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SM Entertainment’s second quarter earnings, which were announced Wednesday (Aug. 2), helped shares of the K-pop music company, home to such acts as NCT Dream and Red Velvet, gain 7.6% to 137,700 won ($105.59) this week. That made it the top performer of the 21 stocks in the Billboard Global Music Index this week. The […]
Two weeks into earnings reports for the second quarter of 2023, the music streaming business is showing that subscriptions — not advertising — are the dependable driving force behind the industry’s growth.
Subscriptions — which accounted for 65% of the U.S. recorded music business in 2022, up from 63% in 2021, according to the RIAA — aren’t affected by economic forces that influence how brands spend their advertising dollars. Consumers continue to pay monthly or annual fees for Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Deezer and other offerings. Even faced with higher prices (see “pricing power” below), more people are opting for subscription services.
More information will be gleaned in the coming weeks from earnings results from Warner Music Group (Aug. 8), HYBE (Aug. 8), Sony Music Entertainment (Aug. 9), Tencent Music Entertainment (Aug. 15), Cloud Music (Aug. 24) and Anghami (no date set).
Based on earnings by Universal Music Group, Spotify, Deezer, Believe and Reservoir Media, here are three takeaways from reported results through Aug 4.
The subscription market is holding up well. Spotify beat expectations for both monthly active users (MAUs) and subscribers, “aided by improved retention and marketing efficiencies,” the company explained in its July 25 shareholder presentation. Spotify’s premium subscribers grew 17% year-over-year to 220 million, beating its guidance of 217 million. Spotify’s MAUs increased 27% year-over-year to 551 million compared to guidance of 530 million. Universal Music Group attributed subscription growth in its recorded music segment — 13% in the second quarter and 11.6% in the first half of the year — to “broad-based growth in subscribers across all major global platform partners.” Reservoir Media CEO Golnar Khosrowshahi cited Spotify’s “higher than expected subscriber numbers” in the company’s Aug. 2 earnings call and said its strong quarterly results “reflect increasing demand trends for streaming music globally.” Not all subscription services made gains, though. Deezer lost 100,000 subscribers from June 30, 2022, to June 30, 2023, and Pandora ended the quarter with 6.2 million subscribers, down 100,000 from 6.3 million a year earlier.
Services have pricing power. Spotify raised its individual subscription plan in the U.S. on July 24 to great fanfare. After all, the price had gone unchanged since the service launched in the United States in 2011, although the family plan price increased by $2 per month in 2021. Spotify is relatively late to the game, though. Deezer raised its price from 9.99 euros to 10.99 euros in January 2022 — a major factor in the company’s direct subscriber average revenue per user climbing 4.9% year over year. Apple Music and Amazon Music both raised their prices last year as well. And according to Deezer CEO Jeronimo Folgueira, the increase had “pretty much no impact on churn” — the number of subscribers who leave a service over a period — and “clearly demonstrated that music is highly undervalued, and that platforms like us have more pricing power than initially anticipated.” That said, Folgueira stated that Deezer’s guidance for full-year revenue growth does not include another price increase later in the year.
The advertising market continues to have challenges. At Spotify, music advertising revenue grew in the “mid-single digits” year-over-year, lower than the 12% (15% at constant currency) growth in total ad-supported revenue. That implies advertising revenue from podcasts, which was up 30% year-over-year, contributed to most of the growth. Spotify also noted “softer pricing due to the macroeconomic environment” that offset double-digit gains in impressions. Universal Music Group’s ad-supported streaming revenues were up 5% in the second quarter and 2% in the first half of the year. UMG’s CFO Boyd Muir said “it’s too early to call a positive turnaround in the market.” Believe is “still impacted by the weak ad-supported monetization,” said CFO/chief strategy officer Xavier Dumont. The advertising malaise extends to broadcast radio, too. Weak national advertising “remained the main factor driving a decline in total revenue,” Frank Lopez-Balboa, Cumulus executive vp/treasurer/CFO, said in the company’s July 28 earnings call. National brands appear likely to increase ad spending in the second half of the year, however, according to B Riley Securities analyst Daniel Day.
“Fake Drake” and similar controversies have gotten most of the attention, but not all uses of artificial intelligence in music are cause for concern.
