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The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music launched a new Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) music industry degree this fall, it was announced Tuesday (Oct. 3).
Dubbed as the lone program of its kind in the University of California system, the new degree will prepare graduates for careers in artist and label management, publicity, finance, live-music promotion, digital marketing, music supervision, music publishing and licensing and more. The degree will also offer creative instruction in audio technology, musicianship, songwriting and production. Courses will be taught by new and longtime UCLA faculty as well as working industry professionals.
The B.A. program “builds on the success of the School of Music’s popular undergraduate minor,” according to a press release, which states that more than a quarter of the U.S.’s music industry job postings are in California while seven of the top 10 U.S. cities employing music professionals are located within 50 miles of the school’s Westwood campus. In addition to the fundamentals, the school will focus on such burgeoning topics as new global markets, streaming algorithms, generative artificial intelligence and musical activism.
“Our goal and responsibility is to empower a diverse community of exceptional students as nextgeneration transformational thinkers in the music industry,” said Eileen Strempel, inaugural dean of the Herb Alpert School of Music, in a statement. “The success of our previous programs built our credibility and infrastructure, while providing us the time to assemble a powerful 12-member advisoryboard chaired by Warner Records visionary Tom Corson to guide us in building this new major’s curriculum.”
“What sets UCLA’s offering apart from other music industry degree programs is the integration of direct skills engagement such as internships, apprenticeships, and student-led projects with the liberal arts curriculum of a major research institution,” added Robert Fink, founding chair of the school’s music industry degree program. He continued that students will be “challenged to take a critical view of the formative effects music industry and technology has had on musical practices around the world.”
Warner Records co-chairman/COO Tom Corson will serve as the inaugural chair of the dean’s board of advisors at the school.
“UCLA’s School of Music is closely affiliated with our industry and knows it well,” said Corson in a statement. “Every business needs people who have the passion and the training that this program will provide. We need future professionals who’ve seriously considered many aspects of the music industry — cultural impact, creative innovation, and operational reality — and bring a fresh, informed point of view to the business.”
Permanent faculty members at The Herb Alpert School of Music will include Thomas Hodgson, who specializes in data science, algorithmic justice and the global music business; Catherine Provenzano, who focuses on new technologies; and David MacFayden, a Soviet popular music authority who will bring his expertise to bear in instructing students on how to understand new models of music distribution and economic value. Students will also receive instruction from working professionals such as songwriter Amy Kuney (Kelly Clarkson, Adam Lambert, Akon), who also performs as gender-complex artist AMES; and Lauren Spalding, co-founder of Femme House, a nonprofit collective dedicated to forging new opportunities for women, gender-expansive, BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ creatives.
Since its founding in 2018, The Herb Alpert School of Music has regularly appeared on Billboard‘s Top Music Business Schools list.
In 2020, amidst the pandemic, Nick Maiale started thinking about the music industry beyond titles and company affiliations. Having spent over a decade working in music, including at the Music Business Association and Music Biz Conference, he felt inspired to promote more than professional development — he wanted to advocate for personal growth, too.
Through his work, Maiale was consistently meeting impressive and driven young professionals, but a throughline started to emerge. “After listening to [so many] stories of working in the industry and feeling the limitations [of it], I asked myself ‘How can I help add value to these people’s lives?’…Our business is so fast-paced and revenue driven that we don’t always get the opportunity to step back and get to know people for who they are — and this leaves us placing strong emphasis on job titles, company affiliation and status,” he says. “The answer was clear: build a company that helps my community navigate the industry.”
By the end of 2020, Maiale had launched jump.global, a “community-first” company that manages music business executives. And come November, it will host its first annual summit in Los Angeles. “I started to think about this around the same time I thought about starting the company as a whole,” says Maiale, who serves as founder/CEO. “ I thought it would take place somewhere like Wyoming with 30 people in a cabin — but here we are, about to welcome a much larger number than that to Los Angeles in just a month.”
Held Nov. 12-14 at The LINE Hotel, conversations will largely avoid hot topics like AI and streaming and instead center on stress management, burnout prevention, resilience in the music business and more. Speakers include J Erving (founder of Human Re Sources and executive vp at Sony Music), Moody Jones (GM of dance at EMPIRE), Fadia Kader (executive vp/GM at Venice Music) and Gwen Bethel Riley (senior vp of music/head of content partnerships at Peloton).
