State Champ Radio Business
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Trending on Billboard Latin music executive Jochy Rodríguez has launched a new independent agency, Joch Entertainment, he tells Billboard. Rodríguez — who has spent the past nine years as senior vp of promotions and marketing at WK Entertainment — will focus the company’s efforts on marketing, management, consulting and radio promotions. “This new chapter represents […]
Trending on Billboard Michael Young has been appointed chief information officer of Sony Music Publishing, effective immediately from his base in Nashville. In his new role, which reports to CFO Tom Kelly, Young will lead the company’s global technology strategy and oversee transformation initiatives aimed at enhancing growth, scalability, and operational efficiency for SMP’s songwriters […]
Trending on Billboard K-pop music giant HYBE said on Monday that concerts by BTS member Jin, SEVENTEEN and TOMORROW X TOGETHER helped drive its third quarter revenues up 38%, but lagging album sales contributed to an overall unprofitable quarter. Operating profit, which measures a company’s total core business earnings after interest and tax are taken out, […]
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Music tourism, a growing sector, is in the spotlight more than ever after Puerto Rico’s tourism and economic boom following Bad Bunny’s residency.
The ripple effects were among the topics of discussion during the annual Music Tourism Convention, which has been taking place for a decade and, for the first time, was held in the Caribbean, specifically on the island of Anguilla from Nov. 4 to 7.
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Governmental delegates, entrepreneurs and businesses from Canada, Saudi Arabia, Spain, the United States, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Argentina, Barbados, Saint Vincent, St. Maarten, Martinique, Trinidad and Tobago, the Grenadines, the Virgin Islands, Panama, and the Dominican Republic traveled to this British territory known for its pristine beaches, with the aim of sharing and exchanging ideas about the development of events and how to maximize entertainment resources.
The great success of Bad Bunny in attracting tourists to Puerto Rico and boosting the island’s economy sparked interest among neighboring countries and brought to mind Jamaica, which at one point did something similar with the Marley dynasty.
Although local summer carnivals and festivals attract tourists to the Caribbean, the rest of the year remains underutilized.
“The cultural heritage of the Caribbean is very extensive, but it has not been utilized as it should be,” explained Davon Carty, CEO of Anguilla Music Production and Publishing, speaking about the host island, during one of the panels. “We have great musicians on the island besides our legendary star, Bankie Banks, so we want to showcase them to the world,” he added.
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Another important point discussed by attendees was the need to not only rely on their international stars to promote and publicize their territories but also to make venues and public spaces available to interested artists, equipped with the facilities needed for their performances or content creation.
“In Miami, it seems like everything is Latin music, but it’s not; we have many more musical movements that we want to promote,” explained Connie Kinnard, senior vp of the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau. “We want to broaden the musical horizon. For example, electronic music, which is very strong,” she added. Meanwhile, John Copeland, director of arts and cultural tourism in Miami, spoke about various attractions that can be offered to tourists. “Now in Miami, we have tours to places where music videos have been filmed. Not just the homes of celebrities are attractive; there’s so much to show people,” he said.
From Canada, Allegra Swanson of Music Nova Scotia, a territory where the renowned Juno Awards take place, shared advice based on her experience: “Hosting an awards ceremony definitely boosts tourism and the economic development of a place, but it also allows talents to be showcased and important partnerships with sponsors to be formed,” she said.
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From Saudi Arabia, Hala Alhedeithy, general manager of strategies at the Saudi Music Commission, led another interesting panel in which she spoke about integrating local talent into important activities in cities like Riyadh, where efforts are underway to make it an attractive destination. Lastly, Mexican Pablo Borchi Klapp, director of events and sponsorships at Sound Diplomacy — a company that not only produces the convention but also provides consultancy on the economic and social value of creative industries — shared his experience in organizing tours for tourists with a musical emphasis, which include visits to restaurants and venues showcasing various types of music.
In 2026, Sound Diplomacy will produce the Music Cities Conventions in Kingston upon Hull in the United Kingdom and in Alberta, Canada.
