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Republic has appointed Mary Catherine Kinney as executive vp of artist & label strategy. Based in Nashville, Kinney will support artist and label strategy for the Republic Corp Collective, which includes Republic Records, Island Records, Mercury Records and Def Jam Recordings. Kinney will also lead business strategy for the group’s labels, further reinforcing their Nashville presence.
Prior to her new role at Republic, Kinney was head of artist partnerships at Spotify, having joined the company in 2018. At Spotify, she led the team responsible for artist and manager relationships, as well as genre marketing initiatives. The team’s projects included partnerships with artists including Taylor Swift, Karol G and Zach Bryan, as well as introducing Spotify House at CMA Fest, Spotify’s Billions Club series and Casa Spotify in Puerto Rico.
Prior to her work at Spotify, Kinney’s career included time at Sony Music Nashville and Universal Music Group Nashville.
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Republic Corps president/COO Jim Roppo said in a statement, “Mary Catherine is one of the music industry’s most inspiring leaders. She’s widely respected across the business and in Nashville. Her reputation and work ethic have uniquely positioned her to flourish supporting the labels at REPUBLIC. She’s the perfect executive to seamlessly facilitate our expansion in the market.”
Kinney added, “I’m thrilled to join Republic to build with each label team on their unique mission and work with such a phenomenal roster of artists. For over a decade, I’ve called Nashville home and I’m honored for the opportunity to steward Republic vision within this vibrant, ever-growing creative community. I have deeply admired Monte, Avery and Jim as visionaries and esteemed leaders for many years; I thank them for this extraordinary opportunity.”
Republic has spearheaded some of the biggest releases to dominate the Billboard 200 over the past year, among them Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department, Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time (Big Loud/Mercury/Republic), Noah Kahan’s Stick Season (Mercury/Republic), and Post Malone’s F-1 Trillion (Mercury/Republic). Meanwhile, Jelly Roll and BMG recently teamed with Republic to distribute Jelly Roll’s upcoming album, Beautifully Broken, out Oct. 11.
Harvey Mason Jr. quietly re-upped with the Recording Academy in September for another four years as CEO. Mason first assumed the role of permanent CEO on May 13, 2021, after having served on an interim basis for the previous 16 months. His three-year contract with the academy ran through July 31 of this year.
There was no announcement in September about Mason’s decision to stay in his job. “It was kind of right in the middle of a lot of things that were going on with us at the academy,” he explained in an interview with Billboard about the academy’s new member class. “We’re doing a lot of things that we’re excited about that I felt probably deserved more attention than [my contract extension]. I just want to keep my head down and do the work.”
Under Mason, the academy has undergone dramatic changes since it officially terminated former president/CEO Deborah Dugan on March 2, 2020, after she had been placed on administrative leave six weeks earlier. Dugan, who served only five months in the job, took over from longtime president/CEO Neil Portnow.
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Mason said he’ll continue to have the freedom to do outside music projects. “Luckily, I’m allowed to continue to be very creative — run my business, make music, be in the studio. So, it actually gives us a different perspective. I think it’s a good thing for the CEO of the Grammys and the Recording Academy to be in the studio working.”
As late as Feb. 27, when Billboard interviewed Mason about the success of Bob Marley: One Love, on which he was credited as executive music producer, he said wasn’t sure if the was going to stay at the academy. “I don’t think either side has made a commitment yet or firm decision as to what’s going to take place after July,” he remarked at the time.
Before he became CEO, Mason received five Grammy nominations — three of them for his work in film and TV, on the soundtracks to Dreamgirls, Pitch Perfect 2 and Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert.
But he has taken himself out of Grammy contention as long as he is CEO. “I’ve committed to not putting my name on the ballot because I wouldn’t want my job at the Academy to influence how somebody viewed a project or voted for a project,” he said in February.
But other people who work on those projects can submit their own names. “I don’t want to punish people that do great work. So, others can submit, I won’t submit and I will not be getting a nomination or win while I’m in this role.”
