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Today we are releasing U.S. recorded music revenue data for the first half of 2023, reflecting 9.3% growth over the first half of 2022 — the ninth straight year of positive growth.
With overall first-half revenues hitting an all-time high of $8.4 billion at retail value and paid streaming subscriptions nearing 96 million, this report makes clear the strength of American recorded music’s fundamentals.
For example, this new data shows broad strength across formats — especially digital streaming, which now comprises some 84% of recorded music revenues and grew at a robust 10.3% rate this period. Looking solely at paid streaming subscriptions, that figure climbs to 11%.
In fact, paid subscription services were responsible for nearly two-thirds of total revenues and more than three-quarters of streaming revenues. And they continued to grow at an even faster rate than ad-supported revenues.
But it’s not only streaming; the new data also show the lasting power of physical formats — which grew by 5% — including growth in the value of sales of CDs and vinyl. Overall, physical revenues reached their highest level since a full decade ago, topping $880 million so far this year.
And digital and customized radio music revenues, which include SoundExchange distributions for revenues from services like SiriusXM and internet radio stations, grew 16% to $657 million for the period.
As we’re fond of saying, “Music doesn’t just happen.” This success reflects the hard work, innovation, and creative genius of the artists, songwriters, labels, publishers, and services that make up the U.S. music community.
Finally, with annual Latin music revenues in the U.S. exceeding $1 billion for the first time in 2022 and the first half of 2023 showing continued growth faster than overall revenues, Latin music continues to shine — both economically and creatively. We look forward to releasing a full report on the Latin segment during Hispanic Heritage Month and as a capstone to our upcoming RIAA Honors Celebration of Latin music where we will recognize legends Gloria and Emilio Estefan, superstar Sebastián Yatra and other Latin music trailblazers as well as the policymakers who protect it all.
RIAA is proud to develop and release this transparent data which shows the continued power and vitality of U.S. recorded music.
Mitch Glazier is chairman/CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America.
Recorded-music revenues in the United States grew 9.3% in the first half of 2023, reaching an all-time mid-year high of $8.4 billion at retail value, the RIAA said in its mid-year report released today (Sept. 18). That reflects a second year in a row of 9% increases at the mid-year mark, as growth steadies after the upheaval of the pandemic led to market unpredictability.
Once again streaming was the primary driver of both revenue and growth, increasing 10.3% over the first half of 2022 to reach $7 billion, accounting for 84% of all revenue and marking the fourth year in a row that it has accounted for 83%-84% of the overall total.
Paid subscription streaming accounted for the bulk of that number, growing 11% year over year to $5.5 billion, up from $5 billion halfway through 2022 — making up 65.4% of the total revenue figure, and 78.6% of streaming. Notably, the RIAA points out that subscription streaming revenue is growing at a faster rate than the average number of subscriptions — the latter number is up to 95.8 million, from 90 million last year, up 6% — suggesting that some of the price hikes instituted by digital service providers like Apple Music and Amazon Music have begun yielding results. (Increases from YouTube Music Premium and Spotify are too recent to be reflected in the first half of this year.)
Ad-supported streaming, however, is a different story. Total revenue from such services was essentially flat year-over-year, at $870 million, up just 0.6% from 2022. Digital and customized radio revenues were up 16% year over year, reaching $657 million; within that, SoundExchange distributions ticked up 7% to $498 million.
Overall, sales revenue reached $1.1 billion, up slightly from the same period last year, with the growth in physical sales offsetting a decline in digital downloads. Digital sales accounted for just 3% of revenues, and dropped 12% year over year to $225, with digital albums dropped 12% to $107 million and digital tracks declining 14% to $97 million.
Meanwhile, physical revenues of $882 million marked the highest level since the first half of 2013, growing 5% year over year. Vinyl continued to dominate, accounting for 72% ($632 million) of the sector, despite growing just 1.3% year over year, while CD revenue grew 14.3%, to $236 million. Vinyl, for the third year in a row, outsold CDs. But as a window into how prices are changing, unit sales of both vinyl (down 1.8% to 23.4 million) and CDs (down 17.2% to 15.1 million) both declined, despite those increases in the revenue derived from them.
“This report describes a thriving, growing music ecosystem that continues to reach new heights and shape our culture,” RIAA chairman/CEO Mitch Glazier said in a statement accompanying the report. “And it reflects the creative human genius and hard work of all the artists, songwriters, labels, publishers and services who make the music happen and meet fans and audiences where they are in today’s forward looking and innovative music community.”
Litmus Music, a catalog rights company backed by private-equity giant Carlyle Group LP, said on Monday (Sept. 18) it acquired the rights to Katy Perry’s five studio albums released for Capitol Records, including her Grammy-nominated Teenage Dream.