“The topics we are covering at the summit are necessary to work in any industry or simply just to exist: leadership, effective communication, stress management, pivoting, financial literacy,” says Maiale. “Imagine a music industry where more people are trained on different personality types, emotional intelligence, how to deal with conflict in the workplace, how to manage their money and how to really address and support mental health.”
Perhaps the best evidence of the need for such a summit is also the biggest challenge in launching it: “Getting people to focus on themselves, as opposed to their work,” says Maiale. “It’s going to take a lot of work, but we believe that as a community, we can all make the music business more human.”
Fittingly, attendee badges will solely list their first and last names, with no companies or titles to be found.
Registration and more information on the jump.global annual summit can be found here. The event kicks off Nov. 12 with a NO EGO Welcome Party.
Latin music consumption is growing almost twice as fast as the overall music consumption in the U.S., driven largely by Latin music super fans and by the growth of regional Mexican music, according to Luminate’s most recent research on Latin music.
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Unveiled at a Monday morning (Oct. 2) session during Latin Music Week 2023 presented by Luminate CEO Rob Jonas, Luminate’s research also found an unlikely discovery platform for Latin music: WhatsApp. A whooping 73% of Hispanic listeners use WhatsApp, 265% more than the general population.
Luminate’s numbers once again underscored the impressive growth of Latin music consumption. For example, in the first 34 weeks of 2022, there were 47.4 billion on demand audio streams. For the first 34 weeks of 2023, that number had jumped to 57.9 billion streams, a 22.2% upward change that far surpasses the 13.3% growth registered for the industry overall. All told, Latin is now the 5th largest major music genre in the U.S., behind only the big four core genres: R&B and Hip-Hop, pop, rock and country.
Latin music is also seeing consumption growth outside Latin pockets. A stunning 40% of all U.S. listeners report listening to music in languages other than English; and among those languages, the most listened to — after English — is Spanish. While 93% listen to music in English, roughly 23% of listeners will listen to music in Spanish.
Likewise, while the English language share of streaming in the U.S. –- as measured by the top 10,000 most streamed tracks of the past 12 months — has dipped slightly by 4% in the past year, streaming of Spanish language tracks has increased by 3.5%.
A key driver to the growth are Latin super fans. According to Luminate’s data, they spend 120% more per month on music related activities than other fans, and 30% more than U.S. super fans.
“The trends we saw starting in 2022 have accelerated and developed the growth of Latin music,” says Jonas. “We initially saw a lot of growth in streaming, but now, that growth translated to revenue. In 2023, it’s definitely been exceeding expectations.”
You can access Luminate’s full report here.
The Japanese entertainment company that has acknowledged its founder sexually assaulted hundreds of boys over the span of half a century, took a new name on Monday: Smile-Up. It also vowed to focus on compensation for victims of the abuse.
Tokyo-based Johnny & Associates, founded in 1975, will eventually fold, but its performers can join an independent company that is being set up, said Noriyuki Higashiyama, the company’s new leader and a former star at Johnny’s, as the company is known.
Higashiyama, tapped last month to head the old Johnny’s, will now be president of both Smile-Up and the new company. The new company’s name will be put to public vote by Johnny’s fans.
“All things with the Johnny’s name will have to go,” Higashiyama told reporters at a Tokyo hotel. “A wounded heart isn’t easy to heal. Compensation on its own will never be enough.”
In recent months, dozens of men who were performers and backup dancers as teens and children at Johnny’s have come forward, saying they were sexually assaulted by Johnny Kitagawa.
Kitagawa, who died in 2019, was never charged.
So far, 325 people have applied to the company’s compensation program, and that number may grow. Payments will begin next month, Higashiyama said. How the monetary amount will be decided was not yet clear.
Last month, Kitagawa’s niece Julie Keiko Fujishima resigned as chief executive at Johnny’s and apologized for his past. She still owns 100% of the unlisted company but will not be part of the new unnamed company, whose capital structure is still being worked out.
Fujishima did not appear at Monday’s news conference and had a letter read aloud. The letter said she was “brainwashed” by her mother Mary, who insisted Kitagawa was innocent, even after the Japanese Supreme Court ruled two decades ago that the sexual allegations against him were accurate.