On another topic, Mason said the academy has made no decision about what to do about the Salute to Industry Icons Award that Sean “Diddy” Combs received in January 2020, in light of his current legal woes.
Federal prosecutors on Sept. 17 unsealed a criminal indictment against Combs over sweeping allegations of sexual abuse, accusing him of running a racketeering conspiracy that included sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson and bribery.
Mason said that if Combs is convicted, “We’d have to take a look at that, as it was an honorary award. So, it’s a little bit different than a Grammy. I don’t think we would be in the business of retracting people’s Grammys, but I don’t think I’ll speculate on an honorary award and how we would handle that until I see what happens going forward.”
For years, Hollywood talent managers have grumbled at a California law that puts them in danger of losing their commissions if they’re found to have engaged in activities related to obtaining work for their clients.
The issue relates to the Talent Agencies Act, a licensing scheme that was originally enacted to regulate agents and ensure that they’re acting in their clients’ best interests. The law says that only licensed agents can “procure” work in the entertainment business and that managers caught doing the same can have their contracts voided and commissions forfeited. Although lawmakers’ intent was to prevent unscrupulous business dealings, like conflicts of interests, it grew to be used as a sword largely wielded by talent to sidestep having to pay commissions. At least $250 million in fees have been nullified over the last 55 years, per the trade group representing managers in the entertainment industry.
But in 2020, a former CAA employee recognized a quirk in the law that managers could take advantage of. By his thinking, obtaining a license to secure work opportunities for clients wasn’t required if you could tolerate the risk of getting sued and losing the commission.
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“It looks like there is a ‘gray area’ on how managers are supposed to technically procure material since they don’t have a license form the California Labor Commission,” this unidentified ex-CAA employee wrote in an email. “However as long as the artist doesn’t sue the manager … looks like managers are fine?”
The theory outlined in that message became the central business model for Range Media Partners, a management and brand development firm founded later that year by departing partners from a series of agencies, according to a lawsuit filed on Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court from CAA against the company. It seeks a court order blocking Range from further violating the TAA by engaging in activities reserved for licensed agents and representing Writers Guild of America members without permission from the guild, which would effectively foreclose core functions related to securing work opportunities for talent.
The thrust of the complaint is grounded in Range allegedly stealing confidential information to poach clients, but its scope reaches the heart of the firm’s business dealings. CAA claims that Range, which didn’t respond to a request for comment, is actually just a rival talent agency masquerading as a management company, allowing it to skirt laws and guild agreements that give it an unfair advantage over competitors. In practice, Range is performing all the tasks of a talent agency, while also structuring deals in ways that agencies cannot, the lawsuit says. One example: the company can offer high-profile clients the ability to avoid paying a commission in favor of giving it a producer fee or credit on their project.
“The Range Founders told at least some of these CAA clients that they did not ‘need’ a talent agent to procure work for them, because Range could do it all,” states the major talent agency’s complaint, which flags stolen confidential information on client negotiations, revenues, preferences, interests and upcoming projects, among other things.
In a pitch deck to investors, Range proclaimed itself as the “revolutionary” successor to CAA and Endeavor, according to the lawsuit. It touted plans to “recruit high end representatives away from their current incumbent,” and to “rethink the system of representation,” with “production services as a cash cow.”
Since its inception four years ago, Range has surfaced as a competitor — albeit a small one — in a talent agency landscape that’s consolidated into three major players after CAA in 2022 closed its acquisition of ICM Partners. It’s drawn investments from hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen’s Point72 Ventures, media mogul John Malone’s Liberty Global, TPG founder David Bonderman’s Wildcat Capital, family entertainment company Playground Productions and A+E Networks, which serves as a co-producer on scripted TV projects set up at the company.
Range’s emergence coincides with a time in which talent is questioning whether they even want an agent. After the Writers Guild of America in 2019 sued Hollywood’s four biggest talent agencies in a fight over packaging fees and agency-owned production entities, thousands of writers fired their agents, with some power players, like Damon Lindelof, never hiring them back. Some, including Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio, haven’t had agents for years. Those two megastars have their interests represented by Rick Yorn of business management firm LBI Entertainment as Hollywood evolves into a business where there’s often overlapping responsibilities between agents and managers. In practice, both provide career advice and engage in activities related to getting clients work.
