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Warner Chappell Music recently wrapped a Las Vegas-based songwriting camp, featuring 300 songwriters, artists and producers from around the world. The annual event was held in partnership with YouTube Music, Warner Records, Atlantic Records, and RCA Records, along with other label sponsors and included artists like Chlöe, Bebe Rexha, Yng Lvcus, P2J, The Proof, Lydia Night, Murda Beatz, Tay Keith, Amy Allen, Ian Kirkpatrick, Nova Wav, Benson Boone, and Leigh-Anne Pinnock.
Primary Wave Music has acquired the publishing and writer’s share of P.F. Sloan‘s catalog, as well as the late-singer’s master royalty income. Sloan wrote, performed, and produced for artists across all genres of music — from Barry McGuire to Herman’s Hermits to the Mamas and the Papas. Hits like “Eve of Destruction,” “A Must To Avoid,” “Secret Agent Man,” and “You Baby” were included in the deal.
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Primary Wave Music has acquired a stake in the works of singer-songwriter Eddie Rabbitt. With a dozen #1 country hits, including “I Love A Rainy Night” and “Drivin’ My Life Away” Primary Wave’s vp of business & legal affairs, Lexi Todd, says the Grammy-nominated talent “left a lasting impression in the country music community and beyond.”
Multimedia Music has acquired STX‘s music library. Called Millennium Media, the collection includes titles like The Hitman’s Bodyguard,” “London Has Fallen,” “Angel Has Fallen,” “Hitman Wife’s Bodyguard,” “Hellboy,” “The Outpost,” “Mechanic: Resurrection,” “Rambo: Last Blood,” “Blackbird,” and “The Expendables 4,” and more.
Position Music has signed BRIT-nominated producer and songwriter Joe Kearns to a worldwide publishing deal. A consistent collaborator of Ellie Goulding and cuts with Lukas Graham, Henry Moodie, Zara Larsson, IVE, Seeb, and MONSTA X, Kearns says he’s “very excited to get to work and make lots of records” with Position.
MusicBird has acquired the catalog of Greek-Swedish songwriter and producer Alexander “Alex P” Papaconstantinou. Included in the deal are Alex’s writer and publisher’s share of songs like “I Like How It Feels” by Enrique Iglesias, “C’est La Vie” by Khaled, “Live It Up” by Jennifer Lopez, “Boys Will Be Boys” by Paulina Rubio, and “Whip It” by Nicki Minaj.
Joie Manda’s Platinum Grammy Publishing has forged a new partnership with Photo Finish Publishing. Though Photo Finish, which is best known as a record label, has had previous publishing ventures with Warner Chappell and UMPG that were coterminous with their respective label deals, Atlantic and UMG, together with Manda Photo Finish Publishing is launching anew. Under the deal, Photo Finish with sign songwriters and producers and are “thrilled to be working with artists, writers, producers from a different perspective, other than the label.”
Warner Chappell Music, The Core Entertainment and Bailey Zimmerman have signed Dipper to a global publishing deal. A rising country singer-songwriter, Zimmerman calls Dipper a “raw talent” that he is “psyched” to work with.
Concord Music Publishing has signed country artist Clayton Mullen to an exclusive worldwide publishing agreement, including his full catalog and future works.
On Tuesday (Sept. 26), singer-songwriter Rick Astley settled the vocal impersonation lawsuit he filed in January against meme rapper Yung Gravy and his collaborators for an undisclosed sum.
Filed in Los Angeles court, the lawsuit had claimed that while Yung Gravy and his collaborators secured rights to re-record the melody and lyrics of his 1987 hit “Never Gonna Give You Up” for their track “Betty (Get Money),” they “flagrantly impersonated” Astley’s distinctive vocals from the original track, thereby infringing his so-called right of publicity. “Betty (Get Money)” peaked at No. 39 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 9 on Billboard‘s Hot Rap Songs chart.
Rights of publicity laws, which vary state by state, protect public figures from the commercial exploitation of their names, voices and likenesses without their authorization. Astley argued that by mimicking Astley’s voice in a “nearly indistinguishable” way, Gravy’s team “obliterated” Astley’s chance to “collaborate with another artist and/or producer to create something new with his voice from ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’” and take advantage of other commercial opportunities.
