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Increasing competition from other international markets is placing the United Kingdom’s long-held success as one of the world’s biggest exporters of music under threat, warns a new report from umbrella trade organization UK Music.
In 2022, music exports contributed 4 billion pounds ($4.9 billion) to Britain’s economy, according to the organization’s annual This Is Music study, which measures the economic impact of the U.K. music industry across live, record sales, publishing, merch and public performance revenue.
That figure is a 60% rise on 2021’s export total of 2.5 billion pounds ($3 billion at today’s currency rates) by Billboard’s calculations, although UK Music says that changes in the way that it collates data means that direct comparisons with previous years are not an accurate measure of growth.
Overall, the U.K. music industry contributed 6.7 billion pounds ($8.2 billion) to the country’s economy in 2022, up from 4 billion pounds in 2021, based upon the gross value estimates of money generated through music sales, concerts, recording studios, touring and music tourism — roughly equivalent to pre-tax profits and salaries.
According to figures released earlier this year by U.K. labels trade body BPI, the global success of Harry Styles, Glass Animals and Ed Sheeran helped British music exports climb to a record high of 709 million pounds ($910 million) in 2022 — the highest annual total since BPI began analyzing labels’ overseas income in 2000.
Whereas BPI’s numbers are based purely upon label trade revenue, UK Music’s export figures comprise all income generated overseas by British music companies and creators, including recorded music, publishing, international touring by homegrown artists and foreign visitors attending U.K. gigs and festivals (so-called music tourism).
UK Music reports that over 37 million people attended live concerts and festivals in the country in 2022, while the total number of people working in the British music industry last year rose to 210,000, up from 145,000 in 2021 when the coronavirus pandemic was still affecting the sector. In 2019, there were 197,000 people employed across the U.K. music business, states the This Is Music report.
Meanwhile, nontraditional revenue generated by audio-visual projects, such as concert films and biopics, as well as income from music-related TV productions and deals with hardware manufacturers, were up 96% year on year, reports UK Music, which declined to provide financial figures, but said it was an example of a small-but-growing income stream as the industry diversifies.
UK Music interim chief executive Tom Kiehl says the sector’s return to growth after the downturn brought on by the pandemic is welcome news, but cautioned that more support is needed from government if the United Kingdom is to maintain its longstanding status as the world’s second-biggest exporter of music, behind the United States.
“The U.K.’s competitors are increasingly well funded and can often count on far more support from their governments,” says Kiehl. He identified South Korea, Australia and Canada as three rival markets where national governments have invested heavily in music and cultural export offices to help grow their overseas markets.
In response, UK Music is calling upon British policymakers to implement a number of measures to boost growth, including tax credits for music businesses and securing a post-Brexit cultural touring agreement with the European Union.
“Otherwise,” warns Kiehl, “we risk the U.K. being left behind in the global music race.”
The United Kingdom is the world’s third-biggest recorded-music market behind the United States and Japan, with sales of just over $1.8 billion in trade value, according to IFPI’s 2022 Global Music Report.
By 2017, nightlife venues in Berlin were closing so quickly that the phenomenon had been dubbed clubsterben — “club death.”
As a result, the city — where nightlife is so woven into the social fabric that the local government has its own club commission — began scrambling to save venues, which were shuttering due to increased gentrification. One of the agencies they called for help was VibeLab, an Amsterdam-based consulting and advocacy agency that works to protect nighttime economies and cultures by using the language most city officials know best: data.
In Berlin, the company’s research resulted in the creation of a club cadastre, or a real-time map indicating the value, extent and ownership of nightlife venues in the city as they relate to taxation.
“The city would know where new development was happening, but they wouldn’t have a clue what the neighboring clubs were before giving out [a] new development permit,” says VibeLab co-founder Mirik Milan. “They didn’t have a tool to see if a cultural or independent space need[ed] protection from this development.”
Milan says the cadastre was a significant step in building the influence of the Club Commission and the nightlife industry with local government, helping expand the Commission’s operating budget from three to seven million euros over the last five years. The cadastre has also provided advocacy organizations with time to start campaigns to protect spaces before development permits are signed off on by the city.
Since launching in 2018, VibeLab has also created such tools for cities including Montreal, New York City, Tokyo and Riyadh, along with a forthcoming analysis of Nashville. On November 27, the company will present its report for Sydney to the government of New South Wales, with officials including John Graham – who oversees the territory’s nighttime economy – having already pledged their support to the report’s outcomes.