“I want to erase all that remains of Johnny from this world,” she wrote. “I do not forgive what Johnny has done.”
Some victims say they have suffered for decades in silence, unable to confide in family or friends, while experiencing flashbacks.
Most of the attacks took place at Kitagawa’s luxury apartment, where several youngsters were handpicked to spend the night. The following morning, he would thrust 10,000 yen ($100) bills into their hands, according to various testimony.
Rumors about Kitagawa were rampant over the years, with several tell-it-all books published. A recent U.N. investigation has said that the number of victims is at least several hundred, and called on the Japanese government to act. When BBC did a special on Kitagawa earlier this year, the scandal jumped into the spotlight.
Mainstream Japanese media have come under serious scrutiny for having remained mum about Kitagawa, apparently afraid of his influence and ability to deny access to his stars.
Now, some TV broadcasters and programming have done an about-face to shun Johnny’s stars. Major companies have also recently announced they will stop using them in advertising.
In a related development, several victims met with lawyers, feminists and Johnny’s fans to work together in pushing for legal changes so civil damages can be pursued after the current limit of 20 years. The criminal statute of limitations is now 15 years.
Attorney Yoshihito Kawakami said children often don’t understand what happened, and the changes will allow victims to seek damages from Johnny & Associates.
Japan raised the age of sexual consent from 13 to 16 only this year. Japanese media reports say Kitagawa often purposely picked on 13-year-olds, although his victims have been as young as 8.
The company has promised it will compensate victims “beyond the scope of the law. ”
“Some perpetrators are living their lives as though nothing happened. That causes great pain to the victims,” said Junya Hiramoto, who heads a group of Johnny’s victims.
The Associated Press does not usually identify victims of alleged sexual assault, but Hiramoto and others in the case have chosen to identify themselves in the media.
“By coming together, we can grow into a bigger force and move toward hope,” he said.
SiriusXM shares rose 11.1% to $4.52 this week following an offer from Liberty Media on Tuesday (Sept. 26) to combine its tracking stock, The Liberty SiriusXM Group, with SiriusXM’s stock to form a new public company.
Liberty Media, which owns 83% of SiriusXM’s outstanding shares, proposed a complicated transaction that would “provide value to all shareholders with a more flexible and attractive currency” in the newly formed SiriusXM stock, Liberty Media president/CEO Greg Maffei said in a statement. SiriusXM said in a statement that a special committee of its board of directors is evaluating the proposal and provided no assurance a deal would eventually happen.
The effect appeared to be a short squeeze — albeit one smaller than the instance that inflated SiriusXM’s share price by 49% in one week in July. Because SiriusXM shares are heavily shorted and have a small float, sudden demand for the stock can create large price fluctuations. SiriusXM shares rose 15% on Thursday (Sept. 28) alone, while shares of The Liberty SiriusXM Group tracking stock finished the week up 13.4%.
While overall stocks were mixed this week, music stocks performed well. The 21-stock Billboard Global Music Index improved 1.1% to 1,344.99, better than the 0.1% gain eked out by the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite and easily besting the S&P 500’s 1.3% loss. In the United Kingdom, the FTSE 100 fell 1%, while South Korea’s KOSPI composite index dropped 1.7%. Eleven of the Billboard Global Music Index’s 21 stocks finished the week in positive territory, eight lost ground and two were unchanged.
Helped by Deezer’s double-digit improvement, streaming stocks had an average gain of 3.1%. Chinese music streamers Cloud Music and Tencent Music Entertainment gained 6.5% and 1.3%, respectively. Spotify shares dropped 2.1% to $154.63 but have gained 95.9% year to date. LiveOne shares fell 8.6% to $0.96, marking its third successive weekly loss since spinning off its PodcastOne division. This week, Billboard reported that LiveOne took out a high-interest loan to lure UFC fighter-turned-podcaster Brendan Schaub after Kast Media failed to pay him advertising money. LiveOne agreed to acquire Kast Media in May and offered Schaub and other podcasters settlements that included a mix of cash, promissory notes and PodcastOne stock.