The lawsuit arrived just as emerging artificial intelligence (AI) tools had sparked new conversations around right of publicity protections for artists. The debate hit a fever pitch in April when an anonymous TikTok creator named Ghostwriter made headlines with his song “Heart On My Sleeve,” which employed an AI voice filter to deepfake the voices of Drake and The Weeknd without their knowledge or consent. Since then, some leaders, including Universal Music Group’s general counsel/executive vp of business and legal affairs, Jeffery Harleston, have called for a federalized right of publicity to protect artists against the seemingly growing issue.
Notably, Gravy’s song did not employ AI to mimic Astley’s trademark tone. Instead, “Betty (Get Money)” producer Nick “PopNick” Seeley recreated Astley’s voice the old-fashioned way: through trial and error in the studio. In a previous interview with Billboard, Seeley said he has “a knack for vintage stuff” and has also helped recreate older recordings for other songs, including “I Like It” by Cardi B and “Dirty Iyanna” by YoungBoy Never Broke Again.
In a previous interview with Billboard, producer Marc “Fresh2Def” Soto — half of the duo ClickNPress –said it’s common for producers to be asked to recreate older songs as closely as possible. “A record label will be like, ‘Hey we can’t get the clearance for the sample, but we can get an interpolation, would you be able to replay XYZ thing?’ I’ve been through that on several records with different labels,” Soto says. However, most of these so-called “replays” of old songs don’t end up being quite as exact as the one in Astley’s case.
Astley was represented by attorney Richard S. Busch, the same lawyer who represented Marvin Gaye’s family in the controversial “Blurred Lines” trial. Gravy and the other defendants were represented by attorney Michael J. Niborski.
Busch and Niborski did not immediately respond to Billboard’s requests for comment.
Proponents of the Help Independent Tracks Succeed (HITS) Act are making a renewed effort to get the bill through Congress.
On Wednesday (Sept. 27), the Recording Academy and the American Association of Independent Music (A2IM) sent a letter to House Ways and Means Committee chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) and ranking member Richard Neal (D-MA) urging them to add the bill to end-of-year tax legislation.
The HITS Act would provide an extra tax break to musicians, technicians and producers for recording sessions, allowing them to deduct 100% of recording expenses up to $150,000 on their taxes in the year they’re incurred. That would be a change from the current law, which requires music creators and labels to amortize those expenses over the economic life of a sound recording, a period that usually ranges between three and four years.
“The bill is designed and tailored to specifically incentivize independent artists, songwriters and labels to produce new music, sparking important creative investments in countless music small businesses across the country,” reads the letter, signed by Recording Academy chief advocacy and public policy officer Todd Dupler and A2IM president/CEO Richard James Burgess. “This targeted approach makes the HITS Act a fiscally responsible investment in the American creative economy.”
The letter goes on to point out that film, TV and live theatrical productions all enjoy the option of fully deducting production costs in the year they’re incurred and argues that music productions should get the same treatment. For independent creators and labels, being forced to amortize expenses “slows down their reinvestment in new projects that can fuel growth,” the letter adds.
Speaking to Billboard last year, Burgess put it in starker terms, noting that specifically for independents, “getting $150,000 per project [that can be] written off against your taxes in the year that you incurred it, could really make a difference between being able to make another record next year or not.”
The bipartisan HITS Act was first introduced in the House on July 31, 2020 (followed by a companion bill in the Senate on Dec. 3, 2020), though it failed to pass as part of the two pandemic relief packages or as part of the $3.5 billion budget reconciliation package known as Build Back Better, which was ultimately halved and renamed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 before being signed into law in August 2022. A similar lobbying effort at the end of last year to pass the bill ahead of the changeover to a new, split Congress — Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in January while Democrats held the Senate — also failed.
Read the full letter below.
Dear Chairman Smith and Ranking Member Neal:
On behalf of independent music makers and record labels we call on the Committee of Ways and Means to advance into law the bipartisan and bicameral Help Independent Tracks Succeed (HITS) Act (H.R. 1259) as part of any tax policy package considered before the end of the year. The HITS Act is a low-cost and commonsense modification to existing U.S. tax law that will incentivize the production of new sound recordings and songwriter demos by allowing qualified productions to deduct 100% of their costs upfront. With an annual deduction limit of $150,000, the bill is designed and tailored to specifically incentivize independent artists, songwriters and labels to produce new music, sparking important creative investments in countless music small businesses across the country. This targeted approach makes the HITS Act a fiscally responsible investment in the American creative economy.