Reports, which can be completed in as little as five months and typically cost between $75,000 to $160,000, are commissioned by various agencies in each respective city. While specific goals shift from place to place, all reports are ultimately meant to give local officials a better idea of the scope and value of that city’s nightlife culture. (To wit, the VibeLab website proclaims the organization to be “defenders of the dark.”)
Mirik Milan
Once commissioned, members of the 10-person VibeLab team fly to town. Their first step is connecting with locals who can offer intel on what goes on when the sun goes down.
“These are maybe not the highest-ranking operators,” says Milan, “but people that really know what the scene is about: music journalists, small independent promoters, passionate people that go out often.”
The VibeLab team interviews these people while also aggregating data on neighborhood populations, land prices, census statistics, public transportation and more. A report on the size, value and general health of the scene – called a “creative footprint” – is then prepared.
These footprints foster initiatives like the Berlin cadastre, which helped local officials see that “a dot on the map is a business that supports 200 jobs and makes that neighborhood flourishing and Interesting and is probably why the developer wanted to do something there,” says Milan. “It’s very much about creating awareness and education.”
Protecting nightlife ecosystems is a cause Milan has professionally championed since his tenure as the night mayor of Amsterdam, effectively launching the position in both the city and others around the world. Serving from 2014 to 2018, Milan helped create 24-hour venue permits and worked on a crime reduction initiative around the city’s Rembrandtplein plaza. He also assisted officials in New York City, London, Paris and beyond to create similar roles and nighttime governance structures, which are meant to create a dialogue between municipalities, clubs, festivals, event promoters and residents. (Currently, 15 U.S. cities have night mayors.)
The VibeLab team is steeped in this work. Co-founder Lutz Leichsenring has been the spokesperson and executive board member of the Berlin Club Commission since 2009, and Asia Pacific director Jane Slingo is the co-founder of Sydney’s Global Cities After Dark summit, the director of the city’s Electronic Music Conference and a longtime artist manager. Crucially, the entire team is passionate about going out dancing.
“When you’re in an advocacy role [like night mayor],” Milan says of the difference between his former and current positions, “you often jump on every fire: a club that’s under pressure, a festival that has sound issues, or an act of violence. With VibeLab, we wanted to be ahead of the curve, strategizing about how we could ensure cities make the right decision before it goes wrong.”
Jane Slingo
The cultural and economic stakes are real. VibeLab data shows that in bigger cities, one in seven or eight people work in the nightlife industry. When venues close, these workers are out of jobs, artists have fewer options on where to play and nightlife culture, particularly independent and underground music culture, is stifled.
“The business model of cities works against preserving nightlife culture, because the model is to develop the land,” says Milan. “But what they’re forgetting is if they root out the reason why the land got valuable, you push creative communities further to the outskirts or just wipe it out completely. And that is very difficult to build back.”
VibeLab’s creative footprints have found that a few tactics on how to best protect these communities bear out globally.
“We see in our reports that the venue ladder is essential,” says Milan. “It’s very important to have a talent development pipeline. You need spaces [that hold] 150 people where artists can do their first gigs.”
Such a ladder would provide artists with places to play at every phase of their development, from a tiny club to a mid-size room to an arena. While creative footprints don’t differentiate between independent and corporate-owned venues, the smaller and often independent spaces are most likely to close amid real estate developments and economic downturns.
VibeLab reports have also discovered the efficacy of cultural grants that include micro funds, which earmark relatively modest chunks of money – between $5,000 to $20,000 – for artists to get albums mixed, pay for short tours and more. “Really often, cultural funding only ends up at institutions and with already established artists or musicians,” says Milan, but funding “smaller entities that don’t already have a track record is very important for building up a lively scene.”
Lutz Leichsenring
With venues around the world feeling the ongoing squeeze of rising rent and gentrification (the National Independent Venue Association reported that more than 25 U.S. clubs permanently closed in 2022), creative footprints also advocate for venues to become multidisciplinary spaces that can host a variety of functions and which are open daily, rather than the Thursday to Saturday schedules many of these spaces currently operate on.
The diversification of such spaces, VibeLab posits, will likely also create a better connection between venues and the locals who live near them. This relationship is likely to help these locals, who might otherwise register sound complaints and the like, better understand the value of a space and even start going there themselves.
Footprints also advise that more public funding be given to these spaces, so they’re not so reliant on alcohol sales. Reports have also found positive correlations between good public transportation, a large population of young people and a high density of music venues.