Music’s greatest gainer this week was French streaming company Deezer. Despite there being no news — neither a press release nor a regulatory filing — that normally leads to such a substantial change, Deezer shares rose 21.8% to 2.735 euros ($2.90), including a 14.8% gain on Thursday with one of the highest trading volumes since the company went public in September 2022. Nothing indicated the company has substantially improved its earnings outlook in recent days, but Deezer had been in the news prior to this week. Three weeks ago, Deezer announced a partnership with Universal Music Group to create a new system for calculating artist royalties; and last week, the company revealed plans to increase subscription prices for new individual and family plans in the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and its largest market, France.
Live Nation shares rose 4.1% to $83.05 following news the company will help developing artists by providing a financial stipend and eliminating fees charged on merchandise sales at a number of its owned and operated clubs in the United States. Although the move will cost Live Nation money, it also comes with some strategic advantages, according to LightShed Partners analyst Brandon Ross. The decision is “great for Live Nation because it actually throws up another barrier to entry,” Ross said in the Friday (Sept. 29) episode of the LightShed podcast. “Artists are going to want to play your venue where the economics for them are better rather than somebody else’s venue.”
This content was created in partnership with Kara Major. Kara Major is an ambassador of GLOW Beverages.
Emerging from the dazzle of neon lights and the infectious rhythm of electronic beats in Miami, EDM sensation Kara Major is taking 2023 by storm. Her recent track “Everything Works Out,” fuses soulful lyrics with pulsating melodies. Featured in publications like SweetnSour Magazine and Earmilk, its success spoke volumes to her core fanbase’s zeal and the weight of the message she bore.
Major’s previous professional settings— a mix of offices, board rooms and sports teams— plays a pivotal role in her approach to music. Writing songs and constructing beats has been second nature to her for as long as she can remember. Major used music as an outlet to combat the day’s monotony and satisfy her urge to release her pent-up emotions. Drawing on both celebratory moments and heart-wrenching experiences, Major’s music offers not just entertainment but comfort and hope for her fans. With a sizzling new music video that dips in the abstract, Kara’s larger than life message is reaching listeners across the country.
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Kara Major’s latest single “Glow”
Her latest track, “Glow,” is the third in her homage to mantric principles and has garnered significant attention from both media and brands. The single piqued the interest of GLOW Beverages, an electrolyte beverage company that is quickly gaining popularity. Partly owned by Kylie Jenner and Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott, the drink is a cult favorite for clubgoers and a guilty pleasure for techies. Now, Major is a member of a group of key influencers who are partnering with GLOW to connect with consumers, hooking onto both Kara’s song and the drink’s radiating personality.
Challenges and adversities have been part and parcel of Major’s journey. Every artist faces hurdles, but it’s these challenges that give music an edge and a rawness that listeners connect with deeply. Major’s ethos, which she shared with POP CULTUR, is clear: “Believe it to see it. Knowledge is the precursor to experience. Keep reaching for new information; new inspiration and new futures will find you.”
Kara Major in her music video for “Glow”
Łukasz Rucinski, Black Parrot Media
Beyond her music, Major has a greater vision. She is eager to collaborate with giants in the self-care and motivational speaking communities like Esther Hicks and Tony Robbins. What stands out is her belief that everyone has their own “inner music.” Major’s message to her fans and the world at large is rooted in the philosophy of finding one’s inner light and letting it “glow.”
With her unique blend of musical talent, introspective lyrics and a vision that transcends the boundaries of EDM, Kara Major is making her place in the industry and setting her Major message in motion.
If it’s Friday that means another spin around the Executive Turntable, Billboard’s comprehensive(ish) compendium of promotions, hirings, exits and firings — and all things in between — across the music industry.
Sony Music UK and Ireland‘s stalwart COO, Nicola Tuer, announced she is stepping down at the end of the month for family reasons. Tuer started her groundbreaking 28-year run at Sony in 1995 in the label’s sales division and rose to senior vp of commercial sales before her elevation to executive vp of the entire imprint in 2011. In 2014, Tuer earned the keys to the C-suite as the label’s first female chief operating officer — making her “one of the most senior women in the UK industry,” boasted Jason Iley, longtime CEO of SMUK&I. As COO, she has overseen the running of the U.K. and Ireland businesses, including frontline, catalog and label services, as well as sales, partnerships and other departments. “Nicola lives and breathes Sony Music,” Iley added. “She has, time and again, gone above and beyond to ensure not only that Sony succeeds, but more importantly, that our artists succeed.”
