State Champ Radio

by DJ Frosty

Current track

Title

Artist

Current show
blank

Lunch Time Rewind

12:00 pm 1:00 pm

Current show
blank

Lunch Time Rewind

12:00 pm 1:00 pm


Business

Page: 300

Enter the ­National Arts Club, a Victorian Gothic Revival brownstone off Manhattan’s Gramercy Park; climb four winding flights of stairs; pass the Pastel Society of America; and there will be the offices of director Wes Anderson’s longtime music supervisor, Randall Poster. And though in summer 2023 Hollywood is at a strike-induced standstill, Poster, creative director of Premier Music — the advertising-focused music supervision agency — is as busy as ever.

(Update: A tentative deal has been reached between screenwriters and the studios, streaming services and production companies.)

Poster’s film projects in the next several months include music supervision for the fall’s The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (with Anderson), Priscilla (with Sofia Coppola), Killers of the Flower Moon (with frequent collaborator Martin Scorsese), as well as Joker: Folie á Deux (with Todd Phillips) and Hit Man (with Richard Linklater).

And that’s just his day job. Amid the pandemic, an unlikely new passion became a calling when Poster started the Birdsong Project, enlisting his diverse group of artist friends to create music inspired by or incorporating birdsong in an effort to benefit avian life. The result: For the Birds, a 20-album box set containing 172 new pieces of music and 70 works of poetry (all proceeds go to the National Audubon Society) and has led to a growing global community that’s still evolving under his leadership, one in which he hopes the music industry will take a real interest.

How has the strike affected your business?

There are some movies I’m working on that we can’t get finished because we can’t get the main actors to do [automated dialogue replacement]. And then there are movies that were meant to start in the fall that are pushing. I think everyone’s unclear about how it’s going to play out. I don’t really talk to a lot of other music supervisors, but for people who are just scraping by in music supervision, the shutdown of shows is brutal. In terms of music departments, there has been constriction at the streamers, but I’m not sure that was borne out of the strike, at least to this point. But in the short term, I’m busy. And our company, in terms of doing a lot of advertising work, thankfully, that has been very active.

A sampling of Poster’s extensive collection of musician paintings by Dan Melchior, part of an ongoing series, alongside a ceramic bird by Ginny Sims.

Nina Westervelt

Even in the music industry, I think few understand very well what a music supervisor actually does. How would you explain it?

I view my work as a filmmaker, not just a person who deals with the music — using music to best tell a story, to compensate where the story needs a bit of help and having a really candid and fluid relationship with directors and producers. People always say to me, “Oh, Randy Poster’s the guy who picks the music for the Wes Anderson movies” — but I don’t pick the music. I don’t want to be the one who does. Directors pick. I may present, we may have a conversation borne out of months of musical dialogue, but ideally, it’s the director’s medium. When people come out of the movies I work on and say, “Oh, the music was the best part,” that’s not really a victory. When people say, “I don’t really even remember the music,” sometimes that’s the best service you can do to the film — that it feels like the fabric of the movie.

What does a normal day of work look like for you?

Making sure rights are coming in; working on scenes of a movie and putting different songs up to it; making calls to record companies and publishers to see if I can narrow a price differential in terms of what we have to pay and what they’re asking us to pay; reaching out to artists and managers to see if people are interested in recording new music; looking at cues that are coming in from the composer on the movie; putting together a playlist for a director — like when starting a project, using the music to establish a dialogue. Describing what music is doing is very difficult, and words don’t necessarily mean the same things to different people, but if you can relate to songs, it gives you a sense of tempo, vibe, instrumentation they like. And then getting feedback from directors and editors: “This is working. This isn’t. Is there too much music in the movie? Is there not enough?” Sometimes it’s my role to protect the silences.

From left: A painting of country artist Jim Reeves by artist Henry Miller; a ceramic bird sculpture by Joseph Dupré; a painting of Buck Owens’ band, The Buckaroos, by Ashley Bressler (one of many artists Poster has discovered on Instagram).

Nina Westervelt

Has the catalog sales boom affected your bottom line?

When certain catalogs were held by the artist or the artist’s camp, there was a little more flexibility. If a company pays $500 million for an asset, they can’t license something at what they would say is a sort of embarrassing rate. Like, “We’re only licensing this for $10,000 a use; it’s going to take us 200 years to recoup our investment.” On the other hand, I always feel, especially with older catalogs, a movie use is going to open up a new audience to that artist, whether it’s “Oh, that’s Rod Stewart?” or “Wow, I had an idea of what Janis Joplin was like, but I’m surprised by this.”

Does it feel less personal than working with publishers and songwriters?

I wish things were more human and less corporate, but I’ve seen it throughout my whole career. You used to have 12 companies you’d license music from, and then two companies would merge and they’d cut half the staff. They’d have the catalog, but no one would know whom to talk to. A lot of times, what we have to do is convince these companies they actually own something or help them make a connection. That can also be fun — the detective work that goes into figuring out who owns the rights to something. I just wish the music companies had more of an understanding of the process of filmmaking. Oftentimes, it’s not just needing the price to be right — it’s also getting a timely answer. Name the price; just give me an answer.

A cardboard replica of the police car from the Blues Brothers movie by artist Richard Willis.

Nina Westervelt

On the flip side of that, the synch business is so huge. Do you get pitched often?

Yeah, people are pitching nonstop. There are people whom I respect and trust, and my response is always I want to listen to anything you think is great, but I just want to find the right music. This is going to sound horrible, but I don’t do anybody any favors. I’ll do you a favor in life as my friend, but I will not put music in a movie because I’m connected to somebody. I certainly do file things away for the future. I may love a song but not have the right movie for it. At the moment, I’m working on things in the ’20s, the ’50s — period pieces.