The HITS Act also brings much-needed parity to the tax code for all creative industries. Currently, under Sec. 181 of the Internal Revenue Code, qualified film, television, and live theatrical productions may elect to fully deduct new production costs in the year they are incurred. Music production, which occurs in every state and congressional district, deserves the same treatment. Instead of being able to fully deduct production expenses in the year they occur, independent music makers must currently amortize production expenses for tax purposes over the full economic life of their creation. For small creators and the small businesses that invest in their careers, this timing difference slows down their reinvestment in new projects that can fuel growth. The HITS Act harmonizes the tax code and ensures that all the major creative industries are treated similarly.
As you consider how to best craft comprehensive tax legislation this year, the music community strongly urges you to include the HITS Act in any vehicle. It represents exactly the type of bipartisan, bicameral, and non-controversial economic investment that Congress should be proud to support. Passage of H.R. 1259 is a smart and simple step that will make a lasting difference for countless independent music creators and music small businesses.
Thank you for your consideration.
Signed,
Dr. Richard James BurgessPresident and CEOAmerican Association of Independent Music (A2IM)
Todd DuplerChief Advocacy and Public Policy OfficerRecording Academy
U.S. Latin music revenue increased 15% to a record high of $627 million in the first half of 2023, according to the RIAA’s mid-year Latin music report released Wednesday (Sept. 27). The new milestone for the genre follows Latin music revenue hitting an all-time high last year, exceeding the $1 billion mark with 24% growth that outpaced the overall market.
According to the report, streaming continued to drive an “overwhelming” portion of the genre’s growth, accounting for 98% of revenue. Latin music’s share of overall U.S. recorded music revenue grew from 7.1% in the first half of 2022 to a new pinnacle of 7.5% in the first half of 2023.
“U.S. Latin music revenues reached an all-time high in 2022, and the growth has continued mid-year into 2023. This has been driven by both the vitality of classic hits and chart-topping new releases that have influenced broader culture and society,” said RIAA senior vp of public policy & industry relations Rafael Fernandez in a statement.
Latin music’s growth over the past two years has been driven by the success not only of Bad Bunny — who ended 2022 as the most streamed artist in the United States and around the world — but also artists such as Karol G, who earlier this year made history with Mañana Será Bonito. In March, the 17-track set became the first all-Spanish language album by a Latin female artist to top the Billboard 200.
A new wave of música mexicana acts such as Peso Pluma, Fuerza Regida and Eslabon Armado have also helped usher in a record year for regional Mexican music. Earlier this year, Billboard reported that consumption for the genre jumped 42.1% through May 25, according to Luminate.
The RIAA’s mid-year report further explains that ad-supported on-demand music streaming revenue (from services like YouTube, the free version of Spotify and social media platforms) continued to make up a larger percentage of revenue for Latin music (23%) than for U.S. recorded music overall (10%).
Meanwhile, revenue from digital and customized radio services (such as Pandora, SiriusXM and internet radio services) grew 13% to $36 million — rebounding from a 5% decrease in 2022 — making up 6% of total Latin music revenue. However, physical formats totaled less than 1% of revenue at $4.7 million, resulting in a 37% decline from the first half of 2022.
Purchase tickets to 2023 Billboard Latin Music Week here.
Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl has a message for a music industry facing disruption from artificial intelligence that’s often likened to the rise of file-sharing a quarter century ago: “You have to embrace technology, because it’s not like you can put technology in a bottle,” he said during an onstage interview at the Code […]
The annual Music Tectonics Conference has unveiled the schedule for its 2023 edition, which is slated to take place in Santa Monica Oct. 24-26.
As always, this year’s sessions will explore a broad range of music business trends, including the most buzzworthy topic of all — artificial intelligence — with the panel “Music Meets AI: Navigating a Positive Future” featuring Angela Abbott of TIDAL, Con Raso of Tuned Global and Marina Guz of AI music and wellness company Endel. Additionally, attendees can take part in a so-called “AI music demo experience” titled “AI Isn’t Spooky (Unless You Want to be Scared).”