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Independent music venue Antone’s has been guaranteed another 50 years in downtown Austin.
On Monday (Nov. 10), the club’s owners announced they had signed a 50-year lease for the venue’s current location on East 5th Street, which will see the iconic space through to its 100th anniversary in 2075.
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The Antone’s brand has been in several locations throughout its history, with its most recent ownership group landing on a former glass depot on the busy East 5th Street. The venue’s current edition, which opened on New Year’s Eve 2015, includes the 400-capacity concert hall, a record shop called Big Henry’s and an event space on its upper floor. The long-term lease includes all three spaces, while the event space and bar will be transformed into an Antone’s museum.
This summer, the venue, which originally opened in 1975, celebrated its 50th anniversary with a commemorative merch collection, a touring show and an anniversary box set that included live recordings from the blues club’s history.
“We’ve got to use this milestone and the achievement of the 50th to switch from surviving to thriving,” Antone’s co-owner Will Bridges tells Billboard. “It’s crazy to think that Antone’s would have a 100th anniversary and by having that long of a term, to just be able to think and plan long term.”
When Antone’s took over its current space, the owners signed a 10-year lease with two five-year options, with Bridges noting the landlord has been nothing but supportive of the venue. However, the ownership group saw an opportunity to receive a grant from the local Iconic Venue Fund if Antone’s had a secure position in the city, such as land ownership or a long-term lease agreement. Other Austin venues that have benefited from the fund include Hole in the Wall and Empire Control Room & Garage.
Thanks to the 50-year lease, Antone’s has been selected to receive a $1.3 million investment from Rally Austin (home to the Austin Cultural Trust that controls the Iconic Venue Fund) to create a museum called Antone’s “World Famous” Museum of the Blues. The museum, which will be housed permanently on Antone’s upper level beginning in 2027, will celebrate Austin’s blues heritage and foster educational and community programming. It will donate a portion of its proceeds to the city’s Rally for Live Music Fund.
On Monday (Nov. 10), Antone’s will also launch the Antone’s Forever Fund as part of the Clifford Antone Foundation, to ensure the museum’s educational, cultural and community initiatives are continually advancing.
The museum will be open both during the day and in the evenings, providing additional revenue to support the venue and the Clifford Antone Foundation. The Iconic Venue Fund grant also includes a five-year operating stipend to help grow museum operations.
Given the response to the Antone’s 50th All Stars shows in Los Angeles, New York and Nashville, Antone’s creative and musical director Zach Ernst believes these new developments will help cement the venue’s legacy.
“All this extra activity we did this year under the banner of the 50th really reminded us how important Antone’s is outside of Austin,” Ernst tells Billboard. “We really do deserve this kind of [support] as an institution. It’s hard for worker bees like me and Will to think that way. But it is all thanks to Clifford Antone and his vision back in ‘75.”
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Australia’s iconic Bluesfest has announced the first round of artists set to perform at its 2026 edition, unveiling a cross-generational lineup led by Split Enz, Earth, Wind & Fire, and The Pogues.
Returning to Byron Bay’s Bluesfest site — the Byron Events Farm — from April 2 to 5 next year, the long-running festival will host a full reunion set from Split Enz. The legendary New Zealand group, featuring brothers Neil and Tim Finn of Crowded House fame, also announced a separate national tour this week. It will mark the band’s first full-scale Australian tour in nearly two decades.
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Joining them are funk and soul trailblazers Earth, Wind & Fire, who last played the event in 2012, and Irish punk-folk icons The Pogues, returning for the first time in 14 years to mark 40 years since the release of their seminal album Rum, Sodomy & the Lash — a tribute to the late Shane MacGowan.
Other international acts on the 2026 bill include Sublime, The Black Crowes, Counting Crows, blues veteran Buddy Guy (on his farewell tour), and Marcus King Band. Local talent includes Xavier Rudd, The Living End, South Summit, Mental As Anything, Skegss, The Dreggs, Pierce Brothers, and Mark Seymour.