How do you seek out new music?

Every way — through social media, through traditional music press, recommendations. I have two daughters who are very into music. Artists lead you to artists a lot. I’ve been very reluctant to use an algorithm to find music. Probably at certain points I’d benefit from that, but I like to discover it myself.

A beaded African tribal hat Poster bought from a street vendor on Manhattan’s Houston Street. “As we started reaching out to artists we loved to make album covers for the box set, I found myself looking at all sorts of bird- centric pieces, and I couldn’t resist them.”

Nina Westervelt

Speaking of discovery, how did you get the idea for the Birdsong Project?

I’m a New York City kid; I’m not really a nature boy. But during the pandemic, we were all somewhat soothed by the way nature seemed to be doing its thing, unperturbed by the virus, and a lot of my friends were noticing there were so many birds. A friend I work with, Rebecca Reagan, who lives in California and is much more involved in nature causes, was like, “You should get all your musician friends to create music around birdsong. That would be a great way to joyfully draw people’s attention not only to the beauty and variety of birds but also the crises facing birds. It would be a nonpolitical way to draw people to protect the birds.” For the most part, I’ve found, no one wants to see birds die. It’s a way to bring together people in community, which seems to be so difficult otherwise. The response from artists was very positive, and it just kept going.

What do you get out of it that you don’t from your day job?

I’m usually the person who has to be a very strong editorial hand in getting what we need for a movie. Here, I just said [to artists], “Thank you.” It was very much a broad invitation to do what they feel. I didn’t really give notes, other than maybe, “Hey, this is beautiful. Can it be nine minutes versus 23 minutes?” It was liberating. I had to allow a certain kind of randomness versus how you sequence music for a movie.

What are your ambitions for the project with respect to the music industry?

I would like to see us adopted by the music community like they have the TJ Martell Foundation. But that may be a longer road. So we’re just working away. The label Erase Tapes has 10 artists on the compilation, so in 2024, they’re going to do a Birdsong album by taking their artists and remixing them, and I’d like to do collaborations with other labels so it spreads. That way I’m not the record company — we work with your artists, we curate with you. I think we’ll be ready in 2025 to hopefully do a big Birdsong concert maybe in Central Park.

At this point in your ­career, you’re a bit of a music supervision legend. How do you advise young people who want to do what you do?

I encourage them to find their contemporaries who want to make movies and throw in. It has never been easier to make movies. I wanted to work on movies where that one kid in the movie theater thinks, “I want to do this” — Wes and I were that kid. Do whatever you need to do to create and be creative. When people ask me the difference between how I work now and how I worked 25 years ago — well, I probably cry a little bit less, in the sense that when a director does not choose a song I feel is so right, I have more of a balanced [reaction]. I still am up for battles, though. And hopefully, people want to work with me because I’m not just a rubber stamp. We have to fight for every cue.

ONErpm Nashville has launched a joint venture with Huff Co., a production company spearheaded by brothers Dann Huff and David Huff, to help guide artists from various musical genres into the marketplace.

Dann, a Billboard producer of the decade honoree, will be at the helm, with creative input from David, as they produce artists signed to the joint venture. Meanwhile, ONErpm will fund production and oversee distribution and marketing for the artists. Artists will be signed directly to the joint venture, with ONErpm acting as a record label and co-owning the master recordings.

Tim Wipperman, the MD for ONErpm Nashville, previously spent nearly three decades as the head of Warner Bros. Music. He also served as CEO of Rezonant Music and then as president of Anthem Music Publishing Nashville.

“For some artists, the traditional model isn’t viable or necessary,” Wipperman tells Billboard. “There are advantages and disadvantages to working within that kind of corporate structure, and there are a lot of advantages to working outside of that corporate structure with a more nimble organization. We did 70 billion Spotify streams last month and 20 billion YouTube streams, so this company has leverage and reach.”

Musician and producer Dann has played on and/or produced recordings by Barbra Streisand, Reba McEntire, Celine Dion, Rod Stewart, Shania Twain, Keith Urban, Megadeth and more. He has won the CMA musician of the year honor three times as well as CMA Awards for his production work on CMA single of the year-winning songs in 2016 (Thomas Rhett’s “Die a Happy Man”) and 2017 (Urban’s “Blue Ain’t Your Color”). Dann will continue to produce artists outside of the joint venture.

David’s resume includes work as a producer, music director, consultant and artist development executive. In the studio, he’s collaborated with Rhett, The Smashing Pumpkins, Avicii, Sheryl Crow, Twain, Michael W. Smith and more.

Though specific artist signings will be revealed later, Dann tells Billboard that he expects the joint venture will ultimately work with a mix of new artists who have made an impact in the streaming arena as well as established artists seeking more freedom than they can get in a typical label deal structure.

“Because I have this long history in Nashville, there’s been talk of finding homes for some of these artists that maybe aren’t [still] in the mainstream, doing what they’ve done through the course of their career, but they are very viable in the sense that they have active audiences who want new music,” Dann says. “I like the fact that not everything has to go through the prism of being radio-driven. It just opens so much more…for someone who loves music, there’s nothing better.”

Wipperman adds, “We want ONErpm to be at the forefront of finding new ways to build careers. When artists look at a non-major [label operation], there’s a concern about production and the ability of a non-major to leverage what they are doing. I think getting into business with producers [with] the quality of Dann and David, that eliminates one of those impediments. You grow a company by creating alliances with talented people.”