The clock is ticking. Two weeks ago, TikTok announced the launch of the beta for its new streaming service in three new markets – Mexico, Australia, and Singapore – just a few weeks after it shared plans to roll out the app in Brazil and Indonesia. This suggests that the social media giant might also soon bring TikTok Music to the United States – although a source close to the matter claims TikTok has “no current plans” to do so.
However, if it does, TikTok Music could push the industry into a new, second generation of music streaming fueled by social media – and make ByteDance one of the most powerful and vertically integrated companies in the modern music business.
TikTok teased in a recent press release that TikTok Music will provide a “social music streaming” experience. Though it remains to be seen what the U.S. version of the forthcoming service will look like, a move to prioritize social interaction and cross pollination between the TikTok social app and its music streaming counterpart plays on the company’s greatest asset – and arguably also targets the incumbents’ greatest weakness.
The streaming services could be more social. It’s hard to find any examples of a music influencer that grew their following primarily on Spotify, Apple or Amazon. There is no longer a direct messaging feature on Spotify. There are practically no ways to engage with music beyond adding it to your personal library or clicking a “heart” icon. Unless, of course, the user leaves the app and shares a song to an Instagram story.
Instead, the current streamers invested in company-selected editorial playlists and radio stations. This allowed them to gain control in the promotion and marketing of music in the late 2010s and early 2020s as the streaming market in the United States began to mature. Top curators and hosts employed at Spotify and Apple in particular – like Zane Lowe or Tuma Basa – became modern kingmakers, much like radio DJs, MTV VJs, journalists and bloggers had been before.
But Billboard found that by late 2022, this was no longer moving the needle quite like it did just a few years before. At the peak of this model in 2019, a few high placements on key playlists often guaranteed a drastic influx of streams and interest from record labels, but its potency has since waned considerably. “There used to be a world where an unknown artist would get the cover of the Fresh Finds playlist [on Spotify] and they would get between 60,000 and 100,000 streams a week,” said one manager who works primarily with developing acts. “Now you’re looking at more like 15,000 to 20,000 streams a week.”
Instead, listeners – particularly Gen Z – increasingly turned to TikTok to find their new favorite songs, likely for its more interactive and organic feel; and labels in turn began offering lucrative contracts to artists who fared well on TikTok in the same way that they once offered deals to talent who landed on key playlists. In the words of MIDiA Research’s Tatiana Cirisano, the streaming services “cultural capital” was giving way to the China-based company which had become the most important place to market and promote music. As Chris Anokute, an A&R rep-turned-manager, previously put it to Billboard, “The biggest game in town is TikTok.”
The move into streaming, if successful, will allow TikTok to not only wield power over the marketing and promotion of music, but also the consumption of it. This, coupled with its popular music distributor and artist services company SoundOn, has the potential to make the company the most powerful in the industry today. With distribution, promotion, marketing and consumption all vertically integrated, ByteDance becomes a one-stop shop. (To take it even further, ByteDance also recently launched a music AI tool called Ripple, also inching the company into the music production process too).
SoundOn already has certain advantages over competitors like AWAL, Virgin and The Orchard: It can leverage access to TikTok data that lets signees identify promotional opportunities within the app. It can also afford to be a loss-leader, given that music is not ByteDance’s primary source of revenue. If SoundOn could add in the promise of editorial playlisting on a popular streaming service, it would be an even more formidable challenger for its competition. Today, traditional artist services companies cannot guarantee playlisting on any platform – all they offer is that their team will try. Imagine if an artist services company could guarantee social media success and playlisting for an emerging artist.
In many ways, TikTok’s democratization of music discovery is an exciting thing in that it has allowed artists without industry connections a chance to build an audience. But this comes at a cost. Today’s gatekeeper is not a music professional, it is an elusive, ever-changing algorithm, created by a company already criticized for its lack of transparency. In January, Forbes discovered that TikTok employees have access to a private “heating button” that can be employed to induce an uptick in video plays, and in March, a coalition of lawmakers cited potential issues with data privacy as a reason to ban the app nationwide. (Since then, Congress has gone mostly quiet on the idea of a TikTok ban.)
The incumbent streamers still have the upper hand against TikTok Music given their robust user bases. Though video streamers like Netflix, Hulu, and MAX struggle with constant cord cutting as users hop from service-to-service depending on their current film and TV offerings, music streamers generally offer the same catalog. This builds user loyalty to their music services and could possibly insulate Spotify, Apple and Amazon from a shiny new opponent like TikTok Music, even if that opponent’s experience proves better in some ways.