The announcement follows a high-water mark for the festival earlier this year. In April, Bluesfest officially confirmed its return for 2026 following one of its strongest post-pandemic editions. Held across the Easter long weekend, Bluesfest 2025 drew more than 109,000 attendees over five days — the festival’s highest attendance since 2019, and the third-biggest turnout in its 35-year history.
“We’re the top-selling festival in the country, and we’ve worked hard to get here,” festival director Peter Noble said in a statement at the time. “We’ve had the highest attendance of any Australian festival since pre-COVID at 109,000 attendances – the third-biggest event we’ve done in the history of the festival… Festivals are back.”
The festival’s second lineup drop for its 2026 event is expected in the coming weeks. Several of the artists announced — including The Pogues, Sublime, and Buddy Guy — will also play exclusive headline shows around the country as part of the Bluesfest touring program.
Bluesfest 2026 takes place from Thursday, April 2, to Sunday, April 5. Tickets and artist information are available at bluesfest.com.au.
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Music stocks had their worst week in three months, as most companies that reported earnings this week were penalized for not offering more to investors. Spotify, Live Nation, SM Entertainment and Reservoir Media all finished the week ended Nov. 7 in the red — though live entertainment companies Sphere Entertainment and MSG Entertainment bucked the trend by posting sizable gains after putting out their quarterly earnings reports.
The 19-company Billboard Global Music Index (BGMI) fell 5.0% to 2,703.11 as losers outnumbered winners 15 to 4. After soaring earlier in the year, the BGMI is now 13.3% below its all-time high of 3,117.20 (in the week ended June 30) and is now equal to its value in early May.
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iHeartMedia was a notable exception to the carnage. The radio company’s shares jumped 55.9% to $4.63 after a report at Bloomberg said the company is in talks to license its podcasts to Netflix. Netflix is known to be seeking video podcast content and has also reportedly approached SiriusXM about distributing its podcasts. The week’s high mark of $4.77, reached on Thursday (Nov. 6), was iHeartMedia’s highest mark since March 17, 2023.
Sphere Entertainment Co. rose 12.6% to $77.08 after the company’s earnings report on Tuesday (Nov. 4) showed an improvement in the Sphere segment’s operating loss. Led by the popularity of The Wizard of Oz, the number of film viewings, called The Sphere Experience, rose to 220 from 207 in the prior-year period. Sphere’s shares are now up 81.5% year to date.
MSG Entertainment (MSGE) shares gained 5.3% to $46.51 following the company’s earnings report on Thursday. MSGE’s revenue jumped 14% to $158.3 million while its operating loss deepened to $29.7 million from $18.5 million a year earlier. J.P. Morgan raised its price target to $47 from $41, citing management’s comments on pricing and higher expectations for the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall.
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Companies such as Live Nation and Spotify reported solid results but suffered a large share price decline — part of a trend that extends well beyond music companies, Bernstein analysts wrote in an investor note on Thursday: “We’ve seen a brutal theme emerge across the consumer [technology, media and telecommunications] sector: stocks that deliver perfectly in-line or modestly better than expected results are still getting sold.” Growth is not good enough, they explained, and investors are “shooting first and asking questions later” when a company doesn’t have a “bulletproof guide” for the next year or two.
Live Nation shares ended the week down 6.0% to $140.51 after the company reported third-quarter earnings on Tuesday (Nov. 4). Despite showing continued revenue and adjusted operating income growth, Live Nation’s share price fell 10% the following day, though the price recovered some losses in each of the next two trading days. Bernstein maintained its $185 price target and called the sell-off a buying opportunity, but numerous other analysts lowered their Live Nation price targets, including Oppenheimer (from $180 to $175), Evercore (from $180 to $168), Morgan Stanley (from $180 to $170), J.P. Morgan (from $180 to $172) and Roth Capital (from $180 to $176).