Other standouts this year include “The Explosion of Musical Creativity in Gaming & Esports” with Maria Egan of Riot Games, David Knox of Reactional Music and Sony Ventures’ Aadit Parikh; the fireside chat “Strength in Numbers: Growth of the Independent Artist and the Future of DIY” featuring Andreea Gleeson of TuneCore and Billboard‘s own Kristin Robinson; and “The State of Creativity in Music Tech” with Dani DiCiaccio of Splice and Daniel Rowland of LANDR, moderated by BandLab’s Dani Deahl.
Other topics covered by sessions and events at this year’s gathering include music tech investment, fan engagement, music data, distribution and streaming fraud. As in previous years, the conference will also feature Swimming with Narwhals, a startup pitch competition for music tech companies that will see five finalists present their pitches to an audience and a panel of music tech investors.
The full 2023 schedule can be found here.
“I named this event Music Tectonics because we explore the shifting trends that change the industry sometimes suddenly and sometimes incrementally, the way the earth’s tectonic plates cause quakes and make mountains,” said Music Tectonics director Dmitri Vietze in a statement. “Music tech founders, label execs, artist teams, investors, and industry stakeholders come back to Music Tectonics each year because they learn about what’s about to emerge as well as what the state of innovation is.”
Top-level supporters of this year’s conference include Kuack Media Group, LyricFind and MU:CON, while sponsors include Beatdapp, Innovation Norway, The MLC, Moises, Music Reports, Reactional Music, Revohloo, RoyFi, SESAC Music Group, TuneCore, TunedGlobal, Downtown Music Holdings and MAM bmat.
Earlier this month, Deezer announced a new “artist-centric” royalty model with Universal Music Group, under which the streaming service will distribute royalties under what amounts to a weighted system, rather than simply pro rata. The weighted system will attribute a doubled value to streams of “professional” artists, defined as those with 1,000 or more streams per month by 500 or more users, and would double that value again for tracks that fans searched for as opposed to those served up by the platform.
Assigning more value to music that subscribers deliberately choose to hear is clearly a good idea. In some ways, algorithmically served songs might be more akin to non-interactive radio, which under U.S. law has always generated significantly lower royalty payments.
Giving additional weight to music from more successful artists simply because they are successful is a less obvious move. Some have said that this new system sounds like a cynical reverse-Robin-Hood move that essentially takes money from the long tail of unsuccessful artists and hands it to the likes of Taylor Swift and Jay-Z simply because big artists are powerful enough to demand it. In fact, however, the proposed cutoff for defining “professional” artist status is pretty low – 1,000 streams per month from at least 500 monthly users. Long tail “noise” would be ineligible for the bonus, though, while even mildly successful developing artists would be treated the same as superstars.
What will all of this mean in practice?
Thomas Hesse
Deezer says in its press release that “97% of all uploaders on the Deezer platform generated only 2% of the total streams. Whereas only 2% of all uploaders—those artists attracting a consistent fanbase—had more than 1,000 monthly unique listeners.” It’s not clear what percentage of uploaders constitute UMG’s group of professional”artists with more than 1,000 streams from at least 500 monthly users, or what share of total streams they command. But if 2% account for more than 1,000 monthly streams and 3% make up 98% of all streams, then under any reasonable assumption those having at least 1,000 streams from at least 500 monthly users must make up at least 99% of the streams.
If 99% of streams were weighted three-fold under this artist centric policy – all would get doubled, but presumably many tracks would still be served up algorithmically – then, mathematically, that would increase their share to 99.66% (3×99 divided by (3×99+1)). So, the bottom, “noise”, uploaders would see their share of streams and revenues diminished by 0.66% from 1% to 0.34%.
And what does it mean in real money?
Applying this calculated reduction to IFPI’s published wholesale audio streaming market number of $12.7 billion for 2022 would imply a squeeze on the “noise producers” of $84m (assuming that all labels would eventually follow the UMG model). That’s hardly a large number, but as UMG EVP Digital Strategy Michael Nash says, “we’re fixing the roof while the sun still shines” – the industry leaders want to quash the value of the long tail while it’s still relatively small. Assume that the streaming market grows at 10% a year to over $20 billion within the next 5 years, then assume that, left to the status quo, the revenue take of long tail noise would grow to 5%. If that’s true, UMG’s artist-centric system would cut the noise producer share from 5% to 1.70%, a squeeze of 3.3%, and the professional artist share would go from 95% to 95×3 divided over 95×3+5, or 98.3%. That would amount to a redistribution of $660 million to professional artists, an amount of money that would certainly register.