“A report is always a vehicle for a bigger process,” says Milan. He says a report’s direct effect is how it illustrate gaps, opportunities and policy incentives to officials, while also revealing blind spots or preconceptions city governments might have about nightlife.
Ultimately, VibeLab’s work is meant to protect an industry that, Milan says, is “still very much demonized” due to misconceptions about what happens in nightlife spaces and about how much nightlife culture contributes to any given city’s economy and quality of life.
“We are very passionate about the transformative power that nighttime culture and [artistic] communities have on cities,” says Milan. “We see ourselves as translators, connecting creatives, businesses, governments and institutions to boost creativity in local communities.”
Reservoir Media reported Tuesday (Nov. 7) that revenue grew by 15% year-over-year to $38.4 million for the second quarter of fiscal 2024, ending Sept. 30, 2023. During the quarter, the independent music company acquired new catalogs like Joe Walsh, Latin music icon Rudy Perez and country writer Brent Maher as well as continued expansion in its Arabic music catalog through its partnership with PopArabia — contributing to its inorganic growth.
This quarter’s rise in revenue, up from $33.3 million in Q2 of fiscal 2023, was mostly thanks to growth in its recorded music division, which was up 22% from last year’s second quarter, and publishing, which was up 8%. Reservoir notes that the growth in recorded music is largely driven by Chrysalis Music (acquired in 2019) and Tommy Boy (acquired in 2021) and partially offset by lower synchronization and film/tv licensing revenue, likely hindered by the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.
Chrysalis’ sprawling catalog of masters includes “Dancing With Myself” by Generation X and “Nothing Compares 2 U” by Sinead O’Connor, whose catalog saw a 2,885% spike in listenership after her death earlier this quarter. Tommy Boy is home to some of hip-hop’s most pioneering players, including De La Soul, the trio that Reservoir ushered on to streaming services for the first time during Q4 of fiscal year 2023 to a solid monetary boost.
In the publishing sector of their business, Reservoir’s revenue reached $25.9 million, compared to $24.1 million in last fiscal year’s second quarter. The gain was a product of strong results in performance and mechanical revenue in particular. Performance monies were up 47% YoY and mechanical was up 25% YoY. These wins, however, were offset by changes with the Copyright Royalty Board — which regulates publishing royalty rates in the U.S. — Reservoir says, leading to a decrease in digital by $2.1 million which was recognized in the prior year quarter related to the newly affirmed royalty rates for the 2018-2022 period.
The company also signed a handful of award-winning frontline songwriters in the past quarter, including Steph Jones, Rob Ragosta, Cam Becker, Josh Record, and Wé Ani.
Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), a closely watched metric of profitability, was up 24% this quarter to $15.9 million.
Founder and CEO, Golnar Khosrowshahi, says the company is confident in its position, both in the U.S. and emerging markets “We are encouraged by the growing opportunities internationally and welcome recent additions of El Sawareekh and RE Media expanding our presence in the emerging markets,” she says. “We will continue to pursue acquisitions in the U.S. and across the globe, and we have the right team and strategy to close accretive deals enhancing the portfolio and building long term value for the business and our shareholders.”
Jim Heindlmeyer, CFO, says that, as a result of the company’s “consistent progress against our strategic growth plan demonstrates the resilience of our business model and ongoing tailwinds from the growing music industry,” Reservoir is raising both its revenue and adjusted EBITDA guidance for fiscal 2024. “We are pleased to announce another quarter of strong performance, driven by meaningful top-line growth in both business segments,” he says.
The company’s outlook for fiscal 2024:
Revenue is anticipated to be $133 million-$137 million for the year ending March 31, 2024, with 10% growth at midpoint
Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be between $50 million-$52 million with 10% growth at midpoint
Veteran entertainment executive Alison Ball and Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter Eric Benét have partnered to establish JBR Creative Group. Ball will serve as CEO and Benét as president of the new creative agency, whose first artist signing is singer-songwriter Maxine Ashley.
Ashley’s upcoming project for JBR Creative Group includes her debut single, “Somebody Else.” The signing of the singer-songwriter, whose writing credits include Ariana Grande and Black Coffee, embodies Ball and Benét’s goal of empowering the creative community by fostering an equal playing field for emerging and legacy acts within the music, film/TV, sync and music tech industries.