Also releasing third-quarter earnings on Tuesday was Spotify, whose stock fell 5.9% to $616.91 in the aftermath. The company reported 12% revenue growth, but the title of Bernstein’s investor note on Tuesday perfectly captured Spotify’s need to constantly impress investors: “When you trade at 50x EPS, you’d better make sure everybody’s happy.” Meanwhile, J.P. Morgan called the company’s fourth-quarter outlook “slightly mixed”: The company’s guidance on monthly average users and gross margin were “above expectations,” it said, but guidance on subscribers, revenue and operating income were lighter than expected. Guggenheim lowered its price target to $800 from $850, noting that results met expectations but that “questions remain” on Spotify’s ability to improve margins through price increases.
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Elsewhere, Reservoir Media fell 3.0% to $7.37 following the release of its quarterly earnings on Tuesday, while Warner Music Group, which reports earnings on Nov. 20, fell 5.4% to $30.23. Universal Music Group, which reported earnings on Oct. 30, dropped 3.4% to 22.48 euros ($26.01).
K-pop company SM Entertainment fell 14.1% to 102,600 KRW ($70.47), having dropped 9.6% in the two days following the release of third-quarter results on Thursday. Other K-pop companies also experienced large declines as HYBE dropped 10.4%, JYP Entertainment dipped 11.0% and YG Entertainment sank 21.3%, likely because of a report that BLACKPINK’s next album has been delayed until January 2026.
Most indexes had an off week. In the U.S., the Nasdaq composite fell 3.0% to 23,004.54, marking its worst week since April. The S&P 500 dropped 1.6% to 6,728.80. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 sank 0.4% to 9,682.57. South Korea’s KOSPI composite index plummeted 3.7% to 3,953.76. China’s Shanghai Composite Index rose 1.1% to 3,997.56.
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Today is officially Music Creator Day.
Spearheaded by SOCAN, the date was acknowledged by Senator René Cormier on Nov. 4 in the Canadian Senate and by Member of Parliament David Myles in the House of Commons two days later.
As of 2025, Nov. 7 will now be annually observed as Music Creator Day across the country.
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It coincides with beloved Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell’s birthday, paying tribute to her contributions and representing a lasting legacy for the next generation of musicians.
“Thank you for honouring my work in this manner,” Mitchell says in a statement. “Although I have lived mostly in the States since I was 21, I live part-time in B.C. I have always been proud to be a Canadian and lately more than ever.”
Earlier this year, Mitchell was honoured with SOCAN’s 2025 Cultural Impact Award, recognizing her impact as a Canadian songwriter. Canadian singer-songwriter Allison Russell performed a showstopping rendition of “Both Sides Now” at the SOCAN Awards and spoke to Billboard Canada about her work with the legendary artist. “Getting to be in creative communion and community with her has been one of the most surreal gifts of my life,” she said.
“I invite you all to sit down and enjoy your favourite Joni song, or a song by any other amazing Canadian, and honour the great musical creators of this country on Music Creator Day,” says MP Myles.
The declaration is accompanied by a recent survey conducted by Pollara for SOCAN on the connection between Canadian music and culture. They report that 81% of Canadians believe supporting local music creators is vital to ensuring our culture thrives for future generations, with 77% claiming local music helps define Canadian culture.
It’s reflected on the charts, too. As of November, five Canadian artists have hit No.1 on the Billboard Canadian Albums chart, including two albums from The Weeknd, PARTYNEXTDOOR & Drake’s collaborative $ome $exy $ongs 4 U and Tate McRae’s So Close to What, marking the pop singer’s first No. 1 on the chart. The most recent was Justin Bieber’s Swag, which sat at No. 1 for one week.
Read more here.
Canadian Government Renews Canada Music Fund in 2025 Budget
The Canada Music Fund has been renewed.
After a few weeks of uncertainty from independent Canadian music industry groups, yesterday (Nov. 4), the government officially renewed and allocated $48 million to the fund, in the first federal budget tabled by Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne — it will be distributed over the next three years, beginning in 2026.
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The decision serves as a moment of celebration for Canadian music organizations. Québec music organization ADISQ shares that it’s a relief for the industry.