Tuer has been a near–constant presence on Billboard‘s various lists of influential executives, deservedly so, including this year’s roundup of International Power Players. The dynamic duo of Iley/Tuer were lauded for landing the top-selling single and album of 2022, with Harry Styles’ Harry’s House and his hit “As It Was.” And as head of Sony UK’s commercial group, Tuer got a shout-out for helping Wham!’s “Last Christmas” top the charts for the first time in 38 years.
Beatport promoted Charles Morgan to chief marketing officer. Morgan joined the company in early 2022 as senior vp of strategy. As CMO, Morgan will oversee marketing strategy and execution across Beatport’s suite of companies, which includes the Beatport digital download store, the open-format DJ oriented Beatsource, sample pack provider Loopcloud, software platform Plugin Boutique, label management and demo submission platforms ampsuite and LabelRadar, along with Beatport Media Group. He’ll be based out of the company’s London office and report directly to Beatport Group CEO Robb McDaniels. “Since his arrival at Beatport, Charles has been instrumental in the transformation of our brand and creative teams, playing a pivotal role in repositioning the company’s leading products,” says McDaniels. “His work has been integral to the growth we’ve seen across our various products for DJs, producers and labels.” –Katie Bain
Universal Music Taiwan
Universal Music Greater China brought in William Hsieh as general manager of its Universal Music Taiwan unit, as well as senior vp of UMGC. Based in Taipei and starting immediately, Hsieh reports directly to UMGC chairman and CEO Timothy Xu. Hsieh joins UMG from fitness tech firm Fiture, where he served as vp of content. Prior to that, he was group vp for Space Cycle, a boutique wellness studio chain. He has also held senior positions at Electronic Arts Asia, and earlier in his career took on managerial gigs at EMI Music and Sony Music Greater China. The Taiwan-born, SoCal-raised Hsieh got his education in New York — at Columbia and NYU. Xu pegs Hsieh as being “perfectly positioned to spearhead our business expansion, innovation, and growth for the Taiwan market,” adding the island nation’s “pop music culture holds an indispensable value in the wider Chinese music scene.”
HFA/Rumblefish promoted Lauren Apolito to executive vice president of strategy & business development. She was previously senior vp at the synch licensing company, which is part of SESAC. Apolito joined HFA (The Harry Fox Agency) way back in 2001 and stayed on board when the venerable rights management agency was scooped up by SESAC in 2015. The company said that in the last year alone, Apolito’s efforts have “fueled revenue growth, client diversification, licensing opportunities and a new service offering” at Rumblefish. Apolito, a 2019 digital power player, has also focused on simplifying direct licensing deals between publishers and distributors. “She operates at the intersection of music, data and technology and has leveraged seismic industry changes into new revenue opportunities and streamlined administration for both rightsholders and music distributors,” glowed HFA/Rumblefish president Michael Simon. “We’re thrilled to expand her role with this well-deserved promotion.” Reach her at lapolito@rumblefish.com.
Big Machine Music has promoted Michelle Attardi to the role of senior director, publishing. Since joining Big Machine Music (a division of HYBE America) seven years ago, Attardi has been central in the signing of songwriters Daniel Ross, Matt Roy, Troy Cartwright and Geoff Warburton to the BMM roster, and has secured cuts with Jon Pardi, Lady A, Jason Aldean, Jake Owen and Mitchell Tenpenny, among others. –Jessica Nicholson
Oak View Group appointed Kristina Heney as executive vp of marketing, media & conferences. As evp of mmc, Heney will handle all marketing and communications for OVG and oversee its media and conferences division — which includes the Pollstar and VenuesNow media brands. She joins the OVG family following a five-year stint at Cirque du Soleil and before that, a 15-year tenure at MSG. Before that, she worked in merchandising at the NBA. “With her deep understanding of the live events and experiential industry, we are confident Kristina can continue our substantial growth momentum while transforming the OVG brand story and our Media and Conferences Division to support OVG and our growth vision,” said president of biz dev Francesca Bodie, to whom she’ll report along with OVG360 president Chris Granger.