According to sources, Litmus paid $225 million for Perry’s stake in the master recording royalties and music publishing rights to her five albums released between 2008 and 2020—One of the Boys, Teenage Dream, PRISM, Witness and Smile. Litmus declined to comment on the deal terms.
Perry’s catalog sale, finalized earlier this year, follows other 2023 music rights deals like Justin Bieber’s $200-million sale to Hipgnosis Songs Capital, demonstrating that household name artists can still command top dollar even as high interest rates moderate investors’ appetites for song rights.
From her breakout single “I Kissed A Girl” in July 2008 to the five chart-topping songs from 2010’s Teenage Dream, Perry has notched a total of nine No. 1s on the Billboard Hot 100. During a musical era that saw major hits from other female pop stars like Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Taylor Swift, and Adele, Perry remains the first woman and only second artist ever (after Michael Jackson) to send five songs from the same album to the summit of the Hot 100. Those songs are “California Gurls,” “Firework,” “E.T.,” “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)” and “Teenage Dream.”
In addition to releasing 2017’s Witness and 2020’s Smile, Perry is winding down a blockbuster Las Vegas residency that she started in late 2021.
The “Roar” singer’s professional relationship with Dan McCarroll, Litmus co-founder and chief creative officer, dates back to 2010 when McCarroll was president of Capitol Records, the company said.
“Katy Perry is a creative visionary who has made a major impact across music, TV, film, and philanthropy,” McCarroll said. “I’m so honored to be partnering with her again and to help Litmus manage her incredible repertoire.”
Launched in August 2022 with a $500-million-investment from Carlyle’s Global Credit Platform, Litmus has acquired publishing and recording rights of artists from a range of genres, including Keith Urban‘s master recordings and a package of publishing and performance copyrights from super producer benny blanco.
Hank Forsyth, Litmus co-founder and chief executive officer, called Perry’s “essential” songs “part of the global cultural fabric.”
“We are so grateful to be working together again with such a trusted partner,” said Forsyth, an industry veteran previously of Warner Chappell and Blue Note.
“We believe this is a testament to the team’s ability to partner with the world’s top artists. Katy’s iconic songs have not only achieved outstanding commercial success but have significantly influenced popular culture,” said Matt Settle, managing director at Carlyle.
Jann Wenner, founder of Rolling Stone and a co-founder and former chairman of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation in New York, is no longer serving on the foundation’s Board of Directors, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation confirms to Billboard.
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“Jann Wenner has been removed from the Board of Directors of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation,” the foundation says in statement released on Saturday (Sept. 16).
Billboard reached out to John Sykes, current chairman of the foundation, and president and CEO Joel Peresman for further comment.
The move comes directly following an interview published by the New York Times Friday, in which Wenner, 77, addressed criticism of the scope of coverage in his new book The Masters, published through Little, Brown and Company.
In The Masters Wenner looks back at a collection of his interviews conducted in his years at Rolling Stone — all with white men, including Bono, Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia, Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen and Pete Townshend.
The book noticeably does not feature any interviews with people of color or female musicians. Wenner notes in his introduction that neither are in his “zeitgeist.”
“When I was referring to the zeitgeist, I was referring to Black performers, not to the female performers, OK? Just to get that accurate,” Wenner told the NYT‘s David Marchese. “The selection was not a deliberate selection. It was kind of intuitive over the years; it just fell together that way. The people had to meet a couple criteria, but it was just kind of my personal interest and love of them. Insofar as the women, just none of them were as articulate enough on this intellectual level.”
Wenner clarified: “It’s not that they’re not creative geniuses. It’s not that they’re inarticulate, although, go have a deep conversation with Grace Slick or Janis Joplin. Please, be my guest. You know, Joni was not a philosopher of rock ’n’ roll. She didn’t, in my mind, meet that test. Not by her work, not by other interviews she did. The people I interviewed were the kind of philosophers of rock … Of Black artists — you know, Stevie Wonder, genius, right? I suppose when you use a word as broad as ‘masters,’ the fault is using that word. Maybe Marvin Gaye, or Curtis Mayfield? I mean, they just didn’t articulate at that level.”
He added that his selection was “intuitive” and noted, “You know, just for public relations sake, maybe I should have gone and found one Black and one woman artist to include here that didn’t measure up to that same historical standard, just to avert this kind of criticism. Which, I get it. I had a chance to do that. Maybe I’m old-fashioned and I don’t give a [expletive] or whatever. I wish in retrospect I could have interviewed Marvin Gaye. Maybe he’d have been the guy. Maybe Otis Redding, had he lived, would have been the guy.”
Wenner, who was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a non-performer in 2004, was one of the founders of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation in 1983. The founding group intended to celebrate rock ‘n’ roll and honor its icons; the foundation began inducting musicians in 1986. Wenner served as chairman from 2006 through 2020, with Sykes filling the role upon Wenner’s retirement.