“This renewal was essential for our companies to continue investing fully in the career development of local artists, and thus maintain the sector’s competitiveness,” says Eve Paré, executive director of ADISQ, in French. “Public funding provides leverage for our industry. It plays a vital role in reaching the full potential of our cultural vitality.”
For over four decades, the Canada Music Fund has been a cornerstone of Canada’s music economy, supporting FACTOR and Musicaction, two of the country’s biggest and most important music grants.
The Canada Music Fund’s $48 million renewal extends the $16 million annual boost that was announced as a temporary two-year top-up in 2024, with another $16 million for the next three years.
Securing stable funding will enable music orgs to meet the challenges they face, such as declining contributions to private radio broadcasting, and will serve as a boost after the paused 5% revenue funds for major foreign-owned digital streaming platforms under Bill C-11.
The Canadian Independent Music Association (CIMA) notes that the renewal is a sign of recognition and validation for homegrown artists and organizations.
“Canadian music companies and the artists they work with represent a dynamic economic engine powering the growth of Canada’s cultural economy. This budget announcement is an encouraging step forward,” says Andrew Cash, president and CEO of CIMA.
The renewal will benefit live music organizations, too. The Canadian Live Music Association (CLMA) enthusiastically welcomed the federal government’s continued investment in Canada’s cultural sector, “including the commercial live music infrastructure of venues, festivals and promoters that connect artists to audiences across the country.”
In addition to the renewal, the government has announced a $150 million funding increase for CBC/Radio-Canada, with hopes of the country securing a spot on Eurovision’s international song contest.
“Public funding preserves a dynamic local ecosystem that values what makes us unique. We must now work to guarantee the sustainability of this funding and thus ensure the future of our music,” says Paré.
Read more here.
Music Streaming Services Call On National Assembly of Québec to Forego French-Language Quotas
Music streamers are speaking out against new French language music streaming legislation.
The Digital Media Association (DiMA), the trade association and lobby group that represents platforms including Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music, has raised concerns about Bill 109, a proposed new law that would ensure French-language content is prioritized by digital platforms operating in the province.
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Bill 109, titled An Act to affirm the cultural sovereignty of Quebec and to enact the Act respecting the discoverability of French-language cultural content in the digital environment, was introduced in May by Québec’s Culture Minister Mathieu Lacombe.
If passed, the act would “enshrine the right to discoverability of and access to original French language cultural content” into Québec’s Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, and allow the province’s government to mandate “the quantity or proportion of original French-language cultural content that must be offered by digital platforms.”
The bill states that the Quebec government has to establish content quotas on how much music needs to be produced or featured on these platforms, although no numbers were specified. All platforms would be required to register with Lacombe.
According to DiMA, the major streaming services don’t want any new discoverability requirements and French language quotas.
In a submission to the Committee on Culture and Education in the Québec National Assembly, the music association writes that “mandating quotas and the discoverability of certain tracks or types of tracks risks altering the business model that has made streaming so attractive and has delivered vital revenues to artists and the music industry.”
The organization fears that if there is government intervention, it will affect how the streaming services operate, and “degrade the user experience,” which may limit the flow of revenue to Francophone artists and rightsholders.
Additionally, DiMA raises logistical issues with the government’s implementation of content quotas.
DiMA highlights that the key to ensuring both parties are satisfied is prioritizing the ultimate objective — to promote the language and culture of Québec.
“We believe the most effective path forward is one focused on listener choice, not constraint. Québec artists and Francophone music are thriving on streaming services today because audiences are empowered to find and listen to music organically,” says Graham Davies, DIMA’s president and CEO.
“By working together — combining the government’s cultural vision with the streaming services’ reach, expertise and innovation — we believe Francophone and music of Québec can continue to thrive both at home and on the global stage.”
While Quebec is pushing discoverability of French-language music, the online platforms are pushing back against the cross-country “streaming tax battle,” pushing against the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)’s now-paused plan to require major foreign streaming companies to invest 5% of their income to support Canadian content.