“Eric and I see JBR as an old-school, new-school blend,” Ball tells Billboard. “Our collaboration with the younger creative generation has been a learning experience, with fresh perspectives on artist promotion. Simultaneously, we share our insights and expertise to help them with monetization, expansion and, above all, achieving success while enjoying their craft. Our environment at JBR is to be successful while having fun, making money and, most importantly, building this company on teamwork.”
Adds Benét, “I had a conversation with my dear friend. We talked about how recording artists are often the last to get paid, if at all. It’s almost criminal how little financial gain some artists make. It was bad when I was 25 years old, and it’s even worse now. But somehow, record labels are still able to be multibillion-dollar industries while artists suffer. We talked about creating a company to combat that; to be an example of something more egalitarian for both labels and artists. And that was the birth of JBR.”
Ball, also president of TuneGO, is a veteran A&R executive. Prior to serving as vp of A&R at Warner Bros. Records, she held posts as senior director of A&R at RCA Records and director of A&R at EMI. During the course of her career, she has worked with Prince, Chaka Khan and Curtis Mayfield, among other artists.
The other artists include four-time Grammy nominee Benét, who launched his solo recording career with Warner Music in 1994. His string of hits includes “Spend My Life With You” featuring Tamia — which garnered his first Grammy nod for best R&B performance by a duo or group — and “Georgy Porgy” featuring Faith Evans.
HarbourView Equity Partners has acquired what it refers to as “select” publishing assets of Kane Brown, the country music star whose catalog of three studio albums has so far generated 8.4 million album consumption units during his career. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Brown’s hit songs include such tunes as “What Ifs,” “Homesick,” […]
Hipgnosis Songs Fund announced on Tuesday the appointment of Rob Naylor as board chair, replacing Andrew Sutch, who was removed as part of changes set in motion at last month’s shareholders meeting.
Naylor had been a top candidate, as Billboard sources indicated, and arrives at HSF following a tenure as board chair at Round Hill Music Royalty Fund, the public fund of Round Hill, which was recently sold to Concord as part of a $469 million sale. He is CEO of Intuitive Investments Group, a fund that invests in high growth life sciences companies, and held previous roles at JP Morgan Asset Management Limited, Panmure Gordon Limited and others.
Joining the board as a non-executive director is Francis Keeling, who held the same title at Round Hill Music Royalty Fund Limited until its recent sale. Keeling is currently executive vp of business development at Orfium, a rights management solutions company. A music industry veteran, he was previously global head of licensing at Spotify and before that, global head of digital business at Universal Music Group.
“On behalf of the Board, we are delighted that Robert and Francis have agreed to join Hipgnosis Songs Fund,” said Sylvia Coleman, senior independent director of HSF. “Robert and Francis’s appointments follow extensive engagement with shareholders, and their experience and knowledge working with investment companies, most notably at Round Hill Music Fund, will be invaluable to Hipgnosis as we look ahead to the next chapter.”
On Oct. 26, investors of the fund overwhelmingly demanded structural changes to the troubled music rights company — but in ways that don’t include selling off part of its 65,000-song catalog. More than 80% of Hipgnosis investors voted in favor of the board drawing up “proposals for the reconstruction, reorganization or winding-up of the company to shareholders for their approval within six months,” the board said in a regulatory filing.
Investors also voted 71.5% against the re-election of Sutch, then-board chair, speeding up his departure, which was already set for 2024. Fund directors Andrew Wilkinson and Paul Burger also resigned as part of strategic review of its leadership.
In emailed comment following the shareholders meeting, founder Merck Mercuriadis framed the vote as “an opportunity to reset and focus on the future.”
The Record Company has signed with Jeff Castelaz of Cast Management, the band tells Billboard.
The signing announcement follows the release of the band’s fan-driven The 4th Album, which dropped in September via Round Hill Records, its new label home after being dropped by Concord Music late last year.
Formed in 2011, the Grammy-nominated, L.A.-based roots rock trio featuring Chris Vos (guitar, lead vocals), Alex Stiff (bass), and Marc Cazorla (drums). The band’s first album, Give It Back To You, which included the hit single “Off the Ground,” earned it two Grammy nominations, a No. 1 single on AAA radio and a slot opening for John Mayer on tour.
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With a new album out, The Record Company is returning to the road in 2023. It will play the Regent Theatre in L.A. later this month (Nov. 18) before heading out on tour in January for a rebooked cross-country run during which they will play White Oak Music Hall in Houston (Jan. 20), the 9:30 Club in Washington DC (Feb. 2) and the Fillmore in San Francisco (Mar. 14).