He left Rolling Stone in 2019 when the publication was acquired by Penske Media Corporation, which is also Billboard‘s parent company.
London’s O2 Academy Brixton has been permitted to reopen as a music venue so long as it meets “extensive and robust” new safety measures, following a fatal crowd crush last year.
The 5,000-capacity venue has been closed after two people died and several people were seriously injured during a crowd stampede outside a sold-out concert by Nigerian singer Asake on Dec. 15, 2022. A 21-year-old woman injured on the night remains in hospital in a critical condition.
In an announcement on Friday (Sept. 15), Lambeth Council said the venue would be allowed to host live music events again but “only once it is compliant” with 77 new safety conditions.
They include stronger doors, new crowd management systems, more detailed risk assessments, a new ticketing system, a new centralised control and command centre, as well as new security and management.
Responding to the council’s decision, which followed a two-day hearing, O2 Academy Brixton owner and operator Academy Music Group (AMG) said it was “committed to ensuring” the tragic events of Dec. 15 “can never be repeated.”
“Our heartfelt condolences remain with the family and friends of [victims] Rebecca Ikumelo and Gaby Hutchinson,” the London-based company said in a statement.
AMG said it will hold test events before reopening O2 Academy Brixton at an unspecified date.
Crowd management company Showsec has been brought in to look after security for the venue, replacing AP Security, which has been criticized for its operation at Brixton, including allegations that some staff regularly took bribes to let people into concerts without tickets.
When O2 Academy Brixton reopens, operators AMG will be subject to “rigorous independent scrutiny to ensure public safety,” said Lambeth Council’s licensing sub-committee.
“The robust, far-reaching and enforceable measures we have determined must be taken by the Academy, subject to independent oversight and scrutiny, will result in [it] being among the most highly regulated licensed venues in the country,” said the council committee in its 50-page report.
During the two-day hearing to determine whether O2 Academy Brixton should reopen, much of which was held in private, London’s Metropolitan Police said it didn’t have confidence in AMG — which runs 18 music venues across the U.K. — as the licensee, but didn’t want to see the building permanently closed.
The hearing saw several other people speak in favour of AMG’s application, including local businesses and music promoter Mazin Tappuni, who told the committee that the closure of O2 Academy Brixton was putting off some international artists from visiting the U.K. because of a shortage of similarly sized venues in the British capital.
More than 110,000 people signed an online petition to save the historic venue, which opened in 1929 as a cinema and began hosting live music gigs in the early 1980s. The Smiths, David Bowie, Madonna, Bob Dylan, Blur and the Clash are just a few of the famous acts to have played there.
“Brixton Academy has consistently held a special place in the hearts of music aficionados, and its cultural significance is immeasurable,” said Michael Kill, CEO of trade group The Night Time Industries Association (NTIA), in a statement welcoming the council’s decision.
Kill said the venue’s safe reopening would help ensure “its continued success as a hub for live music and entertainment.”
A police investigation into whether any criminal offences were committed on Dec. 15, 2022, is ongoing.
NSYNC thrilled fans Wednesday night at the MTV Video Music Awards when they came out to present Taylor Swift with the VMA for best pop video for “Anti-Hero.” The moment would turn out to be bittersweet for fans hoping for a reunion tour from the five-member group, however; Billboard has confirmed there are no such plans.
It turns out that *NSYNC star Justin Timberlake has touring plans of his own for 2024. Billboard has confirmed that Timberlake has holds on dates at arenas in North America for a major run, with sources saying the trek will be accompanied by a new album from the singer. As they say in the business, Timberlake is going back into cycle, which means there won’t be any full-fledged *NSYNC tour any time soon.
That leaves some serious money on the table for the group’s other four members. While not a boy band, the reunion of Blink-182 earlier this year shows that fans are willing to pay big bucks for nostalgia. An arena tour could gross for the five could easily generate $2.2 million to $2.4 million per night in ticket sales — equaling a take-home of $265,000 to $290,000 per night for each member of the group (assuming the profits were split evenly). That means a full 40-city North America tour could gross upwards of $95 million. Add in merch sales and other opportunities, and it could easily be a $120 million earner.
On the bright side, if *NSYNC does decide to return to the road sometime in the future, the road map to successful boy band reunification has been charted by their contemporaries –notably New Kids on the Block, who reunited in 2008 more than 14 years after the end of the band’s Face the Music tour in 1994.
“There really wasn’t a proven runway for pop bands of any kind to reunite and feel like it was going to be a financial success,” says talent manager Jared Paul, the group’s manager and architect of its 2008 reunion and tour.