ONErpm’s services include music distribution, marketing support, publishing, accounting and global payment systems. The company operates in 43 offices around the world, with more than 500 staffers globally. Artists currently working with the company include country artist William Michael Morgan, reggae artist I-Octane, Jamaican dancehall superstar Sean Paul, pop band Nightly, singer-songwriter Jay Allen, singer-songwriter Chance Peña and Americana artists Mark and Maggie O’Connor.

It’s been months since the concept of “artist-centric” royalties was introduced in a January memo from Universal Music Group Sir Lucian Grainge to his staff. It raised a considerable amount of speculation for a company memo, even though for a while the concept remained rather vague. Something about streaming manipulation, functional music, and a model that “supports all artists.”

Now, though, that speculation is over: Deezer has announced its UMG-backed proposal, with plans to launch it soon.

We need more clarity, but this proposal definitely adds to the streaming debate, which is important if we want to improve the streaming ecosystem. The European recorded music market is still far from where it should be – around 42% of its market peak when adjusted for inflation, following the absence of any substantial change in streaming subscription prices over the past decade and a half.

How do we fix this?

First, we need to see higher subscription prices. We have seen some increases, but they are still minor. We just can’t escape that fact. Then there are ideas about how the business can reallocate royalties, and we need as many voices as possible to take part in the discussion. IMPALA started t this wo years and a half ago with its 10-point plan to make the most of streaming, which we revisited in April (infographic here and full plan here). We think Deezer’s proposal is ambitious, and some of it resonates with our own. But it also includes some more controversial provisions.

Let’s start with them.

I’m referring of course to Deezer’s plan to set a threshold for boosts in royalties, available only to acts that get a certain number of streams from a certain number of listeners. Where would the additional revenues go? How many artists would benefit? And what does it say about the stability of the system that an artist could attain “professional” status for a month, only to potentially lose it in following one?

More clarity is needed. Independent labels account for 80% of new releases (including artists patiently awaiting discovery, artists who cater to niche audiences, artists from smaller territories and newcomers just starting their artistic journey). We must avoid a two-tier approach that would impact not only their work, but musical diversity as a whole. We understand that this is not Deezer’s objective, but IMPALA will always oppose thresholds that would harm smaller players and smaller markets, a position that was set already in our first streaming plan. Let’s make sure it’s not the case here.

Key to IMPALA’s approach is a progressive redistribution of revenues where tracks would see a boost in royalties beneath and before the point of global ubiquity, and those which are in the top echelon (however that’s defined) would lose a small percentage of revenue. That’s the Artist Growth model – initially developed by AIM in the UK. We feel this can lead to a healthier ecosystem and more opportunity for new creators from diverse genres.

This could be controversial as well, which is fine, as long as we remember that change must be discussed – and negotiated. It shouldn’t simply be imposed in a deal between two market players, even when one of them is the leader of the market. And while Deezer and UMG will launch this plan soon, until other stakeholders agree, this “artist-centric” model will really be UMG-centric.

Deezer’s plan also has a lot of positives, though.

Who could argue that streaming manipulation needs to be addressed, for example? We absolutely support Deezer’s commitment there, which is also point 4 of IMPALA’s proposal, but we will need to review the idea of caps on individual accounts as we wouldn’t want superfan streams to be devalued.

Deezer also want to address “noise” content is also an issue that Deezer seeks to address. We flagged this in our plan, as a way to address revenue dilution. So we welcome this move and would appreciate other ideas to handle this content, which has a place, as long as it doesn’t dilute royalties.

Deezer’s second proposal for boosts in royalties, for tracks that fans actively engage with, is also interesting. That’s also the rationale behind our “Active Engagement” model, put forward in our plan in 2021. There are different ways one could do this, but it’s great to see the idea getting traction.

Is Deezer ready to make the imaginative leap to embrace the “Fan Participation” model, also proposed by IMPALA, to offer creators a space within the service where they could develop incremental revenues from direct relationships with fans? If so, we could be talking about really exciting and important changes in the streaming market.

We hope that services will also look at ways of rewarding artists who record longer-form music. That’s a conversation we started with our “Pro rata Temporis” model. The issue needs to be addressed without at the same time harming shorter tracks.

In the meantime, we need more extensive discussion and debate. We invite all interested parties to explore IMPALA’s plan and share their perspectives as we collectively navigate the evolving streaming landscape.

Let’s keep the ideas coming!

Helen Smith is the Executive Chair of IMPALA, the European non-profit organization that represents independent music companies, with key issues that include copyright, sustainability, diversity and inclusion, streaming reform, AI, finance and digital services as well as strategic relations with key partners through the Friends of IMPALA program.

Union leaders and Hollywood studios reached a tentative agreement Sunday to end a historic screenwriters strike after nearly five months, though no deal is yet in the works for striking actors.
The Writers Guild of America announced the deal in a joint statement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the group that represents studios, streaming services and production companies in negotiations.

“WGA has reached a tentative agreement with the AMPTP,” the guild said in an email to members. “This was made possible by the enduring solidarity of WGA members and extraordinary support of our union siblings who joined us on the picket lines for over 146 days.”

The three-year contract agreement — settled on after five marathon days of renewed talks by WGA and AMPTP negotiators that was joined at times by studio executives — must be approved by the guild’s board and members before the strike officially ends.

In a longer message from the guild shared by members on social media, the writers were told the strike is not over and no one was to return to work until hearing otherwise, but picketing is to be suspended immediately.

The terms of the deal were not immediately announced. The tentative deal to end the last writers strike, in 2008, was approved by more than 90% of members.

The agreement comes just five days before the strike would’ve become the longest in the guild’s history, and the longest Hollywood strike more than 70 years.