SGPS/ShowRig elevated live industry veteran Ned Collett to president of the Las Vegas-based production company. Collett joined SGPS/ShowRig in 2022 following the passing of founder Eric Pearce. As president, he’ll oversee and direct all activities for the company’s global operations, which now includes its first European office, located in Utrecht, Netherlands. Collett was previously Midwest president of LiveStyle, and has also held roles at Oak View Group, Live Nation Entertainment and Base Entertainment, among others. “I am proud to continue Eric Pearce’s guiding principles of always demonstrating boundless creativity and providing exceptional client service,” Collett said. “I am honored to be the person charged with incorporating that philosophy while simultaneously bringing the company forward with new technologies, partners, European expansion, and domestic growth.”
Feed.fm, the business-to-business music streaming platform, hired Ryan Morris as its new director of engineering. At Feed.fm, Morris will lead expansion efforts as the company works to meet demand for a scalable, effective platform for providing music for businesses. Morris was most recently director of software engineering at Slack, which experienced massive growth during his six-year tenure as more businesses turned to remote work. Prior to Slack, Morris was an engineering manager at Pandora. “Ryan’s part of a new breed of technologist in the B2B music space who has a unique mix of high growth tech platform leadership experience alongside a deep understanding of the music industry,” said Jeff Yasuda, CEO of Feed Media Group. “His addition will strengthen Feed.fm’s position to become the leader in a new category of turnkey music solutions for the world’s top brands.”
Entertainment lawyer Zachary Bohlender officially launched Charta, a new company with a mission to modernize and automate the logjam-prone process of getting clearance agreements done quickly so that, ultimately, artists can release music faster. Bohlender’s platform, cofounded with Arash Rashidi, an engineer with a background in AI, aims to distill producer and side-artist agreements to a few key provisions that can be quickly negotiated and then slotted into standardized contracts. “There’s no single bigger pain point in the industry than clearance agreements,” Bohlender said. Charta investors and advisors include Che Pope, Matt Colon, Aloe Blacc, Boys Noize and Milana Lewis of Stem, who calls it “an incredibly powerful tool towards building a better future where artists can be paid more expediently and accurately.”
ASM Global‘s new vice president of live entertainment is Alex Bowen, a familiar player in Louisiana’s entertainment industry. In his new job, Bowen will oversee content and bookings for ASM venues in New Orleans, including the Caesars Superdome and Smoothie King Center, along with the new Thunder Ridge Nature Arena in Missouri’s Ozark region. He’ll also handle bookings for venues across the Southeast U.S. region. Bowen arrives from Live Nation, where he was a senior talent buyer in multiple markets.
Round, the creative digital agency with a client list that includes the Big Three labels and a slew of festivals and events companies, promoted Simon Friend to chief operating officer and Ray Uscata to managing director of North and South America. “The importance and power of digital marketing is growing exponentially and is now an integral part of the way in which consumer facing brands engage with their audiences; but it is a competitive marketplace that demands specialist expertise and tools to achieve cut through,” said Round CEO Aaron Sayer.
Last Week’s Turntable: Blue Raincoat Founder in Transition
Hipgnosis Songs Fund has set a date of Oct. 26 for its shareholders to vote on the proposed sale of some 29 song catalogs and a separate vote on whether to keep the fund going under founder Merck Mercuriadis‘ advisory, the company said on Thursday (Sept. 29).
Earlier this month, Hipgnosis announced its plans to sell a package of assets that includes rights to songs performed by Shakira, Barry Manilow, Rick James and others to its sister fund — the privately held Blackstone-backed entity, Hipgnosis Songs Capital — for $440 million.
Hipgnosis Songs Fund — or SONG, as it’s abbreviated on the London Stock Exchange — has struggled with a sagging share price that values the company at a discount to its assets’ worth. The Oct. 26 shareholder vote represents a key milestone in the young company’s five-year lifespan.
In its statement on Thursday, Hipgnosis Songs Fund’s board said it’s in talks with third parties to consider outside bids for the package of assets, with those discussions set to resolve by Oct. 23. The board previously said it would use proceeds of any asset sales to buy back up to $180 million of the company’s stock and pay down its revolving debt balance, two measures aimed at achieving a “re-rating of the share price.”