“The new record is us taking our own advice from ‘Off the Ground,’ which is a very honest reflection of where we had been in our careers and how we we’re going to get ourselves in gear to keep moving,” Vos tells Billboard. “As an artist, when you’re in a moment where a challenge comes at you, the only choice you really have is to do what you feel is the most honest and true to yourself, and that’s what we are trying to do with this album.”
Dropped by its previous label at the end of last year, the band canceled its tour and began working on writing new music, planning to “hold ourselves accountable to these songs,” Vos explains. “When we finished, we felt like we [made] a really honest record and we could stand behind that.”
The new album was recorded inside Stiff’s L.A. house and relied on older, weathered instruments and makeshift studio equipment to capture a more rootsy sound. Prior to recording, the group members told themselves, “Let’s just do that thing that got us excited years ago when we started the band,” Stiff says. “Just putting our heads together and setting up the mics and doing it ourselves.”
Cazorla remembered that when they pulled out his drumset, the “heads on the drums had not been changed in 12 years. There wasn’t a conscious decision not to include anything new — but there’s magic in those old instruments. They sound like they’ve got stories to tell.”
The 4th Record had been well received by fans for its back-to-its-roots sound, consistency and raw, rowdy moments like first single “Dance on Mondays,” a feisty toe-tapper that opens with a needling bassine and garage-rock-to-blues chorus.
“It’s a song about fighting your way out of a dead-end,” says Stiff, who came up with the song’s hook as a quick quip after being invited out on a school night. Over time, the idea became about saying, “I’m not doing a f—ing dance to anybody anymore,” he adds. “That’s how I’m gonna rebound out of this feeling I’m having. It’s how I am going to overcome it and beat it in the end.”
The next single for The Record Company is “Roll With It,” a more traditional roots rock track with plenty of handclaps, vocal harmonies and call and response choruses — challenging the band to follow up its past success with new victories while maintaining its timeless sound.
“That’s like very much a lot of what’s happened to us in our career,” says Stiff. “We get this like unexpected hit song and we became surrounded by people asking how we are going to duplicate our success; essentially duplicate something that just kind of happened. We don’t know, but we do like how this song, one of the last ones we wrote for this album, came together pretty quickly and very much sounds like our kind of thing, and we’re pretty psyched with it.”
A rebound in performing rights and heightened demand for physical product helped the value of global music copyright reach $41.5 billion in 2022, surpassing the $40 billion mark for the first time, according to a report released Monday (Nov. 6).
While record labels commanded a majority of the global market, the $5 billion annual increase was “evenly shared” between recorded music and music publishing, noted the report’s author, Will Page. The 2022 tally represented a 16% increase at constant currency — and currency fluctuations played a major role. Page restated the value of global music copyright in 2021 to $36.9 billion from $39.6 billion due to updated foreign exchange rates. Almost $2 billion of the nearly $3 billion restatement came from IFPI’s global recorded music revenues, while about $1 billion of the adjustment came from music publishing.
Record labels accounted for $26 billion of the $41.5 billion sum, a 62.7% share that was lower than both 2021 (64.6%) and 2020 (63.5%). Since 2020, a slowdown in labels’ digital revenue has been offset by more than $1 billion in growth from physical formats from “accelerating demand for CDs in Asia” and an “insatiable need” for vinyl records in Europe and the United States: “And this isn’t going to slow down,” predicts Page.
Music publishers increased their share of the global total to 37.3%. Part of the reason publishers outperformed labels could be from what Page calls a “lag effect,” where labels tend to license to new streaming platforms before publishers. Another potential reason for publishers’ improvement is early accruals from the royalty increase in the United States from the Copyright Royalty Board, “a decision that will fully crystalize when the 2023 figures are calculated,” writes Page.
Publishers’ direct revenue rose from $3.7 billion to $4.1 billion but accounted for a smaller 9.9% share of total revenue, down from 10.2% in 2021. Songwriter CMOs rebounded with a 27.5% share of total revenue worth $11.4 billion, after taking a 25.3% share worth $9.2 billion in 2021 and a 27.2% share worth $8.5 billion in 2020. Page attributes CMOs’ improvement to music’s return to the live space after the pandemic, which drives gains in public performance royalties. Also, “inflation is embedded into blanket licenses,” wrote Page, meaning higher prices increase collections when the royalties are calculated as a percentage of revenue. Finally, as CISAC’s Gadi Oron has noted, CMOs have improved collections through a combination of content identification and improved licensing terms.