That means artist-centric royalties do make sense, although they feel like more of a tweak to the existing system than a fundamental change.
As has been often noted, the current pro-rata model essentially takes subscription money from users who spend less time on a platform (lower intensity users) and passes it to the artists favored by those who spend more time there (high intensity users, or super fans). This redistribution of subscriber revenue does not reflect the proportional tastes of all fans in the market, so it disadvantages deep catalog artists and creators in genres favored by less active users, who tend to be older, such as classic rock, jazz and classical music. Besides being perceived as unfair it also reduces the funds that support a more diverse music landscape and contributes to more streamlined and monolithic business driven by megastars and TikTok. The artist-centric royalty system doesn’t even address this.
It also doesn’t do anything about the fact that heavy users still pay the same low monthly price for access to essentially all the music ever recorded as those who stream far less. Combining a higher monthly price for heavy users with a fan-centric royalty model could represent the leap forward that the industry needs, increasing average revenue per user (ARPU) from heavy users, who would be the least price-sensitive, while distributing the resulting royalties to better reflect the music preferences of everyone who pays for a service. Such a change would grow the overall business and at the same time fund the creative development of a more diverse music landscape.
Thomas Hesse is the former president of global digital business & US distribution at Sony Music Entertainment, and the president and chief digital officer of Bertelsmann. He currently builds and supports the next generation of media companies.
Usher is likely to use the world’s biggest stage at Super Bowl LVIII in February to promote his first major tour in nearly a decade and become the first act to launch a tour from the big game in seven years, sources tell Billboard.
Following the NFL’s announcement Sunday that the R&B icon will take over Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas on Feb. 11 as the game’s halftime show performer, sources say Usher’s team has been busy placing holds on arenas around the world. That same team is expected to spend the next four-and-a-half months routing, confirming and finalizing a 2024 global tour that sources expect will be ready to go on sale moments after he steps off the stage.
Over the past two years, Usher has made a home on the Las Vegas Strip with two residencies at the The Colosseum at Caesars Palace and Dolby Live at Park MGM (for Usher: The Las Vegas Residency and My Way: The Vegas Residency, respectively). Combined, his residencies have earned $83 million and sold 374,000 tickets from 79 shows, according to figures reported to Billboard Boxscore, and Billboard estimates that his Vegas earnings should exceed $100 million by early December. That’s more than any of Usher’s prior tours, topping 2010-11’s OMG Tour, which brought in $76 million — and coincidentally lined up with the singer’s previous Super Bowl halftime appearance, when he made a cameo during The Black Eyed Peas’ 2011 set. His last major tour was 2014–15’s The UR Experience Tour.
Usher will also use the halftime show as a platform to launch a new album release. The Atlanta superstar will drop his ninth studio album and his first since 2016, called Coming Home, on the same day as the Super Bowl. Last year, more than 115 million people tuned in for the Super Bowl, according to the NFL, showing viewership of the annual championship game continues to grow even as more Americans “cut the cord” with their cable providers and seek out digital streaming alternatives. Despite the increase in eyeballs, the number of artists making tour announcements or adjustments have dropped dramatically.
It has been seven years since an artist took advantage of Super Bowl halftime show’s massive viewership to announce a new tour — the last was Lady Gaga in 2017. The reason for that is likely two-fold. First, there are more artists touring than ever before, making it difficult for artists to time their touring plans and album cycles around a February announcement date, especially when halftime performers aren’t typically announced until September. The second change was a new partnership with Jay-Z and Roc Nation in 2019 to curate and book the halftime show, which has favored collaborative spectacles over single artist promotion with performances by Shakira and Jennifer Lopez at the 2020 Super Bowl and Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige, 50 Cent and Kendrick Lamar at the 2022 Super Bowl.
Looking at the last five Super Bowl halftime shows, from 2018 to 2022, only two were linked to tour announcements: In 2018, Justin Timberlake, announced additional dates for his Man of the Woods Tour including second American leg for Man of the Woods following his Super Bowl LII halftime performance at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis. And, in 2021, The Weeknd announced the long-awaited rescheduled dates for his After Hours Tour along with 39 new shows in North America and Europe after his Super Bowl performance. (Eight months later, those rescheduled dates were cancelled a second time, and the tour was upgraded to stadiums for summer 2022.)