Amid this shift, agents are increasingly pivoting to management. Theresa Kang-Lowe and Phil Sun have both left WME in recent years to start their own management firms. Dave Bugliari, Mackenzie Condon Roussos, Rich Cook, Michael Cooper, Susie Fox, Sandra Kang, Rachel Kropa, Chelsea McKinnies, Peter Micelli, Mick Sullivan and Jack Whigham all left top agencies to become founding partners at Range. Some of the ex-CAA employees who left for Range are in arbitration with the agency over cancelled equity.
“Before, the agents were the most powerful. Period,” UTA CEO and cofounder Jeremy Zimmer told Vanity Fair last year of the rise of management firms. “Now there might be a splitting of the power.”
Still, the gambit could backfire on management firms engaged in “procuring” work for clients. The Deftones in 1997 filed a complaint with the California labor commission seeking to void agreements with ex-manager Dave Park for violations of the TAA. A commissioner later voided fees on the basis that Park secured 84 performances for the band. Marathon Entertainment owner Rick Siegal later sued the state Attorney General in a lawsuit claiming it’s unconstitutional to enforce the law on talent managers. After he lost that case, nearly 200 talent managers supported his appeal to challenge the TAA, which still stands.
In its lawsuit, CAA argues that the TAA bars Range from engaging in activities related to obtaining work for clients and that civil lawsuits from talent can’t be the only recourse. But it remains to be seen whether the agency has the right to pursue a court order blocking further violations of the law since it may not have been directly harmed by the conduct.
In that scenario, it may be up to the WGA, which didn’t respond a request for comment, to take action against Range if it’s found to have violated rules related to securing work for clients. CAA alleges that the company is violating a guild rule barring agencies from acting as packaging agents or owning a major stake in a production entity.
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
Now that Pink Floyd has finally managed to sell its recorded music assets, merchandising and name, image and likeness, the songwriting members of the group have another big payday still outstanding — its music publishing assets.
Sony has bought some of Pink Floyd’s music assets for about $400 million, sources confirm of the news that first appeared in the Financial Times. But sources also confirm that the band’s music publishing assets were not a part of the deal.
Nevertheless, the Pink Floyd sale was a long time coming, as the group started shopping its recorded music assets about two years ago. For a while, the assets were pulled off the block due to some infighting between group members, according to published reports.
As sources said at the time, the assets were shopped to all the big players — the other majors, BMG, Concord, Primary Wave and other private equity-backed music buyers — but Sony always had the inside hand on the deal given that it serves as the group’s distributor. This deal marks the third big music asset deal Sony has made in the last 12 months, having previously bought 50% of Michael Jackson’s music assets in a deal that valued them at $1.205 million; and Queen’s music assets for about $1.2 billion.
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Combined, that means Sony — and any financial partners that were, or may have been, involved in the deals — has spent about $2.2 billion buying music assets in the last 12 months. In July, Apollo Global Management announced that it was the lead in pulling together $700 million in commitments to provide a “capital solution” to Sony Music Group. Back in 2021, Sony partnered with another financial partner, Eldridge Industries, when buying Bruce Springsteen’s master recordings.
Sony declined to comment. Apollo and Eldridge didn’t respond to e-mails seeking comment.
Pink Floyd’s filings in Companies House — the U.K. equivalent of the SEC database — show that for the year ended June 30, 2023, the band’s revenue totaled, as first reported by Music Business Worldwide, 40.4 million pounds (which at the 2023 average of 1.244 per pound totals $50.3 million, according to exchange-rates.org). This total combines revenue from master recording, merchandising and possibly other licensing opportunities; and also combines the two Pink Floyd corporations that appear to have been set up to oversee those assets: the original band after Syd Barrett’s departure and the group that carried on after Roger Waters’ departure.