DiMA has led a campaign called “Stop The Streaming Tax,” which some in the music industry have called “disingenuous.” Services like Spotify, meanwhile, have been touting the success of francophone music on its platform.
Read more here.
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For years, the Cascio family was one of Michael Jackson’s fiercest defenders against ugly pedophilia claims. The five siblings from New Jersey, whom Jackson considered a “second family” and who spent much of their childhoods with the King of Pop, publicly denied that he was ever inappropriate with them.
That all changed in 2019, when the HBO documentary Leaving Neverland amplified child sex abuse claims against Jackson from two men in disturbing detail. As the Cascio siblings tell it, the film led them to reflect and reveal to each other for the first time that they had all been abused by Jackson as children across “hundreds of instances.” The estate of Jackson, who died in 2009, says the Cascios fabricated these claims and were seeking to cash in on the cultural moment.
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Whether the Cascios’ allegations were true or not, one thing is for sure: The siblings signed a multimillion-dollar settlement, including a strict nondisclosure agreement, with the Jackson estate in late 2019. Now, the validity of this settlement is the subject of a bitter legal battle in court.
The Jackson estate alleged in a court petition this summer that the Cascios violated the settlement with an “extortionate” threat that they would go public with the claims unless they were paid an additional $213 million. Last month, the Cascio siblings responded by asking a judge to declare the settlement void.
The Cascios — Frank, Aldo, Marie-Nicole, Edward and Dominic — said the estate “exploited their confusion and vulnerability” upon coming to terms with the alleged abuse by pressuring them to quickly sign a deal they didn’t understand.
According to the Cascios’ Oct. 6 court filing, the siblings didn’t have their own lawyer and were told by the Jackson estate that the deal “would not get done” if they hired counsel and took time to review the papers. They also said the estate misrepresented the nature of the settlement, telling them it was a “life rights” agreement.
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“Exploiting the same patterns of trust, fear and conditioned loyalty that Michael Jackson had cultivated for decades, the estate manipulated respondents’ emotional state to extract their silence through coercive and deceptive means,” wrote the Cascios’ attorney Mark Geragos. “The rushed process was intended to, and did, in fact, take advantage of the Cascio siblings’ shock and trauma upon realizing this had happened to all of them.”
The estate, meanwhile, says the Cascios were not pressured to sign anything. To the contrary, the estate claims in court filings that the Cascio siblings were the ones who demanded a settlement for their “specious allegations” — and that the estate reluctantly paid to avoid public pain and harm to Jackson’s children.
“Frank inaccurately depicts the negotiations leading up to the execution of the Agreement as one-sided strong-arming,” wrote the estate’s attorney, Jonathan Steinsapir, on Oct. 30, referring to Frank Cascio.
The truth, argues the estate, is that the settlement was “extensively negotiated” and “voluntarily executed” by the Cascio siblings. It is now urging a judge to enforce all provisions of the agreement, including a mandatory arbitration clause.
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A court hearing on the dispute is scheduled for Dec. 3 in Los Angeles County. Geragos and a rep for the Jackson estate both declined to comment on the matter on Friday (Nov. 7).
Jackson was never convicted or held legally liable for any accusation of child sex abuse during his lifetime; he settled a civil claim in 1994 without admitting any wrongdoing, and he was acquitted at a criminal trial in 2005. But such allegations have continued to dog his legacy, most notably when Leaving Neverland hit screens in 2019.
The Jackson estate called Leaving Neverland a “one-sided hit job” and sued HBO, leading the documentary to be removed from the streaming platform. Yet the subjects of Leaving Neverland, Wade Robson and James Safechuck, are continuing to pursue civil sexual assault claims against the estate.
Meanwhile, the Jackson estate has been extraordinarily successful at monetizing the singer’s legacy. Jackson died with $500 million in debt, but the estate has since generated more than $3 billion with catalog deals and new live shows exploiting the King of Pop’s intellectual property.