TikTok, however, has already influenced the rollout of new features on streaming services before it entered the streaming business itself. Take, for example, Spotify’s announcement earlier this year of a new vertical, swipeable discovery feed that sparked comparisons to the short-form video app, or its prior recruitment of TikTok-based music influencers – like Ari Elkins and Dev Lemons – to help popularize its now-defunct live audio app, Spotify Live. So even if TikTok can’t launch a streaming service that clinches the top market share, it will certainly continue to influence its competition even more than it already has. At the very least, TikTok Music’s launch signals the start of “music streaming 2.0,” – if not an even more seismic shift in power in the overall business.
Apple says it now has more than 1 billion paid subscribers to its various services, as that line of its business has hit an all-time high.
The company revealed the number in its quarterly earnings report, disclosing total revenue of 81.8 billion, a decline of 1 percent from a year ago. This is the third consecutive quarter to see a decline in revenue from Apple, thanks to slower sales of its hardware devices, like the iPhone and Mac lines. Net income was $19.9 billion.
However, its services business continues to grow at a rapid pace, hitting $21.2 billion in the quarter, up from 19.6 billion last year. Apple services include Apple TV+, Apple Music, Apple Arcade, Apple News, and iCloud+. It also includes subscriptions through apps on the app store. The company did not break out how many subscribers used which service, beyond the topline 1 billion figure.
On the company’s earnings call, however, CEO Tim Cook said that Apple TV+ had hit a revenue record and touted the addition of soccer superstar Lionel Messi to Major League Soccer’s Inter Miami. Apple has the global exclusive rights to MLS.
“We are focused on original content and so we are all about giving great storytellers the venue to tell great stories and hopefully get us all to think a little deeper,” Cook added. “And sport is a part of that because sport is the ultimate original story.”
One thing that did not come on the call was the ongoing WGA and SAG strikes. of course, for Apple, its content business is a tiny piece of the overall pie. Apple’s total profits last quarter were nearly double Warner Bros. Discovery’s total revenue in the quarter, with WBD noting that it is firmly in the content business.
“We are happy to report that we had an all-time revenue record in Services during the June quarter, driven by over 1 billion paid subscriptions, and we saw continued strength in emerging markets thanks to robust sales of iPhone,” said Cook in a statement. “From education to the environment, we are continuing to advance our values, while championing innovation that enriches the lives of our customers and leaves the world better than we found it.”
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
Las Vegas police have dropped their criminal investigation into last weekend’s incident in which Cardi B threw her microphone at a fan who had splashed her with a drink. Though a police report was filed by the alleged victim Sunday (July 30), the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department confirmed to Billboard on Thursday (Aug. 3) […]
CTM Outlander has acquired Dutch music label and publishing house Strengholt Music Group. Founded in 1928, Stengholt was originally part of European entertainment powerhouse Strengholt B.V. and was considered an early pioneer in the Dutch music business. The catalog contains over 100 Dutch No. 1 hits, including works composed by Boudewijn de Groot, Lennaert Nijgh, Ramses Shaffy, Pierre Kartner, Hans van Hemert, Ferry Corsten, Radboud Miedema, John Ewbank, Eric van Tijn and Jochem Fluitsma, and including “Engelbewaarder” by Marco Schuitmaker. (The management and rights activities of Purple Eye Publishing and Purple Eye ENtertainment are excluded from this transaction.)
Grammy Songwriter of the Year nominee Nija Charles and Legion founder Christian McCurdy have launched Anomaly, a new publishing company. Already, the pair has signed Jack Rochon, Serg Dior and Tre-Von Waters to the new publishing house. To date, the company is not partnered with another publisher but is in the process of finalizing a deal now.
Sol Was has signed a worldwide publishing administrative agreement with Warner Chappell Music‘s Wallace Joseph and Gabz Landman. With recent credits on Beyoncé’s Renaissance, this marks the up-and-coming songwriter and producer’s first-ever publishing deal. He is managed by David Silberstein, Jeremy Levin, Haley Evans and Laura Higbee of Mega House Music.