The preceding five-year period, 2017-2013, was far busier — four out of five of the halftime shows from this period were linked to major tour announcements.
The last artist to announce a tour immediately following their performance at the Super Bowl was Lady Gaga in 2017. The singer began her remarkable set by descending from the top of Houston’s NRG Stadium onto an on-field stage to perform “Just Dance,” “Bad Romance,” “Poker Face”. After her show wrapped, a post on her Twitter account teased out a world tour, and then hours later a follow-up tweet directed fans to website where fans could buy tickets. Coldplay’s halftime performance in 2016 led to two major tour announcements: one for the band’s Head Full of Dreams Tour and another for their halftime co-star Beyoncé’s Formation Tour. Beyonce also announced The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour following 2013 Super Bowl performance, while Bruno Mars announced new dates for his Moonshine Jungle Tour following his 2014 halftime show performance in 2014.
Additional reporting by Eric Frankenberg.
Apple Music Radio is coming to Apple Podcasts.
On Tuesday (Sept. 26), Apple announced that Apple Music subscribers will now be able to stream more than 2,500 “musically rich” episodes from Apple Music Radio on its podcasts app.
Apple Music’s original shows air across three global stations — Apple Music 1, Apple Music Hits, and Apple Music Country — and feature such top talent as Zane Lowe (The Zane Lowe Show), Ebro Darden (The Ebro Show, Hip-Hop DNA) and Kelleigh Bannen (Today’s Country Radio, The Kelleigh Bannen Show). It additionally airs artist-hosted programs including Angel Hour Radio with Reneé Rapp, Time Crisis hosted by Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig, OTHERtone featuring Pharrell Williams and Deep Hidden Meaning Radio hosted by Nile Rodgers.
Apple Music’s coverage of the 2024 Apple Music Halftime Show featuring Usher will also be available to Apple Music subscribers on Apple Podcasts.
In addition to Apple Music Radio shows, Apple Podcasts will now also include audio programming for subscribers to other connected apps, including Apple News+, meditation app Calm and “playlearning” app Lingokids. Starting next month, subscribers to several more apps — including Bloomberg, Curio, L’Équipe, Mamamia, Sleep Cycle, The Economist, The Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, WELT News and Zen with Apple Podcasts — will be able to connect their subscriptions as well.
Listeners with subscriptions to any of these apps will have those subscriptions automatically connected the next time they open Apple Podcasts. They can also connect their subscriptions manually by signing into their accounts from each app’s channel page on Apple Podcasts. Subscribers will be able to listen across Apple devices, including iPhone, iPad, Mac, HomePod, CarPlay and Apple Watch with AirPods. The company notes that Apple’s latest operating systems — iOS 17, iPadOS 17 and macOS Sonoma — are required to connect subscriptions.
Once subscriptions are connected, listeners can browse all podcasts available to them from the Library tab. They can also learn more information about each show and follow any show for free to automatically download and be notified about new episodes. They will also receive personalized recommendations in Up Next on the Listen Now tab.
For some music companies, 2022 was the payoff for weathering the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic. When business returned that year — sometimes in record-setting fashion — these companies rewarded their executives handsomely, according to Billboard’s 2022 Executive Money Makers breakdown of stock ownership and compensation. But shareholders, as well as two investment advisory groups, contend the compensation for top executives at Live Nation and Universal Music Group (UMG) is excessive.
Live Nation, the world’s largest concert promotion and ticketing company, rebounded from revenue of $1.9 billion and $6.3 billion in 2020 and 2021, respectively, to a record $16.7 billion in 2022. That performance helped make its top two executives, president/CEO Michael Rapino and president/CFO Joe Berchtold, the best paid music executives of 2022. In total, Rapino received a pay package worth $139 million, while Berchtold earned $52.4 million. Rapino’s new employment contract includes an award of performance shares targeted at 1.1 million shares and roughly 334,000 shares of restricted stock that will fully pay off if the company hits aggressive growth targets and the stock price doubles in five years.
Live Nation explained in its 2023 proxy statement that its compensation program took into account management’s “strong leadership decisions” in 2020 and 2021 that put the company on a path to record revenue in 2022. Compared with 2019 — the last full year unaffected by the COVID-19 pandemic — concert attendance was up 24%, ticketing revenue grew 45%, sponsorships and advertising revenue improved 64%, and ancillary per-fan spending was up at least 20% across all major venue types. Importantly, Live Nation reached 127% of its target adjusted operating income, to which executives’ cash bonuses were tied.