The estate’s latest endeavor is Michael, a long-developed biopic tracing Jackson’s rise to stardom. After years of setbacks and delays, Michael finally has a release date of April 24, 2026.
The movie’s first teaser trailer dropped on Thursday (Nov. 6) with scenes of Jackson’s real-life nephew, Jaafar Jackson, recording and performing Michael’s record-smashing 1982 album Thriller. The teaser does not allude to any of the abuse claims against Jackson.
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AI was an omnipresent topic at the Music Tectonics conference in Santa Monica, Calif., earlier this week, creeping into seemingly every panel discussion and casual poolside conversation. Everybody can see that AI will transform the music business. That’s a 30,000-foot view. Zoom in, however, and there’s far less certainty about how, exactly, AI will disrupt the status quo.
“Not everybody wants to be a creator” was a frequently heard sentiment. Lucas Cantor Santiago of Mindset Ventures has a particular point of view as a composer. The setup he currently uses to write music would have cost $200,000 15 years ago. Now, somebody can get “basically the same tools” from a trip to the Apple Store. But Cantor Santiago doesn’t believe access to tools has led to more creators. “It’s just caused people like me to start writing music faster, and maybe people who didn’t have classical training to be able to start writing music,” he said on a panel.
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AI’s ability to help human creators, not replace them, was a common theme at Music Tectonics. Granted, the conference was heavy on consumer technology brands such as Yamaha, Roland and Fender. Had AI anarchists been invited to speak, there would have been more diversity of thought. But the opinions of people who actually make music for a living carry a lot of weight, as they’re on the front lines of making music that eventually finds an audience. To this crowd, AI slop has little redeeming value and won’t find a meaningful audience.
The historical record doesn’t fully support the idea that AI won’t increase the ranks of creators, though. Greater access to inexpensive production and distribution tools has already transformed the music business. Artists who were previously locked out of nationwide distribution — it was impossible for a DIY artist to get Tower Records to stock their CDs — now have access to tens of millions of consumers through digital distributors and digital service providers (DSPs) such as iTunes and Spotify. “When I owned a record label and house label in Chicago in the ‘80s, there were 100 new records a week,” said Matt Adell, co-founder and COO of Musical AI, on a panel. “When I left [EDM download store] Beatport, there were 27,000 new records a day. There are now over 150,000 new songs a day hitting the DSPs.”
Given easier tools, people are already creating more music. Many of the 150,000 songs a day cited by Adell — or whatever the number is currently — were created by AI. French music streamer Deezer said in September that 28% of tracks uploaded are created wholly by generative AI, underscoring the fact that AI tools could lead to more music being created. Unpopular, long tail music may not attract much attention, but it creates markets where none previously existed. DIY distributors such as DistroKid, CD Baby and TuneCore can operate because production tools are inexpensive — sometimes free — and artists can afford the modest fees to distribute their songs globally.
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AI’s biggest impact could be to turn everybody into a small-scale creator. Kristen Bender, senior vp of digital innovation strategy and business development at Universal Music Group (UMG), noted during a panel that 30% to 40% of all music content on social media platforms has been manipulated by AI in some way, suggesting there are more creators than people might think. “We think that AI is going to enable so [much] hyper-personalization and interesting ways to interact with content,” she said.
Along those lines, Liz Moody, a partner at law firm Granderson Des Rochers, described how AI tools will allow fans to interact with artists in new ways. Moody, who worked on Udio’s recent licensing deal with UMG, told the audience Udio could create “a fan-focused experience where fans can work with their favorite artists to make personalized music, maybe with the artist’s voice, or maybe create some mashups between two songs that they love.”
When AI tools first appeared, the initial conversation focused on AI-generated music’s potential to supplant the popularity of human-created songs. But Bender and Moody — who have visibility into where these business models are headed — encouraged people to think smaller. It’s easy to imagine a licensed, industry-sanctioned generative AI platform partnering with well-known artists to create personalized renditions of “Happy Birthday” for their subscribers. But it’s a lot harder to imagine anyone other than the creator wanting to hear their personalized version.