Spirit Music Nashville has signed Tyler Reeve to a worldwide co-publishing agreement. A writer for Luke Combs, Eric Church, Chris Young, Scotty McCreery and Brett Young, his accomplishments include winning BMI’s Country Song of the Year and multiple multi-platinum certifications.
peermusic Nashville has signed songwriter and engineer Nick Brophy to an exclusive worldwide publishing deal. A songwriter to stars like Jason Aldean, Hootie & the Blowfish, Rascal Flatts and engineers to Avril Lavigne, The Rolling Stones and Everclear — Brophy has the “ability to write across genres with impact in Nashville and into global markets,” says Michael Knox, president of peermusic Nashville.
Downtown Music Publishing has signed Raja Kumari, a Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter and rapper, to a global administration agreement. As part of the deal, Downtown will administer Kumari’s debut album The Bridge along with her collaboration with John Legend for Johnny Walker India. The deal also includes administration for all future writing credits during the deal term.
Angry Mob Music Group presented a five-day writing camp from June 26-30 in Downtown LA, drawing over 30 writers, artists and producers from various cultural backgrounds. Called The New Normal Writing Camp, it was founded by Ralph Torrefranca, senior director of a&r at Angry Mob, and was created to bring together underrepresented songwriters and to encourage new ways of thinking. Of the attendees, 50% were women producers and 70% were women artists and writers.
Distiller Music Group has announced a new co-publishing agreement with songwriter/producer Gil Lewis (Leah Kate, Nina Nesbitt, Icona Pop, Cheat Codes). The deal is an agreement with Stellar Songs and part of a wider partnership that Distiller Music Group is developing with Tim Blacksmith and Danny D’s publishing company. It will be administered by Warner Chappell Music.
Criminal Records, a London-based indie label, has launched a new publishing arm and North American partnership with Purley Sounds. With diverse signees, ranging from ska-punk to punk, Criminal Records hopes the new move will “further empower independent artists.”
Within hours of Lizzo breaking her silence on the lawsuit filed by three of her ex-dancers — who allege that the star sexually harassed her employees and facilitated a hostile work environment — plaintiffs Crystal Williams, Arianna Davis and Noelle Rodriguez have already responded.
Sitting down for a live interview with CNN This Morning, the three women agreed that they were disappointed by the statement Lizzo had posted hours earlier, two days after the suit was first filed. In her written statement, the Grammy winner insisted that their claims were “false allegations” and “sensationalized stories,” adding, “I am not the villain that people and the media have portrayed me to be these last few days.”
“I want to say that reading it just kind of furthered … my disappointment in regards to the situation, just because the facts are the facts,” Williams told host Phil Mattingly. “What we experienced and what we witnessed is absolutely what happened. There’s nothing sensationalized about it. So, all that I can hope is that people focus more so on the facts rather than the court of public opinion.”
“Looking at the response from Lizzo was so disheartening because she was there,” Davis agreed. “She was there. And to fix your hand to write on a piece of paper that you don’t believe, that you discredit everything we’re saying is incredibly frustrating.”
Davis went on to double down on some of the claims she made in the lawsuit, including one instance where she felt Lizzo body-shamed her, and another in which she was allegedly pressured to engage with nude performers at a sex show in Amsterdam. Davis also claimed in the lawsuit that Lizzo had the dancers re-audition for their spots as backup dancers on tour, an allegedly “excruciating” process that led to Davis wetting herself on stage out of fear of what might happen if she left to use the bathroom.
Lizzo’s statement did not address the accusations in the lawsuit individually, but she noted that the allegations were “coming from former employees who have already publicly admitted that they were told their behavior on tour was inappropriate and unprofessional.” The star — who is known for being outspoken about body positivity — added in her statement: “With passion comes hard work and high standards. Sometimes I have to make hard decisions but it’s never my intention to make anyone feel uncomfortable or like they aren’t valued as an important part of the team.”
The plaintiffs’ attorney Ron Zambrano — who was also on CNN This Morning — added that he “one hundred percent” expects more people to come forward soon with more stories of harassment or toxic work conditions, which he believes will back up Davis, Rodriguez and Williams’ claims. “People have already come on social media to support our clients,” the lawyer said. “People have already reached out to my office through social media. I believe more people will come forward.”