There’s a chance Page’s $41.5 billion figure is low. The estimate incorporates global recording revenue tallied by the trade group IFPI. But as Page notes in his report, MIDiA Research “has arguably done more research” on segments undercounted by IFPI’s various members, including the do-it-yourself artists who account for 10% of global streams, indie labels and the South Korean market. MIDiA Research put the value of global recorded music in 2022 at $18.9 billion, about 8% greater than the IFPI’s figure of $17.5 billion.
If MIDiA’s methodology is correct, says Page, the value of global copyright is closer to $45 billion than $40 billion and could be $50 billion sooner than people expect. When the music business hits that threshold, it will have doubled since Page’s 2014 report put the global value of music copyright at $25 billion.
While radio may no longer be the only game in town when it comes to promoting and playing music, its importance is still outsized, according to Nielsen’s newly released Audio Today 2023 report focused on Hispanic consumers.
According to the report, which took into consideration listening by adults (18 plus) in more than 250 U.S. markets, radio reaches 94% of Latins every month, more than any other linear or digital media platform. That includes live and time-shifted TV (85%), smartphones (89%) and PCs (67%).
In terms of audio services only, the difference is stark. While radio reaches 94% of Hispanic adults 18 plus, its closest competitor, YouTube Music, reaches 44%, followed by Spotify (31%), Pandora (23%), Amazon Music (15%), Apple Music (14%) and satellite radio (11%).
And while listening numbers for radio’s competitors vary between age segments, radio consistently reaches 90% or more of listeners across demographics. Among the 18-34 demo, for example, it reaches 91% of listeners, followed by YouTube Music at 44% and Spotify at 41%.
That dominance also holds true among non-Hispanic listeners, though it’s a little less pronounced. Radio reaches 90% of all non-Hispanic listeners 18 plus (compared to 94% for Hispanics) and 82% of non-Hispanics 18-34 (compared to 92% for Hispanics).
Radio additionally leads in terms of listening time. The “share of ear time” for radio among adults 18 plus is 30%, followed by streaming audio at 21%.
Radio’s massive consumption comes down to accessibility and culture, says Stacie de Armas, Nielsen’s senior vp of diverse intelligence & initiatives.
“Radios’ reach is exceptional and always has been,” notes de Armas, who says the numbers weren’t surprising for her. “In fact in the past 10 years, it’s only dropped three percentage points. And that means that radio is a deeply embedded part of Hispanic life. It’s accessible everywhere, and a very important part of the Latino experience in a way I don’t see replicated in other groups. Radio serves a unique role in the lives of Hispanics. Radio is local. It gives people touchpoints into what’s happening.”
Accessibility has also given radio staying power among Hispanics, and it has a major bearing on the strength of YouTube Music, one of the first platforms to offer a multiplicity of content in Spanish.
Historically, says de Armas, Spanish language television has long been a part of the Hispanic experience in the United States with Univision and Telemundo. But cable was inaccessible for many people because the consumer had to pay, and there was an additional cost for Spanish programming. YouTube, on the other hand, was free, as long as you had Internet access.
“So, a lot of shifting went to YouTube. It was very easy to introduce YouTube Music,” says de Armas, noting that Hispanics spend 51% of their TV viewing on streaming, and 16% of that streaming comes from YouTube (although Netflix is a close second at 13.1%).
By the same token, Pandora is the third most listened-to option (after radio and YouTube) among the 35-49 and 50 and over segment of the Hispanic population because it was the first audio streaming service to focus on Spanish. But it doesn’t have the same accessibility as radio or YouTube.
Despite the numbers demonstrating radio’s continued reach, the format has been all but dismissed by some in recent times — in part because it wasn’t as measurable as other platforms. But, says de Armas, when advertisers make the effort to measure radio’s audience, they see results. “There’s engagement potential there that’s being lost on brands that are under-utilizing radio,” she says.
It’s not lost on the user, however.
“Community engagement is key,” de Armas says. “The cultural connection with radio hosts, for example, which fosters a sense of community. There’s a trust factor we’re underestimating, and I don’t think it exists in the same way with streaming platforms. And there’s also nostalgia and habit.”
Regional Mexican star Carin León signed an exclusive global publishing agreement with Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG), Billboard has learned. A leading force in the música mexicana genre, the Sonora-born singer-songwriter has established himself as one of Mexican music’s most versatile and eclectic artists today recording in norteño, banda, R&B and pop. “There is no […]