lists of our favorite restaurants, etc., but it didn’t seem like it made it accessible if I’m out and about and I want to pull up a map around me that I could patronize immediately. We didn’t see that platform out there, so that was our driving force. We were tapping into the legacy of Victor Green, creator of the Green Book. How do we tap into what he’s done and bring it to our time and make it accessible and familiar for everyone? We all know how to pull up a map on our phones, but if we are able to pull up a map that already has our interests in mind, what would that do for the businesses being impacted?
How was it inspired by the Green Book?
Johnson: The Green Book was a tool for survival. The energy has shifted to how do we in the community make sure these businesses survive. We want to see these businesses around. We want entrepreneurs in our space to be able to make it past those first couple of years that are the hardest. Now we make sure that businesses are able to keep payroll up, reach new audiences. The spirit of survival is still there, [but] the direction is commerce.
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Most valuable partnership
WhatsApp and Translation
Honoree: Ghada Soufan, integrated marketing manager, WhatsApp; founder of MENA for ADCOLOR
WhatsApp teamed up with creative agency Translation for Naija Odyssey, a short film in which Greek-Nigerian Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo “tells his origin story of many origins as he reconciles his roots, birthplace and sense of belonging between cross-cultural worlds.” The film derived from an endorsement deal Antetokounmpo signed with WhatsApp last year.
What’s behind the growth of WhatsApp?
WhatsApp connects over 2 billion people around the world, which is really amazing. It has grown so much over the past two years. It really is the utility app that connects diasporas, communities, families, loved ones, friends, academic groups, elementary schools. So it’s been amazing to see the growth, but also the usage standpoint, the utility and the connections it’s provided for our users.
How do you handle that kind of rapid growth?
We handle the growth with excitement. We were excited about telling the story of WhatsApp as a brand. A lot of people use WhatsApp, [and] being able to really deliver [on] its purpose in connecting loved ones and representing marginalized communities, and really being for the people, and delivering features that can help anyone from teenager to a grandma to use it simply and reliably, has been really amazing.
A lot of people leave accessibility out of the DEI conversation.
That’s why we really refocused our audience with that partnership with Translation on people that are dual culture or multihyphenated. They work between the hyphen. For myself, it’s Arab-American, someone else it might be African-American, Nigerian-British. Wherever you are, we provide the closest thing to [a] face-to-face relationship, that intimate connection, through our app.
How does having a diverse team add to the success?
We have one of the most international teams. We truly have representation [and] truly a global diverse team. We have people from India, Brazil, Germany, U.K., U.S., Asia, Nigeria. We look for diversity not just in terms of a Western point of view, we’re a global diverse perspective. We aim to celebrate those people in our work and in how they use the app.
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