The bulk of Rapino’s and Berchtold’s compensation came from stock awards — $116.7 million for Rapino and $37.1 million for Berchtold — on top of relatively modest base salaries. Both received a $6 million signing bonus for reupping their employment contracts in 2022. (Story continues after charts.)
Lucian Grainge, the top-paid music executive in 2021, came in third in 2022 with total compensation of 47.3 million euros ($49.7 million). Unlike the other executives on this year’s list, he wasn’t given large stock awards or stock options. Instead, Grainge, who has been CEO of UMG since 2010, was given a performance bonus of 28.8 million euros ($30.3 million) in addition to a salary of 15.4 million euros ($16.2 million) — by far the largest of any music executive.
This year, shareholders have shown little appetite for some entertainment executives’ pay packages — most notably Netflix — and Live Nation’s compensation raised flags at two influential shareholder advisory groups, Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis, which both recommended that Live Nation shareholders vote “no” in an advisory “say on pay” vote during the company’s annual meeting on June 9. Shareholders did just that, voting against executives’ pay packages by a 53-to-47 margin.
Failed “say on pay” votes are rare amongst United States corporations. Through Aug. 17, just 2.1% of Russell 3000 companies and 2.3% of S&P 500 companies have received less than 50% votes on executive compensation, according to executive compensation consultancy Semler Brossy. (Live Nation is in both indexes.) About 93% of companies received at least 70% shareholder approval.
ISS was concerned that the stock grants given to Rapino and Berchtold were “multiple times larger” than total CEO pay in peer group companies and were not adequately linked to achieving sustained higher stock prices. Additionally, ISS thought Live Nation did not adequately explain the rationale behind the grants.
To determine what Rapino, Berchtold and other executives should earn, Live Nation’s compensation committee referenced high-earning executives from Netflix, Universal Music Group, SiriusXM, Spotify, Endeavor Group Holdings, Fox Corporation, Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. and Paramount Global. Netflix co-CEOs Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos were paid $51.1 million and $50.3 million, respectively, in 2022. Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslov made $39.3 million in 2022 — including a $21.8 million cash bonus — a year after his pay totaled $246.6 million, including $202.9 million in stock option awards that will vest over his six-year employment contract. Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel and executive chairman Patrick Whitesell received pay packages worth $308.2 million and $123.1 million, respectively, in 2021 thanks to equity awards tied to the company’s IPO that year (the received more modest pay of $19 million and $12.2 million in 2022).
Some companies in the peer group didn’t fare well in “say on pay” votes in 2023, though. Netflix, got only 29% shareholder approval in this year’s say-on-pay advisory vote after Hastings’ and Sarandos’ compensations both increased from higher stock option awards while the company’s stock price, riding high as COVID-19 lockdowns drove investors to streaming stocks, fell 51% in 2022. Warner Bros. Discovery’s 2022 compensation squeaked by with 51% shareholder approval.
Minutes from UMG’s 2023 annual general meeting in May suggest many of its shareholders also didn’t approve of Grainge’s compensation. UMG’s 2022 compensation was approved by just 59% of shareholders, and the company’s four largest shareholders own 58.1% of outstanding shares, meaning virtually no minority shareholders voted in favor.
UMG shareholders’ votes could be meaningfully different next year. Anna Jones, chairman of the music company’s remuneration committee, said during the annual meeting that in 2024, shareholders will vote on a pay package related to Grainge’s new employment agreement that takes minority shareholders’ concerns from the 2022 annual meeting into consideration. Grainge’s contract lowers his cash compensation, and more than half of his total compensation will come from stock and performance-based stock options.
Other companies in Live Nation’s peer group received near unanimous shareholder approval. SiriusXM’s 2022 executive compensation received 98.5% approval at the company’s annual meeting. Paramount Global’s executive compensation was approved by 96.4% of its shareholders. Endeavor didn’t have a “say on pay” vote in 2023, but a year ago, it’s sizable 2021 compensation packages were approved by 99% of voting shareholders.