As a result of the agreement, nightly network shows including NBC’s “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” and ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” could return to the air within days.

But as writers prepare to potentially crack open their laptops again, it’s far from back to business as usual in Hollywood, as talks have not yet resumed between studios and the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. Crew members left with no work by the stoppage will remain unemployed for now.

“SAG-AFTRA congratulates the WGA on reaching a tentative agreement with the AMPTP after 146 days of incredible strength, resiliency and solidarity on the picket lines,” the actors union said in a statement. “While we look forward to reviewing the WGA and AMPTP’s tentative agreement, we remain committed to achieving the necessary terms for our members.”

The statement said the guild continues “to urge the studio and streamer CEOs and the AMPTP to return to the table and make the fair deal that our members deserve and demand.”

The proposed solution to the writers strike came after talks resumed on Wednesday for the first time in a month. Chief executives including Bob Iger of Disney, Ted Sarandos of Netflix, David Zaslav of Warner Bros. Discovery and Donna Langley of NBCUniversal reportedly took part in the negotiations directly.

It was reached without the intervention of federal mediators or other government officials, which had been necessary in previous strikes.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass issued a statement congratulating the two sides on the deal and said she is hopeful the same can happen soon with actors.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom did the same, saying writers “went on strike over existential threats to their careers and livelihoods — expressing real concerns over the stress and anxiety workers are feeling. I am grateful that the two sides have come together.”

About 11,500 members of the Writers Guild of America walked off the job May 2 over issues of pay, the size of writing staffs on shows and the use of artificial intelligence in the creation of scripts. Actors, who joined the writers on strike in July, have their own issues but there have been no discussions about resuming negotiations with their union yet.

The writers strike immediately sent late-night talk shows and “Saturday Night Live” into hiatus, and has since sent dozens of scripted shows and other productions into limbo, including forthcoming seasons of Netflix’s “Stranger Things,” HBO’s “The Last of Us,” and ABC’s “Abbot Elementary,” and films including “Deadpool 3” and “Superman: Legacy.” The Emmy Awards were also pushed from September to January.

More recently, writers had been targeting talk shows that were working around strike rules to return to air, including “ The Drew Barrymore Show,” “ Real Time With Bill Maher ” and “The Talk.” All reversed course in the face of picketing and pressure, and are likely to quickly return now.

The combined strikes made for a pivotal moment in Hollywood as creative labor faced off against executives in a business transformed and torn by technology, from the seismic shift to streaming in recent years to the potentially paradigm-shifting emergence of AI in the years to come.

Screenwriters had traditionally gone on strike more than any other segment of the industry, but had enjoyed a relatively long stretch of labor peace until spring negotiations for a new contract fell apart. The walkout was their first since 2007 and their longest since 1988.

On July 14, more than two months into the strike, the writers got a dose of solidarity and star power — along with a whole lot of new picketing partners — when they were joined by 65,000 striking film and television actors.

It was the first time the two groups had been on strike together since 1960. In that walkout, the writers strike started first and ended second. This time, studios opted to deal with the writers first.

The AMPTP first reached out to suggest renewing negotiations in August. The meetings were short, infrequent, and not productive, and talks went silent for another month.

Shares of YG Entertainment plummeted 16.3% this week amidst speculation the agency has not renewed the contracts of the members of girl group BLACKPINK. Following a spate of reports out of South Korea, the company’s share price dropped 13.3% on Thursday (Sept. 21) and another 4.1% on Friday (Sept. 22). 

On Thursday, Korean news outlet Daily Sports Seoul reported that three members of BLACKPINK — Jennie, Jisoo and Lisa — will leave YG Entertainment and spend just six months out of the year as part of the group. In response to that report and the flurry of media attention that followed, YG Entertainment issued a brief statement: “Currently, BLACKPINK’s contract renewal has not been confirmed and is being discussed.”

BLACKPINK became the first K-pop girl group to play Coachella in 2019 and headlined the festival in 2023. The quartet was also the first K-pop girl group — and the third K-pop group overall — to top the Billboard 200, with its 2022 album, Born Pink. 

A week ago, YG Entertainment’s share price was up 80.8% year to date and was outpacing its K-pop competitors. Following the BLACKPINK news, shares of YG Entertainment fell to 130,300 KRW ($97.56), dropping its year-to-date gain to 51.4%. That put YG Entertainment below SM Entertainment’s 69.9% year-to-date gain and JYP Entertainment’s 55.6% improvement.

Overall, the 21-stock Billboard Global Music Index fell 1.9% to 1,330.12 this week, lowering its year-to-date gain to 13.9%. Eleven stocks ended the week in negative territory and two were unchanged. Of the eight stocks that finished in positive territory, only Cumulus Media, which gained 7.9% to $4.80, appreciated more than 3%.

Music stocks outperformed some major indexes, though. In the United States, the S&P 500 dropped 2.4% to 4,345.64 and the Nasdaq composite fell 3.6% to 13,211.81. Overseas, the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 fell 0.4% to 7,683.91 while South Korea’s KOSPI composite index declined 3.6% to 2,508.13.

Led by Cumulus Media’s 7.9% gain, the three radio companies in the index had an average gain of 3.8% — the only segment in positive territory — with SiriusXM gaining 2% to $4.07 and iHeartMedia rising 1.5% to $3.45. Meanwhile, the eight stocks covering record labels and music publishers lost an average of 1.1%, and four live music stocks fell by an average of 1.7%. The six streaming companies in the Billboard Global Music Index lost an average of 6.9%. 