Just looking at Pink Floyd’s recorded masters catalog over the last three years in the U.S., the band has generated an annual average of 1.135 million album consumption units from the sale of 497,000 LP, CD and digital download albums and 160,000 track downloads and almost 675 million on-demand streams. While Luminate doesn’t track global album sales, Pink Floyd’s on-demand global streams averaged 2.37 billion over the last three years. Consequently, if the group owns all of its publishing, Billboard estimates that the band’s recorded masters bring in about $11 million in publishing royalties annually. If the band sells and can achieve a 20-times multiple — the going rate for superstar songwriters — it could bring in another $200 million-plus for the band’s songwriters. In general, music publishing asset trade at a higher multiple than recorded music assets, although the latter is catching up on that front.
An e-mail to the manager of one of the band members didn’t receive a reply by press time.
Sony’s acquisition of Pink Floyd’s name, image and likeness is good for merchandising. But if any opportunities arise for film, TV or a theatrical production — and there likely will be considering that since 1991 the band’s fanbase has consumed nearly 51 million album consumption units in the U.S. alone — Sony would need, as its executives well know, licenses from the Pink Floyd publishers and/or administrators, which in the U.S., according to SongView and depending on the song, consist of TRO Essex Music Group, BMG and Concord.
For the second time in three years, Universal Music Group (UMG) chairman/CEO Lucian Grainge tops Billboard’s annual list of the highest compensated music executives.
In the first year of a five-year employment contract, the London-born, Los Angeles-based Grainge earned $150.3 million, nearly six times the $25.6 million paid to second-place finisher James Dolan, executive chairman/CEO of both Sphere Entertainment Co. and Madison Square Garden Entertainment. (The fiscal years of the latter two companies ended June 30, 2023.) Live Nation president/CEO Michael Rapino, last year’s No. 1, was third at $23.4 million.
Most other executives appeared on the prior two compensation rankings. Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl and WMG’s outgoing CEO of recorded music, Max Lousada, were fifth and sixth, respectively (for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2023). Spotify co-president/chief product and technology officer Gustav Söderström and co-president/chief business officer Alex Norström were seventh and 10th, respectively. IHeartMedia chairman/CEO Bob Pittman and president/COO/CFO Rich Bressler were eighth and ninth, respectively.
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The top 10 list has one new name in 2023: John Hopmans, executive vp in charge of mergers and acquisitions and strategic finance at Live Nation, at No. 4. The only vice president on the list, Hopmans had a relatively low salary of $982,000 but earned $23.4 million, mostly from restricted stock units and performance stock valued at $21.4 million.
The second-longest-serving CEO on the list behind Rapino, Grainge dramatically boosted his 2023 earnings with stock options, performance stock units and restricted stock units valued at $120 million. These grants included a $100 million “one-time transition award,” according to the company’s 2023 annual report, to move Grainge from all-cash compensation in his previous contract to “a combination of cash and equity” under the stock incentive plan UMG adopted in 2022.
Due to the size of the transition award, Grainge’s $7.5 million base salary accounted for just 5% of his 2023 compensation, a relatively small figure but not the lowest of the group. Söderström’s $300,000 base salary amounted to just 2% of his $14.7 million compensation. (The remainder was a stock option award.) Lousada’s $5 million base salary made up 29% of his total compensation and was the highest percentage on the list.
On average, the 10 executives received 10% of their compensation from base salaries, which is on the low side of averages in the corporate world. “By and large,” says Aalap Shah, managing director at Pearl Meyer, a compensation consultancy, “base salary constitutes about 10% to 20%” of average executive compensation.
Instead of receiving a large, guaranteed salary, top executives at public companies are increasingly paid based on their performances on metrics such as revenue growth, adjusted EBITDA growth and share price gains. “Shareholders typically prefer that at least half of a CEO’s equity awards be based upon performance criteria,” says Stephanie Hollinger, vp at ISS-Corporate, a Rockville, Md.-based provider of data and analytics to corporations. That percentage is expected to increase over time, Hollinger adds, as “pay is becoming more equity-based, and those equity awards are increasingly tied to performance-based conditions.”