If a majority of shareholders vote “yes” on the company’s continuation vote, the board has committed to holding the next continuation vote in January 2026, followed by a third in 2028.
The board also said that if the discount between Hipgnosis Songs Fund’s share price and operative net asset value reaches 10% or more on average over the month of January 2025, it will terminate its investment advisory agreement with Mercuriadis’ Hipgnosis Song Management. The agreement with the founder as an investment advisor will be “terminable by the company on 12 months’ notice,” according to the statement.
The board added that chair Andrew Sutch will retire as a director before the next annual meeting in 2024, and that Andrew Wilkinson will retire from his director role by the end of this year. Cindy Rampersaud will take Wilkinson’s place after he retires. The departures mean Hipgnosis Songs Fund will have five directors in the future.
In a vote of support for retaining Mercuriadis’ Hipgnosis Song Management as SONG’s investment adviser, the board said its approach had led to a 44% total return on the 29 music catalogs that Hipgnosis Songs Fund proposes to sell to its private sister fund since the initial dates of purchase.
“The board and the investment adviser firmly believe that the company has a unique portfolio of iconic, culturally significant songs that will deliver strong long-term value as they benefit from the structural tailwinds in the music industry,” according to the statement. “Furthermore, the board believes that the investment adviser’s approach to song management should enable the company to outperform the wider music market.”
Since LiveOne announced plans to acquire Kast Media in May, CEO Rob Ellin has not budged on his offer to compensate the podcasters to whom Kast owes millions of dollars. Ellin’s best offer: one-third of the money Kast Media owes them in cash, one-third of what they are owed in promissory notes to be paid over two years and one-third of what they are owed in stock from LiveOne subsidiary PodcastOne. In exchange, the podcasters must sign a multi-year agreement with PodcastOne and agree to reduce their cut of ad sales from 80% to as low as 60%.
“We’ve spoken to every podcaster. We’ve offered really fair deals — equity in our IPO to help them,” Ellin told Podcast Business Journal on Aug. 11. (Technically PodcastOne wasn’t actually going public via IPO, but making its shares available through a direct listing on the NASDAQ.) Podcasters had a tough choice ahead, Ellin explained — dig in their heels or take the settlement offer. “No other platform is going to pay them for the past,” he said. “They’re only going to work with them in the future.”
PodcastOne and its parent company LiveOne were, however, willing to pay at least one podcaster what Kast owes them in full — even if it meant taking out a high interest loan. Records obtained by Billboard show that in early August, LiveOne borrowed $1.7 million from CapChase, an online bank based in Madrid. That money, Billboard confirmed, was borrowed to pay UFC fighter-turned-podcaster Brendan Schaub what he was owed by Kast Media, the Los Angeles-based podcast company launched in 2016 by founder and CEO Colin Thomson. Kast Media, like PodcastOne, is a podcast network that provides a variety of services to podcast creators like production assistance, show distribution and, most commonly, advertising sales. Among its top shows are Logan Paul’s Impaulsive and Theo Von’s This Past Weekend.
In February, Schaub and other podcasters noticed that Kast’s payments on advertising money were becoming irregular, before falling off all together by the end of the month. By August, Kast Media owed Schaub, an accomplished podcaster with three successful shows – the Golden Hour, The Fighter and the Kid and the Brendan Schaub show – a whopping $1.6 million in unpaid revenue. A month later, Schaub and his co-host Bryan Callen announced on the Fighter and the Kid podcast that they were leaving Kast Media and joining PodcastOne.
“Brendan spoke to a number of agencies, and the company that gave us the best deal when we were out this money was a company called PodcastOne,” Callen said at the time. “PodcastOne has been the agents of a lot of people we know, and they have been very happy with them.”
A rep for Schaub declined to comment for this story. LiveOne did not respond to requests for comment.
After announcing LiveOne’s plans to acquire Kast Media in May, Ellin revealed that the deal would only close if 70% of Kast’s podcasters would join LiveOne under the proposed settlement terms. To date, PodcastOne has not announced the closing of the Kast Media acquisition. On Sept. 8, the day PodcastOne was listed on the NASDAQ, LiveOne released a statement increasing its revenue and earnings guidance for the year that included Kast Media’s revenue and adjusted earnings and assumed “the previously announced Kast Media” acquisition “would have taken place at the start of the fiscal year,” which is April 1, 2024. On Wednesday (Sept. 27), LiveOne issued a press release saying that it “reiterates” its previous revenue guidance.