Two streaming companies, LiveOne and Anghami, had the sharpest declines of the week. Abu Dhabi-based Anghami dropped 19% to $0.68, bringing its year-to-date loss to 57.4%. U.S. music streamer LiveOne fell 23.4% to $1.05 and has lost 36% of its value since spinning off its PodcastOne division on Sept. 11 and attracting media attention over allegations its Kast Media division did not pay some advertising revenues to podcasters. The spinoff hasn’t helped the company’s combined value: Trading under the name Courtside Group, the podcast company’s share price fell to $2.05 this week, 52% below its opening trading price on Sept. 8. The other streaming stocks almost broke even this week: Spotify, Tencent Music Entertainment, Cloud Music and Deezer had an average share price decline of just 0.2%.  

Hipgnosis Songs Fund rose 2.8% to 0.832 pounds ($1.02) a week after dropping 12.8% on news the publicly traded investment trust plans to sell some catalogs for $465 million. The sale proceeds would fund share buybacks and repurchase debt, which Hipgnosis believes will support the beleaguered share price and reset the company’s net asset value. 

Shares of Warner Music Group (WMG) dropped 4.7% to $30.76 this week following the announcement on Monday (Sept. 18) that BMG is taking control of its digital distribution and will no longer use WMG’s ADA Distribution (though it will continue to outsource its physical distribution). The news didn’t impact WMG’s share price until Wednesday (Sept. 20), when a report by analysts at Guggenheim stated that BMG’s decision would cause “a staggered reduction in WMG gross revenue” beginning Dec. 31 of roughly $250 million annually. Losing BMG’s digital business won’t be a major hit to WMG’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), however: Guggenheim believes WMG’s revenue from BMG had an EBITDA margin in the low single digits and would have “minimal free cash flow impact.” Guggenheim has a $37 price target on WMG, which implies 20% of upside from Friday’s closing price. 

In its first legal response to a SoundExchange lawsuit alleging underpayment of $150 million in artist royalties, SiriusXM claimed in a court filing Friday (Sept. 22) that SoundExchange’s numbers rely on a “so-called audit” that was a “flawed and biased examination” and insists the satellite-radio giant “properly calculated its royalty payments to SoundExchange in all material respects.”

The filing, which demands a change of U.S. court venue from Virginia to New York or Washington, D.C., also bashes the royalty collection and distribution service for trying to “justify its existence, lofty executive salaries and luxurious operating style through repeated litigation against its biggest contributor.”

In a phone interview before the filing, George White, SiriusXM’s senior vp of music licensing and royalties, says the SoundExchange lawsuit, filed in August, caught his company by surprise. “We were discussing settlement with them,” adds White, a former longtime major-label executive. “We really took some time to review it.”

White says the lawsuit comes down to a difference of opinion over SoundExchange’s “method of calculating their deduction.” He argues that SiriusXM has paid SoundExchange $5 billion in performance royalties for sound recordings over the last 10 years, and contributed “the vast majority” of the $805 million the service collected last year. “The rhetoric in the suit itself and the press release around the suit seems really unfair and wholly inappropriate,” White says. “In fact, we want to make every effort to ensure everyone is compensated fairly.”

SoundExchange, which collects royalties from webcasters and non-terrestrial radio services on behalf of artists and labels, argued in its Aug. 16 lawsuit that Sirius XM was bundling its satellite radio and streaming service, mixing the revenue in order to improperly reduce its royalty bill. The U.S. government mandates different royalty rates for satellite-transmitted services (like SiriusXM’s traditional satellite radio) and webcasting under so-called statutory licenses, but SoundExchange’s lawsuit declared that “Sirius XM has unjustly enriched itself to the detriment of recording artists and copyright owners upon whose music Sirius XM has built its business.” 

In its response, SiriusXM accused SoundExchange of “misguided allegations” and argued a “proper audit” would conclude the company “properly calculated its royalty payments to SoundExchange.” The company also criticized SoundExchange for taking advantage of what it called the Virginia court’s “rocket docket,” which, regional lawyers have said, results in fast-moving cases, little time for discovery and quick resolution.

“We’re very hopeful that we can proceed down the lines of having a productive settlement discussion,” White says. “I would far rather that we had a close relationship with SoundExchange that was about working to grow SiriusXM’s contributions to SoundExchange.”

SoundExchange didn’t immediately respond to Billboard‘s request for comment.

If you’re looking for growth in the U.S. recorded music industry, there are two clear bright spots in the maturing streaming market. But they each come with caveats and considerations.

From the looks of the RIAA’s midyear report, released Monday (Sept. 18), music subscription services and synchronization royalties — two of the biggest drivers of U.S. recorded music’s gains in the first half of 2023, according to the RIAA — should continue going strong through the end of the year.

For subscriptions, revenue increased 12.4% to $4.97 billion over the first six months of the year and accounted for 84% of the industry’s $710-million year-over-year improvement. The number of subscribers grew at a slower rate, though — 6.4% to 95.8 million — which suggests a saturated market where new subscribers are becoming harder to find. (The RIAA provides the average number of subscribers during the six-month period, not the number on the final day of the period.) The fact that revenue outgrew subscribers shows that streaming companies are now finding growth through price increases instead. In 2022 and early 2023, Apple Music and Amazon Music raised prices on individual and family plans. Over that same time, the average revenue per subscriber per month increased from $8.19 in the first half of 2022 to $8.65 in the second half of 2023, according to the RIAA’s numbers.

Streaming revenue’s resilience amid price increases “actually underscores the point that music continues to be the most under-monetized form of entertainment,” says Golnar Khosrowshahi, CEO of Reservoir Media, “and can certainly withstand a price increase structure that has some rhythm to it.” Right on cue, Deezer added to a steady drumbeat of pricing updates when it announced on Thursday (Sept. 21) a second price increase in France, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands on top of hikes in 2022.