In 2023, performance-based pay accounted for 53% of the average compensation for CEOs of companies in the Russel 3000, an index of the 3,000 largest public companies in the United States, according to ISS-Corporate. For CEOs of media and entertainment companies in the Russel 3000, performance-based pay was 42% of average compensation in 2023, “likely due to a higher relative proportion of other compensation elements, such as time-based equity compensation,” says Hollinger.
For most executives, performance-based pay comes in the form of company stock. Grainge’s five-year employment contract, which took effect April 1, 2023, reduced his base salary by 72% and added stock-based compensation that accounts for 57% of his target pay package. By putting Grainge’s earnings and shareholders’ interests in better alignment, UMG followed the practices of other public companies. “The view is that there should be more accountability and more performance orientation to executive compensation,” says Shah.
Receiving stock as compensation can pay off handsomely but also carries risk. The value of Grainge’s options, which vest in equal installments over four years, will depend on UMG’s share price at the conclusion of his employment contract on May 1, 2028. One-third of the options are exercisable if UMG’s share price exceeds 26.50 euros. Another third is exercisable at 30.00 euros. The final third requires a share price of 38.00 euros. The value of the grants took a short-term hit on July 25 when UMG’s share price dropped 24% to 21.70 euros following UMG’s second-quarter earnings report. But with nearly four years left on Grainge’s employment contract, there’s ample time for the share price to hit the thresholds.
With so much executive pay coming from stock, Billboard created a new separate list for top cash earners. Here, the value of noncash earnings such as stock options and unvested stock grants are excluded in favor of money that went into executives’ bank accounts in 2023.
Three executives who made the top cash earners list do not appear on the overall compensation ranking: At No. 5 is SiriusXM CEO Jennifer Witz, with $7 million; No. 6 is Live Nation president/CFO Joe Berchtold, with $6.4 million; and No. 7 is German concert promoter CTS Eventim CEO Klaus Peter-Schulenberg, with $5.7 million.
Billboard’s list of top-paid music executives is made from publicly available information culled from annual reports and proxy filings for calendar year 2023 or, in some cases, the most recent fiscal year. Public companies reveal compensation for a small number of named executive officers. So, in the case of multi-sector companies like UMG and UMG, the earnings of label heads are not made public. Because publicly traded conglomerates do not share details of subsidiaries’ executive compensation, the list does not include executives such companies as Sony Music Entertainment and BMG. Executives at privately held companies are excluded due to a lack of publicly available information.
A producer who worked on Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours is suing the creators of the hit Broadway play Stereophonic, claiming they stole material from his memoir about working on the legendary album.
In a lawsuit filed Tuesday (Oct. 2) in Manhattan federal court, Ken Caillat and co-author Steven Stiefel call the Tony Award-winning show an “unauthorized adaptation” of their 2012 book Making Rumours — and accuse playwright David Adjmi of “flagrant and willful infringement.”
“Stereophonic copies the heart and soul of Making Rumours,” attorneys for Caillat and Stiefel write in their complaint. “The striking similarity is readily apparent right from the beginning of the show.”
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Featuring the music of Arcade Fire’s Will Butler, Stereophonic debuted on Broadway last fall, eventually winning five Tony Awards including best play, best direction of a play and best featured actor in a play.
Critics quickly noted the similarities to the infamous story of the recording session for Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, which featured high tensions and heavy drug usage. A reviewer for the Wall Street Journal said the play was “fictionalizing Fleetwood Mac”; another critic said the play “isn’t literally about Fleetwood Mac, but c’mon.”
In their lawsuit, Caillat and Stiefel say the hit play “presents a nearly identical story arc as Making Rumours,” told from the same perspective of a sound engineer in a recording studio, about five characters who are “undeniably analogous to the members of Fleetwood Mac.”