Watch the interview below:
“It’s this thing in the dance industry that you have to shut up and take whatever you get and just be grateful for whatever crumbs you get as a dancer.”Lizzo has denied the “false accusations” made in a lawsuit brought by three of her former dancers. We get their reaction: pic.twitter.com/z7P3LO9Yb4— CNN This Morning (@CNNThisMorning) August 3, 2023
Warner Chappell Music has signed Laufey to a global publishing agreement. The Icelandic-Chinese artist is considered one of the brightest new stars in jazz, re-popularizing the genre for Gen Z. The deal announcement arrives just ahead of her sophomore album Bewitched, arriving Sept. 8 via AWAL, and her upcoming performance with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra at the Ford Ampitheatre in Los Angeles.
Laufey’s songs have always fared well on TikTok, in part because the singer is active in sharing her work on the app — but in the last month, her May single “From the Start,” began to hit true virality. With a bossa nova-inspired groove and wistful lyrics, fans began creating videos to a sped-up version of the single and that activity has led to real streams on Spotify, Apple, Amazon and other DSPs. U.S. on-demand streams for the week ending July 14, when the song began to take off, went up 50% from the previous week’s total and its streams climbed to 644,000 per day.
Laufey said of the new signing that she is “honored to join the ranks of some of the most iconic songwriters and artists in history at Warner Chappell. Gabz, David, Ryan, Guy, Carianne, and the rest of the team at Warner Chappell have been fervent songwriter advocates for years, and I’m elated to call the company my new publishing partner.”
Gabz Landman, vp of a&r, and David Goldsen, vp and head of a&r of Australia for Warner Chappell Music said in a joint statement: “At Warner Chappell, we pride ourselves on working with the most talented storytellers in the world, so Laufey is the perfect addition to our roster. Laufey’s innate musicality, lyrical ingenuity, deep relationship with her fans, and world class live show are just a few factors that make it no surprise her star is rising. We’re thrilled to be working with such an exceptional, generational talent, and thank Laufey, Max Gredinger, and Harry Roberts for trusting us at this exciting point in her career.”
“Laufey is a gifted songwriter who has a distinct sound that balances classic elements with modern songwriting, and her music has been resonating with audiences all around the world. She’s exposing jazz and classical music to a whole new generation of fans, and we’re incredibly excited to welcome her to the Warner Chappell family,” added Ryan Press, president of North America at Warner Chappell Music.
Argentine star Maria Becerra has signed an exclusive administration deal with Warner Chappell Music (WCM), Billboard has learned. The agreement comes three months after Becerra signed with Warner Music Latina in a joint venture with 300 Entertainment, who she’s been signed to since 2020.
“Thanks to the entire Warner Chappell team for 100% trusting and empowering me and my team,” Becerra said in a statement. “I’m so thrilled and happy to officially be joining the family and continuing to grow! And a huge shoutout to my managers Jose Levy, Natanael Real, and Armando Lozano for believing in me; my creative director Julian Levy; my music producer Xross; and everyone, for always supporting my music vision and making me trust myself even more.”
Since her breakout year in 2019 — when she released her EP 222 — Becerra has so far scored three entries on the Billboard‘s Hot Latin Songs chart, including her hit “Qué Más Pues?” with J Balvin, as well as two top 10 entries on Latin Airplay (the No. 1 hit “Te Espero” with Prince Royce and “Éxtasis” with Manuel Turizo at No. 9), and five entries on Latin Rhythm Airplay.
In 2021, she released her debut album Animal featuring collabs with Cazzu, Tiago PZK and Becky G, to name a few. The set earned her a Latin Grammy nomination for best urban music album. That same year, Becerra was nominated for best new artist at the Latin Grammys. In May, the 23-year-old artist received the visionary award at the inaugural Billboard Latin Women in Music gala. Becerra’s latest album La Nena de Argentina — her most multifaceted album to date — garnered more than 301 million plays on Spotify alone.
“I’ve been following Maria since she erupted onto the scene, and she continues to surprise me with her incredible and relentless artistic growth. We’re very happy to finally have her in our Warner Chappell Music family,” expressed Gustavo Menéndez, president, U.S. Latin & Latin America, WCM.
“Maria has become one of the most outstanding and versatile artists and songwriters in the music scene, and it is a true honor to have a great ally like Warner Chappell to continue developing her career globally,” said her manager Jose Levy. “Thank you to the entire team for their commitment – we’re excited to face these challenges and reach new goals together, accompanying Maria in everything she sets out to do.”