Spotify’s price increase — individual plans up $1 to $10.99 per month and family plans up $2 to $16.99 per month — was announced in July and should give a boost to streaming revenues in the second half of the year. Spotify previously stated that its limited price increases had not created a material amount of customer churn, and Deezer’s decision to again raise prices bolsters Khosrowshahi’s belief that consumers are able to withstand slightly higher prices without canceling their subscriptions.

Revenues from synchronizations — when music is licensed for audio-visual works such as advertisements, movies, TV shows and video games — grew 25.1% to $222.7 million and accounted for 6% of the $710 million of total revenue growth. Synchronizations have been on a roll since the pandemic helped create a boom in licensing opportunities. The latest mid-year improvement follows a 29.9% gain in the first half of 2022 and a 24.8% improvement in calendar year 2022.

The Writers Guild of America strike that began on May 2 hasn’t hurt synchronization revenues — yet. “I’m encouraged right now,” says Tyler Bacon, president/CEO of Position Music. “My team is busy.” So is Jedd Kantrancha, chief commercial officer of Downtown Music Publishing. Kantrancha says August was Downtown’s best month for the number of synchronizations of 2023 and its third-best month ever.

“One of the biggest things that I’m seeing is just more and more partners and people in the space who have a music budget, who want to learn and want to be educated about how to use music,” says Kantrancha. “I’m doing more uses now with people who haven’t licensed music before than I have in years. And I think that that’s definitely something that relates to the lift [in synchronization revenue] that you’re seeing. There are more people out there exploring how to license music.”

This sort of boom, however, will eventually be hampered by the strikes — it’s just a matter of when.

Many believe the lag from the start of the strike — which reduces the number of post-production opportunities to match music to film and TV shows — to a synchronization slowdown won’t be felt until early 2024. Film and TV studios have “a lot of stuff in the pipeline” that will provide synchronization opportunities through the end of the year despite the strike, says Kantrancha.

That won’t decimate the sector, though. Even after a slowdown from the strike is eventually felt, companies can shift their resources to other opportunities. “We’re highly focused on advertising, and the strike doesn’t affect that,” says Bacon. “Video games, we’re very deep in, and the strike doesn’t affect that.”

With her latest string of albums, including her intensely vulnerable and current CMA album of the year-nominated Rolling Up the Welcome Mat EP, singer-songwriter and five-time Billboard Country Airplay chart-topper Kelsea Ballerini has steadily been leveling up, both creatively and professionally.

This week, Ballerini not only made her debut performance on the VMAs, but also appeared on the cover of TIME, and stepped up in the touring space, selling out her very first headlining arena show, set for Nov. 2 in her hometown of Knoxville, Tenn. at the Thompson-Boling Arena. The show will crown a year that has seen Ballerini headline a slate of theaters on her HEARTFIRST Tour, perform songs from Rolling Up the Welcome Mat on Saturday Night Live, offer a powerful, statement-making performance on the CMT Music Awards, release a short film around her EP, and play the inaugural People’s Choice Country Awards, which she is set to perform later this month.

And Ballerini’s latest standout touring moment earns Sandbox Entertainment Group’s head of global touring Leslie Cohea the title of Billboard‘s Executive of the Week.

Here, Cohea discusses Ballerini’s upcoming hometown arena show, how touring has shifted since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and country music’s ascendance in international touring.

This week, Kelsea Ballerini sold out the first headlining arena tour date of her career in Knoxville. What key decisions did you make to help make that happen?

Last year, I put a plan together for Kelsea’s then-upcoming 2023 headlining tour. She had not done a headline tour since before the pandemic and I knew that it had to be thoughtful and impactful for her fans. We decided to play all the right rooms, not skipping any steps, only announcing around 15 shows for the HEARTFIRST tour. Once those sold out, she announced the next 15 shows. With her EP coming out and having the huge success it did, the next shows sold out immediately. Her momentum kept building and building and any show we put on sale sold out. That’s when Kelsea and I talked about having one last massive play to cap off such a successful year. She is absolutely going to play arenas in the future, but I wanted to have one big moment to really show the growth of Kelsea as a touring artist.

The obvious choice was Knoxville since it is her hometown, and she has always wanted to play Thompson-Boling Arena. I had the idea for the show to be over the University of Tennessee homecoming weekend and call it Kelsea’s “homecoming” as well. It’s only right that her first sellout show is in Knoxville. When we announced the show last week, I knew we had a short window to sell tickets being that the show is on Nov. 2. I really wanted this show to stand out as a special event and get people excited. I think everything we did to market the announce really helped drive that. AEG are incredible partners to us, and they helped us build this Knoxville campaign from scratch and continue to bring opportunities that are going to make this show massive for Kelsea and her fans. Amy Buck is a brilliant marketer. It was really special to see it sell out minutes after going on sale. This is by far Kelsea’s biggest show to date, doubling — almost tripling — the capacities she has played this year.

How will this show be different in terms of production, lighting, etc., since this will be scaling up in venue size?

Kelsea has empowered her entire team to up the ante on production for this show. We had a great HEARTFIRST tour production, but it was simply not scaled for arenas. Building out the production for this Homecoming show is where Kelsea, her touring team and I get to have a little fun. We are adding more lights, sound and video while creating a few special surprises along the way. Every fan will leave this show fully understanding why Kelsea Ballerini is a superstar.

Looking ahead to 2024, how do you foresee her touring growing and evolving?