“Stereophonic is undoubtedly a play based on plaintiffs’ memoir Making Rumours because substantial similarities exist between the two works, a reality that has been independently confirmed by those familiar with plaintiffs’ book who have also had the opportunity to review the play,” the duo’s lawyers write.
The new case presents tricky legal questions. Under U.S. law, historical events cannot be monopolized under copyrights, and nobody can claim exclusive ownership over the real story behind the making of Rumours. But specific creative elements of how such a story is told can be protected by copyrights, and film, TV and stage producers often license non-fiction books as the basis for their works.
In their case, Caillat and Stiefel claim that Adjmi copied those exact kinds of creative choices when he created his play: “Stereophonic’s audience not only sits in the same place that Mr. Caillat sat, but the show also depicts Mr. Caillat’s wild ride as it is described in Making Rumours.”
Adjmi is no stranger to copyright litigation. Back in 2014, he filed a preemptive lawsuit over his off-Broadway show called 3C, which riffed on the sitcom Three’s Company. In that case, filed after the sitcom’s owners threatened litigation, Adjmi argued the play was clearly a legal parody of the earlier show. And he eventually won, securing a ruling that his play was a legal “fair use” of the famous show.
In their complaint, Caillat and Stiefel noted that earlier case, but pointedly argued that such a defense would not work this time around: “Stereophonic is not a parody, and it is not in any way a fair use of Making Rumours.”
Reps for Adjmi did not immediately return requests for comment.
A federal judge is refusing to wade into whether Jay-Z can use copyright termination to retake control of the rights to his debut album Reasonable Doubt — meaning that the complex issue won’t be resolved before a court-ordered auction of Damon Dash’s one-third stake in the company that owns the album.
The judge had been asked to decide that tricky question because of allegations that Jay-Z was using “false” threats of a looming termination to drive down the auction price for Dash’s stake in Roc-A-Fella Records Inc., which controls the rights to the famous album.
But in a ruling Monday (Sept. 30), Judge Robert W. Lehrburger flatly refused to do so — saying he had no legal power to add complicated questions of copyright law to the already-messy fight over Dash’s stake.
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“The asset that is the subject of the auction is Dash’s one-third interest in RAF [Roc-A-Fella] itself, not the work owned by RAF,” the judge wrote. “The Court does not presently have jurisdiction over the validity of Carter’s copyright termination notice.”
As early as next month, the U.S. Marshals Service will sell off Dash’s 33.3% interest in Roc-A-Fella Inc., an entity whose only real asset is the sound recording copyright to Reasonable Doubt. The rest of the storied label, which Dash co-founded with Jay-Z in 1994, is not involved.
Though the court-ordered auction was originally intended to pay off an $823,000 judgment in a civil lawsuit, it has since expanded to include other Dash creditors. New York City’s child services agency wants some of the proceeds to go toward more than $193,000 that Dash owes in unpaid child support; New York state says they must pay down roughly $8.7 million that Dash owes in back taxes and penalties.
The owners of the other two-thirds of Roc-A-Fella — label co-founders Jay-Z (Shawn Carter) and Kareem “Biggs” Burke — have already attempted to stop the auction, including making changes to the company’s bylaws and intervening in the lawsuit. But a federal judge rejected such opposition in February, and the sale could take place as early as this month.
As the auction has approached, one major unresolved question for any potential buyer is just how long Roc-A-Fella will continue to own its only real valuable asset.
The so-called termination right, a provision created by Congress in the 1970s, empowers authors to reclaim ownership of copyrighted works decades after they sold them away. If Jay-Z is eligible for it, termination would allow him to take back the rights to his sound recording of Reasonable Doubt roughly 35 years after he released the album, meaning 2031. That would set a clear time limit on the amount of revenue a Roc-A-Fella buyer would derive from their investment.
But last month, attorneys for New York City filed court papers arguing that Jay-Z was not, in fact, eligible for termination — and that he and others were using “false” threats of an approaching termination to drive down the price of Dash’s stake in his company.