As the radio industry came back from pandemic-era doldrums, two iHeartMedia executives — Bob Pittman, CEO, and Richard Bressler, president, CFO and COO — were among the top 10 best-paid executives in the music industry. It was new employment contracts, not iHeartMedia’s financial performance, that put them into the top 10, however. Both executives received performance stock awards — $6.5 million for Pittman and $6 million for Bressler — for signing new four-year employment contracts in 2022. Those shares will be earned over a five-year period based on the performance of the stock’s shareholder return. Neither Pittman nor Bressler received a payout from the annual incentive plan, however: iHeartMedia missed the financial targets that would have paid them millions of dollars apiece. Still, with salaries and other stock awards, Pittman and Bressler received pay packages valued at $16.3 million and $15.5 million, respectively.
Spotify co-founders Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon once again topped the list of largest stockholdings in public music companies. Ek’s 15.9% stake is worth nearly $4.8 billion while Lorentzon’s 11.2% stake has a market value of nearly $3.4 billion. Both Ek and Lorentzon have benefitted from Spotify’s share price more than doubling so far in 2023. In September 2022, the inaugural Money Makers list had Ek’s stake at $3.6 billion and Lorentzon’s shares at $2.3 billion.
The billionaire club also includes No. 3 HYBE chairman Bang Si-hyuk, whose 31.8% of outstanding shares are worth $2.54 billion, and No. 4 CTS Eventim CEO Klaus-Peter Schulenberg, whose 38.8% stake — held indirectly through his KPS Foundation non-profit — is worth $2.25 billion. They, too, have benefitted from higher share prices in 2023. Last year, Bang’s stake was worth $1.7 billion and Schulenberg’s shares were valued at $2.1 billion.
These top four shareholders and three others in the top 10 have one important thing in common — they are company founders. At No. 5, Park Jin-young, founder of K-pop company JYP Entertainment, owns a $559 million stake in the label and agency he launched in 1997. Another K-pop mogul, No. 8 Hyunsuk Yang, chairman of YG Entertainment, owns shares worth $199 million in the company he founded in 1996. And No. 9 Denis Ladegaillerie, CEO of 18-year-old French music company Believe, has a 12.5% stake worth $112.7 million.
Live Nation’s Rapino again landed in the top 10 for amassing a stockholding over a lengthy career, during which he has helped significantly increase his company’s value. Rapino, the only CEO Live Nation has ever known, took the helm in 2005 just months before the company was spun off from Clear Channel Entertainment with a market capitalization of $692 million. Since then, Live Nation’s market capitalization has grown at over 20% compound annual growth rate to $19.1 billion. Rapino’s 3.46 million shares represent a 1.5% stake worth $291 million.
Selling a company that one founded is another way onto the list. Scooter Braun, CEO of HYBE America, has a 0.9% stake in HYBE worth $69.8 million. That’s good for No. 10 on the list of executive stock ownership. Braun, HYBE’s second-largest individual shareholder behind chairman Bang, sold his company, Ithaca Holdings — including SB Projects and Big Machine Label Group — to HYBE in 2021 for $1.1 billion.
These rankings are based on publicly available financial statements and filings — such as proxy statements, annual reports and Form 4 filings that reveal employees’ recent stock transactions — that publicly traded companies are required by law to file for transparency to investors. So, the list includes executives from Live Nation but not its largest competitor, the privately held AEG Live.
Some major music companies are excluded because they are not standalone entities. Conglomerates that break out the financial performance of their music companies — e.g., Sony Corp. (owner of Sony Music Entertainment) and Bertelsmann (owner of BMG) — don’t disclose compensation details for heads of record labels and music publishers. Important digital platforms such as Apple Music and Amazon Music are relatively small parts of much larger corporations.
The Money Makers executive compensation table includes only the named executive officers: the CEO, the CFO and the next most highly paid executives. While securities laws vary by country, they generally require public companies to named executive officers’ salary, bonuses, stock awards and stock option grants and the value of benefits such as private airplane access and security.
And while Billboard tracked the compensation of every named executive for publicly traded music companies, the top 10 reflects two facts: The largest companies tend to have the largest pay packages and companies within the United States tend to pay better than companies in other countries.
The list of stock ownership is also taken from public disclosures. The amounts include common stock owned directly or indirectly by the executive. The list does not include former executives — such as former Warner Music Group CEO Stephen Cooper — who are no longer employed at the company and no longer required to disclose stock transactions.