Kelsea continues to grow and evolve in all areas, including writing, recording and touring. The connection she has built with her fans is truly mesmerizing and it’s something that has become so powerful at her live shows. They feel connected to her more than they ever have, especially after the release of Rolling Up The Welcome Mat. And based on what we just witnessed with the sell out at Thompson-Boling Arena, there is absolutely an arena tour in Kelsea’s future.

Daniel Prakopcyk*

Earlier this year, Kelsea also made headlines after she was hit by a bracelet while on stage, part of a strange trend of fans throwing things at artists on stage. Is there anything that the team has changed to help keep things safe on tour?

Every artist and their team want to create the safest environment possible. Since the bracelet incident, tour security works directly with the venue to make sure we have all eyes watching the people closest to the stage. I also think the fans attending are holding other fans accountable. An artist is vulnerable enough on stage, disrupting a show by launching something at the artist ruins the moment for every person on, in front of, and behind the stage.

How has touring changed overall since the pandemic?

The thing I have noticed lately is the volume of shows in every size room in every market. Right now, there are so many tours going back out and making up for the lost time and revenue. This is how we at Sandbox really came up with the “less is more” idea to only announce 15 shows for Kelsea. We want fans to feel the urgency to buy the tickets as soon as they go on sale. We are seeing people waiting to buy closer to the show. They don’t want to make the commitment too soon.

Kelsea just made her debut VMAs performance and was on the cover of TIME. How has the Sandbox team overall worked toward her increased recognition in the mainstream, while still staying very connected within the country music genre?

Two words: Jason Owen. Jason is our fearless leader at Sandbox, but he empowers all of us to lead, to innovate and to push boundaries. Our digital team at Sandbox always has their fingers on the pulse of what’s connecting in the marketplace. Their knowledge and insight into how we communicate with fans is unmatched. And CAA has played a very integral role in helping us elevate Kelsea’s stature across touring and film and television. Rick Roskin and his team are incredibly powerful partners.

Country music is having a moment not only in terms of success on the all-genre Hot 100 chart, but in terms of international touring. To what factors do you attribute this moment?

There are a lot of factors that contribute to this, from streaming to labels pushing more for international exposure and touring becoming a more common experience for country artists all over Europe and the U.K. It was hard to convince an arena-level artist years ago to go play clubs across the U.K. in order to help grow their international fan base. It had to feel like going backwards almost. In the last 10 years, the next generation of country artists really started investing in growing their touring careers abroad. They could do it alongside their touring career in the states as well. C2C and other newer country festivals have also really helped shine a light on country music and have allowed the ability to get exposure in places like London and Dublin.

Last Week’s Top Executive: Sony Latin Iberia COO María Fernández

In July, the National Independent Venue Association elected two new members to its board of directors including longtime independent promoter and venue operator Shahida Mausi of The Right Productions and The Aretha Franklin Ampitheatre in Detroit. Mausi, who has run her promotion company The Right Productions for more than 25 years, says the new position is giving her the opportunity “to bring my unique perspective from backgrounds in cultural affairs, government, non-profit and entrepreneurship” to the organization that is looking to take on unfair ticketing practices on a national level, in addition to continuing to advocate for independent venues from local to federal government.

Mausi’s expertise goes beyond the promotion company she founded in 1996. Prior to her independent business, Mausi worked in the non-profit sector and was the head of the Arts Council for the City of Detroit for 10 years. Her family’s roots in Detroit go back more than a century and Mausi’s commitment to bringing art to her hometown through the family-owned Right Productions (her four sons work throughout the company) and her stewardship of The Aretha since its opening.

“What you can do in Detroit with a vision or as an entrepreneur, you can’t necessarily do as easily in other markets. I’m not saying it’s easy,” says Mausi, adding “it’s because of the factory background and the strength of unions in Detroit and the role unions play in politics. You could be working on the factory floor impacting the union, which impacts who gets elected and therefore it gives you access to people that make things happen.”

Since the onset of the pandemic in 2020, Mausi and her sons have wielded their expertise and community building into helping found the Black Promoters Collective (which promoted Mary J. Blige’s 23-city Good Morning Gorgeous arena tour in 2022) and joined forces with NIVA, where BPC won the 2023 NIVA Idea award at the association’s annual conference. Mausi sat down with Billboard to discuss surviving economic downturns as an independent promoter and what comes next.

How do you get an independent production company off the ground?

With the cheekiness of youth, I called the general manager of the Nederlander Theater here in Detroit. Detroit is home to the Nederlanders. This is where the family came from. I called the general manager and said, ‘I don’t think you’re doing enough programming to serve the African American population of the city.’ They said, ‘well, I disagree,’ and there started a conversation and a friendship that has lasted 30 years.

[Nederlander’s Alan Lichtenstein] gave me the opportunity to help launch Broadway shows on their Detroit leg of national tours and whatnot. Early in the business, it served me well that I had spoken up and put my shoulder to the wheel when he did do more to serve this community.

When did you get involved with the Aretha Franklin Amphitheater?

When the building was first built, I was the director of the Detroit Council of the Arts. It was built by the city and I was running the department and, in that role, I did the first three years of programming. Between the time that I left, after those first three years, different entities have managed it for brief periods of time. Then there was an RFP [request for proposal] put out in 2004 and we won the bid. We’ve been managing it ever since.

Was that a difficult time to take over operations of the venue in Detroit?