“Jay-Z’s statements to the press have poisoned the environment for the auction,” wrote Gerald Singleton, an attorney for the city, asking the judge to halt the auction and issue a ruling on whether or not Jay-Z could use termination to win back control of Reasonable Doubt.
Days later, Jay-Z lawyer Alex Spiro responded that there was “no merit to NYC’s accusations,” and that the Dash case was not the proper place to decide Jay-Z’s rights to the album: “Put simply, this is not the appropriate time, forum, or case to litigate any issues relating to Jay-Z’s notice of termination.”
In Monday’s ruling, Judge Lehrburger agreed with Spiro and Jay-Z: “[NYC]’s motion to stay the auction for purposes of having this court determine the validity of the copyright termination notice filed by Shawn Carter a/k/a Jay-Z in connection with the work Reasonable Doubt, an asset owned by RAF, is denied.”
The judge also rejected New York City’s attempt to conduct discovery into Roc-A-Fella’s holdings, saying that kind of investigation was also beyond the scope of the current litigation. An attorney for the city declined to comment on the order.
The auction is currently scheduled for Oct. 21, but it has been postponed multiple times and could be delayed again. A minimum purchase price has been set at $3 million.
Young Disney Jr. viewers can now hear their favorite characters on SiriusXM, with the subscription service’s launch of Disney Jr. Radio.
SiriusXM announced Disney Jr. Radio, an exclusive channel themed to the TV network’s shows for the preschool demographic, on Wednesday (Oct. 2). It’s a companion to SiriusXM’s Disney Hits channel.
Playlists on the new Disney Jr. Radio will feature music from familiar shows like Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Marvel’s Spidey and His Amazing Friends and SuperKitties, as well as speciality programming throughout the day surrounding Disney Jr. content for the younger audience.
Here’s a rundown of the current Disney Jr. Radio programming schedule on SiriusXM, as of Oct. 2:
7-8 a.m. ET: “Mickey Mornings” — hosted by Mickey, of course — will be a parent’s helper in the morning routine of getting dressed, brushing teeth and having breakfast. It also kicks off the day with fun learning songs appropriate for preschoolers.
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12-1 p.m. ET: “Disney Jr. Let’s Play!” is hosted by Disney Jr.’s favorite mermaid, Ariel, and encourages kids to get some midday play and movement in with upbeat, high-energy music.
3-4 p.m. ET: “Disney Jr. Hits,” with Spidey as host, features a mix of popular Disney Jr. songs for kids to sing along to.
6-7 p.m. ET: “Disney Jr. Live on Tour” brings top tunes from the Disney Jr. tour to your speakers, with the help of host Bitsy, from SuperKitties.
1 p.m. ET, 4 p.m. ET, 7 p.m. ET, 10 p.m. ET: Keep those hours in mind if they align with nap or bedtime — or “quiet time,” aka when mom or dad need to rest while their four-year-old fights sleep. “Disney Jr. Lullabies” is all about gentle, soothing versions of Disney Jr. melodies.
Take a look at the Disney Jr. Radio channel on the SiriusXM app to see if it’s a fit for your family.
Ten-time Grammy Award nominee Jamey Johnson has signed a label deal with Warner Music Nashville, and is set to release a new song, “Someday When I’m Old,” on Oct. 4 through Warner Music Nashville and his own label Big Gassed Records.
“Someday When I’m Old,” written by Chris Lindsey, Aimee Mayo and Troy Verges, has continued to resonate with Johnson since he first sang the song’s demo in 2004.
“It was the last demo I sang before I started working with BNA Records,” Johnson said. “Aimee called me back then and she wanted to be able to say she hired me to sing my last demo. When I heard the song, I thought, ‘Wow! That is a great song!’”
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The song follows a slate of new music from Johnson in recent months, including “21 Guns,” “Sober,” “What a View” and Trudy.”
In a statement, Johnson named WMN co-chair and co-president Cris Lacy as a key factor in his signing. “The reason I signed with Warner Music Nashville is Cris Lacy. She is one of my longest-term friends I’ve had in the music business. We started our careers around the same time. She has been a friend to me and has only ever tried to help,” Johnson said.