That reiteration has not helped the company’s share price. In July, ValueScope, a third-party valuation firm hired by parent company LiveOne, valued PodcastOne between $230 million and $275 million, which came out to $8 to $12 per share, a valuation Ellin had hyped to podcasters considering joining PodcastOne.
That estimate ended up being overly optimistic — PodcastOne’s share price immediately dropped 46% after being listed on the NASDAQ and has since tumbled even further. Three weeks after being listed on the NASDAQ, the stock closed Tuesday at $1.91 per share with a $45 million market capitalization, a drop of more than 80% after less than three weeks of trading.
“I hope this serves as a wakeup call for creators, because long-term, they’re much better off doing everything themselves – they don’t need these big podcast networks,” says Bryan Last, president of Arcadian Vanguard and the on-air co-host of The Jim Cornette Experience and Jim Cornette’s Drive-Thru. While Arcadian Vanguard produces each episode, it started contracting its advertising sales to Kast Media in 2018, in 2023 it brought sales back inhouse.
“Any service a network offers, most podcasters can do themselves,” he tells Billboard. “When their model puts an entire community of creators at risk, there’s obviously something wrong with the model.”
Epic Games has sold Bandcamp to Songtradr, an online music licensing marketplace. News of the sale arrives as the Fortnite developer also announced plans to eliminate 16% of its workforce — around 830 jobs — and to spin off its SuperAwesome services division, according to a memo on Epic Games’ website.
“We’ve been spending way more money than we earn…We’re cutting costs without breaking development or our core lines of businesses so we can continue to focus on our ambitious plans,” explained Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney in the memo.
Epic Games acquired the independent music platform for an undisclosed sum in March 2022. Though the purchase initially shocked the music business, several music executives explained to Billboard right after the sale that the motive behind buying Bandcamp might be to improve Epic’s relations with musicians or ease synch licensing. According to Epic Games at the time of the sale, “Bandcamp will play an important role in Epic’s vision to build out a creator marketplace ecosystem for content, technology, games, art, music and more.”
In the company’s latest memo, it continued to stress its desire to build itself into a wide-reaching “ecosystem for creators” but added that it needed to reach profitability.
In the past few years, Songtradr has been active in acquiring new businesses to expand its reach. In March 2023, it purchased B2B music company 7digital for a reported $23.4 million. It also recently acquired AI metadata and music search platform MusicCube in 2022, Massive Music and Song Zu in 2021, and Big Sync Music in 2019. Other companies in its expanding portfolio include Tunefind and Pretzel; it also invested $1 million in music credits database Jaxsta.
Bandcamp’s new owner says it will continue to operate the platform as a marketplace and music community with an artist-first revenue share, while the acquisition will enable it to expand its capabilities to support the artist community. In addition, Songtradr will now offer all Bandcamp artists the ability to have their music licensed to all forms of media, including content creators, game and app developers, and brands.
In a press release announcing the acquisition, Songtradr added that Epic Games is “exploring ways” to allow Bandcamp artists to opt-in to have their music licensed for use in Epic’s gaming and metaverse ecosystem via a partnership with Songtradr. Epic will continue to collaborate with Bandcamp on Fortnite Radio and “is investing in Songtradr to support Bandcamp’s successful integration into” the company, according to the Songtradr release.
“The acquisition of Bandcamp will help Songtradr continue to grow its suite of services for artists,” said Songtradr CEO Paul Wiltshire in a statement. “I’m a passionate musician myself, and artistry and creativity have always been at the heart of Songtradr. Bandcamp will join a team of music industry veterans and artists who have deep expertise in music licensing, composition, rights management, and distribution.”
“Songtradr shares Epic and Bandcamp’s values around ensuring artists are fairly compensated for their work,” added Epic Games vp/GM, store Steve Allison. “Bringing Bandcamp to Songtradr will make it easier for independent artists to connect with creators and developers looking to license their music and enable Epic to focus on its core metaverse, games, and tools efforts.”