Yeah. It was 2008 when the housing crisis shut down the economy with subprime mortgages, and Lehman Brothers and all those folks were crashing. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac failed that year, so we already had shows contracted and up on sale when the disposable income of people completely dried up and stopped. Nobody was buying anything. Nobody knew what was going to happen next. We had to honor those contracts regardless. General Motors – a mile from us – went bankrupt. [The Right Productions] could not afford to go bankrupt. If we had gone bankrupt, it would have been game over.

We had to negotiate our way through that crisis. We were able to weather that storm because we had a good reputation. If I tell you I’m going to pay you on such and such date or that I don’t know when I am going to be able to pay you but I’m gonna pay you, people took me at my word and I honored my word. I didn’t know if we were going to survive, but we pulled on our strength which was our reputation of honoring our word and our commitment to people.

You operated the amphitheater during another crisis, the pandemic. How did you get through that?

If we could only serve 100 people a night, then that’s what we were going to do. We were all shut ins for a year or more, and if you could give people just that, it was worth doing. It was crazy, but I am glad we were able to serve people. That’s what this is, ultimately. It’s facilitating a means of connecting people with things that lift them. It’s a stewardship of a stage and we’re honored to be able to do it.

Did being a family business help get you through the tough times?

I have four sons. All four of them function in different capacities here at The Right Productions and around the country. They all followed paths that were appropriate for their own personalities. They all went to college and brought back those skills. If it was not for family, we would not have been able to pull it through. Because family works when there’s not a dime on the table. I have grandchildren now and they are pulling and pushing and loading and unloading. In 2021, it was truly a family affair because we couldn’t hire people. I had cousins that flew in from New York, sleeping in my living room to help.

Can you describe how The Right Productions was instrumental in founding the Black Promoters Collective?

The pandemic was a good thing and a horrible thing mostly. When everything stopped, there was time to look and think of what could be planned and what could be better. My son, Sulaiman [Mausi] and the vice president of The Right Productions, reached out to other promoters that have a good reputation across the country and we began meeting on a weekly basis to talk about what we could do differently, what could do better in this industry, as opposed to being in our silos. So, we formed the Black Promoters Collective in 2020. That has been a game changer.

Last year, BPC scored a $60 million quarter on Billboard Boxscore before the Mary J. Blige tour. What has the reception been since those numbers came in?

It demonstrates that we have the chops. We have the skills to manage business on that level and that we can execute what is needed to deliver a major tour and to care of a major artist in the way they should be cared for. Let’s just say the business climate has been impacted by our success.

Are there plans to go beyond the U.S. and Canada?

We’ve had conversations. There are some things under discussion. That’s my goal. I’m always looking for growth. I’m always looking for the next opportunity and international touring is something that I want.

Maryland rapper Joony and his 211 label have entered into a partnership with Red Bull Records and Blxst‘s Evgle imprint, Billboard can exclusively announce today (Sept. 22).

The 22-year-old artist (real name Jonathan Negero) initially started 211 as a collective in 2014 with his best friend Max Free, but he transformed it into a label in 2022 with his managers Jason Zeigler and Darren Xu. The other core members are fellow artist Swegah and photographer Gio Vaun. Joony has released two projects under 211, his 2022 album Pretty in Black and his 2023 album SHITUMISS.

“My team and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out who was the right fit for us, not only for me as an artist, but as a company as well. We ended up loving the synergy between us and the Evgle/Red Bull Records teams, and I’ve always been a fan of Blxst, so it’s huge getting to work with him,” Joony says in an exclusive statement to Billboard. “We arranged a one-of-a-kind deal that empowers the artist with terms that have substantial gain for everyone involved, and we’re excited to launch the partnership today.”

Joony made his Billboard Hot 100 debut last July due to his appearance on Brent Faiyaz‘s “FYTB” off his critically acclaimed sophomore album, Wasteland. The two previously collaborated on “Paper Soldier” from Faiyaz’s surprise three-pack Do Not Listen from 2021.

Prior to the Evgle partnership announcement, Jordan Ward and Joony’s “IDC” track was included on the NBA 2K23 season 7 soundtrack, which Blxst curated.

“At Evgle, we think Joony is a generational artist and songwriter, and he and 211 are building something we truly admire in terms of creativity and business,” says Karl Fowlkes, COO/co-founder of Evgle. “With additional resources of Evgle and Red Bull Records at their disposal, the sky is the limit. We look forward to helping Joony and 211 reach their heights.”

Joony also announced his upcoming EP MEMENTO today, which will be released this fall as his first project under Evgle/Red Bull Records. The 10-track project includes collaborations with Tony Shhnow, TTM Dawg, Lancey Foux and Lil Candy Paint. Ahead of MEMENTO, he dropped the first single, “Need It,” with an accompanying music video directed by Zaiem.

“This partnership will bring a better look into who I am as an artist and what I want to portray with my art. There are more resources for me to get as creative as possible and give my supporters more to grab onto — bigger and better art, visuals, and most importantly, music,” Joony says. “I’m excited for fans to finally get this new music and see all of the creative endeavors I’ve been working on over the past year and a half. My new EP MEMENTO is definitely one for the books, and I’m happy as hell that y’all get to hear the project soon and take it in with the visuals we worked so hard on, starting with ‘Need It.’”

Adds Kenny “Tick” Salcido, senior vp & head of A&R at Red Bull Records: “Evgle continues to identify culture-moving artists with the newest addition to our partnership in the signing of Joony. Joony has unlimited potential as he brings a different sound with his melodic delivery and unique sonic choices. He represents a career artist at its core and we’re thrilled to welcome him.”

Joony will also accompany Lil Tjay on nine dates of his Beat the Odds Tour’s European leg, which kicks off Nov. 2 at London’s OVO Arena Wembley and wraps on Nov. 11 at Vienna’s Gasometer.