He added, “She cares about me being able to put out music. She cares that I’m able to participate in my own career. Our conversations are unlike any other conversations I have had with any other label person.”
“For 14 years, those of us in the industry, and fans outside of it, have been begging Jamey Johnson to release another solo studio album,” Lacy said. “From day one, we heard the voice of a man driven by conviction, not commerciality. We saw in him our heroes like Johnny, Waylon and Merle. Warner Music Nashville has the great honor of reintroducing this incomparable artist to a worldwide audience…on his terms…proof that great things are worth waiting for!”
Johnson, a Grand Ole Opry member, is also known for his exemplary talent as a songwriter, having won song of the year accolades from both the Academy of Country Music and the Country Music Association in the same year. Johnson earned song of the year from the ACM and CMA for “Give It Away” in 2007 and “In Color” in 2009.
Facing a federal court order to turn over all his copies of a rare Wu-Tang Clan album, Martin Shkreli is warning a judge that he can’t remember all the people with whom he shared the album – and that it’s “highly likely” that other people still have copies.
In August, Judge Pamela K. Chen ordered Shkreli to hand over any copies of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, an ultra-rare Wu-Tang album that he once owned but was forced to forfeit to federal prosecutors to help pay restitution after he was convicted of securities fraud.
In a sworn statement on Monday, Shkreli promised the judge that he had turned over all copies that he could find in his possession. But he also said he didn’t know exactly who he had shared it with, and that some of them probably still have copies.
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“Because I shared the musical work several times several years ago, I cannot recall each and every time that I have shared the musical work,” he told the judge. “It is possible, and indeed I find it highly likely, that one of the many people who viewed, heard, or otherwise accessed the musical work via my social media recorded the musical work and retains a copy of the same.”
Wu-Tang’s fabled album was recorded in secret and published just once, on a CD secured in an engraved nickel and silver box. In addition to the bizarre trappings, Once Upon came with strict legal stipulations — namely, that the one-of-a-kind album could not be released to the general public until 2103.
In 2015, Shkreli — soon to become infamous as the man who intentionally spiked the price of crucial AIDS medications — bought Once Upon at auction for $2 million. But after he was convicted of securities fraud in 2017, he forfeited it to federal prosecutors to help pay his multi-million dollar restitution sentence. PleasrDAO, a collective of early NFT collectors and digital artists, then bought the album from the government in 2021 for $4 million, and in 2024 acquired the copyrights and other rights for another $750,000.
Amid recent efforts to monetize Once Upon, Pleasr sued Shkreli in June after he made threats to release the album publicly and destroy the exclusivity that the company had purchased. The lawsuit accused him of both breaching the federal forfeiture order and violating federal trade secrets law, which protects valuable proprietary information from misappropriation.
In August, Judge Chen granted Pleasr a preliminary injunction requiring Shkreli to hand over any copies of Once Upon that were still in his possession. His attorneys had argued Shkreli had the right to create private copies when he owned the album and could retain them even after he forfeited the original copy, but the judge rejected that argument.
Responding to the injunction order on Monday, Shkreli told the judge he had “searched my devices, electronic accounts, and other personal effects” and handed over any copies he owned. He swore that he had done so “under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States of America.”
But Judge Chen’s injunction also included another requirement: That he divulge the “names and contact information of the individuals to whom he distributed the data and files.” On that front, Shkreli offered less info on Monday.
“Between 2015 and 2021, I recall occasionally sharing the musical work, primarily by sending digital files of the musical work to others via email, [and] also saved copies of the musical work on USB or other drives and gave those drives to others,” Shkreli said, before saying that he “cannot recall” each of those occasions.
He also told the judge that he had “shared the musical work on my social media pages or livestreams” on at least three occasions, including once in 2023 and again in 2024. It was during these public postings, Shkreli said, that someone likely created copies of the album.
Both sides did not immediately return requests for comment on Monday’s filing.