“It has to start with the music — that’s what turned the idea of ‘maybe someday’ into a reality for New Kids when some music fell into their laps that really inspired them,” explains Paul. “The real challenge though was, it was so unproven, we had to make so many decisions that we’re just betting on ourselves.”
Today, Paul runs Faculty Inc., a full-service entertainment company, tour producer and partner with Live Nation. Besides managing New Kids on the Block (who have now been reunited longer than they were broken up), Faculty Inc. also owns the touring rights for Dancing with the Stars and So You Think You Can Dance and manages the recently reunited boy band Big Time Rush.
Paul says he’s rooting for an *NYSNC reunion one day and says pulling off a boy band reunion is the ultimate moon shot — where everything has to align perfectly for there to be even a chance of success.
“You have to align your schedules, but more importantly, you have to align your creative vision,” says Paul. “You have to be willing, if you’ve gone off on your own or shifted your focus on your family, to essentially agree on your time commitment, what you are going to sing, where you’re going to tour, what you’re going to wear and, if there is new music involved, which direction the album is going to lean.”
There’s also the challenge of rebuilding the *NSYNC business, but much of that work has already been done thanks to licensing deals with merch companies like Epic Rights, which manages some of the group’s rights. That can significantly reduce the window of time it will take to reunite.
There are also murmurs that the group could reunite without Timberlake. The band has fielded offers for a four-man reunion in the past, following its appearance at Coachella in 2019. But a source with knowledge of the group’s thinking says it was never seriously considered, noting that anything short of a five-person comeback is off the table.
Warner Chappell Music entered into new contracts with Guy Moot, co-chair/CEO, and Carianne Marshall, co-chair/COO, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday (Sept. 15).
The new employment agreements go into effect on Oct. 1 and lock in both executives until Mar. 31, 2028. Both Moot and Marshall enjoyed 25% raises; the former’s base salary jumped from $1,750,000 to $2,187,500, while the latter’s rose from $1,250,000 to $1,562,500. Annual discretionary bonus targets for the pair increased as well, climbing from $1,750,000 to $2,187,500.
Marshall ascended to the COO role in April 2018, while Moot was named CEO the following year. They’ve since moved to sign acts like Frank Ocean, the Quincy Jones catalog and the Pop Smoke estate. “I don’t want us to be looking at every deal just because it’s in the market — we want to pick the winners, be selective [but] aggressive in how we close those deals,” Moot told Billboard in 2020.
“We can drive value for a lot of these catalogs by not just continuing to take good care of the big copyrights but also doing a deep dive,” Marshall added. “For the first time, we have a global head of synchronization, which is really important: We want to work with anyone who wants to use our songs to try to figure out how to create solutions for them. It’s important to us to be able to search our catalog to find something in every genre and at every price point with a quick turnaround.”
In the first quarter of 2019, Warner Chappell had a 16.13% share of the top 100 radio songs. In the first quarter of 2023, that share rose to 20.71%, though it fell to 17.21% in the second quarter. Also in the second quarter, Warner Chappell’s Hot 100 Songs market share was 19.94%.
Will Hipgnosis Songs Fund, a trailblazer in making music an alternative asset class in the financial world, fight to see another day? The sale of catalogs for $465 million, announced Thursday, is meant to help Hipgnosis Song Fund’s sagging share price and bring it closer to the company’s per-share net asset value (NAV). But it also intends to give investors a reason to vote for a five-year continuation in the annual meeting that’s likely to be held in October.
Given its need to shore up investor support, the catalog sale didn’t come as a surprise. Board chair Andrew Sutch said at a July 13 investor presentation that the board was pursuing options to boost shareholder value, and Hipgnosis has said that many of its largest shareholders favor share buybacks and partial debt repayment to help the struggling share price. This transaction provides the capital for those measures: Hipgnosis intends to use $180 million for share buybacks and $250 million to pay down the revolving credit facility.
Whether the deal ultimately succeeds depends on investors’ belief they are getting a good deal on the sale — the majority of which is to a sister company, the Blackstone-backed Hipgnosis Songs Capital (a joint venture with the royalty fund’s investment advisory, Hipgnosis Song Management, led by Merck Mecuriadis). Hipgnosis Songs Fund has long traded at a steep discount to its per-share NAV. That could partly be explained by higher interest rates that make the royalty fund, launched when interest rates were lower, a relatively less attractive investment to safer bonds. A larger factor could be investors’ lack of faith in NAV. Hipgnosis, which has argued the share price does not accurately reflect the value of its catalog, is now giving the market a transaction to help prove its point.
In the days following the announcement, some analysts have shown concern about the deal’s terms, transparency and related-party buyer. Investec analysts criticized the deal for valuing the assets “as being little more than the IPO price” in an investor note on Friday (Sept. 15) and stated, “there is substantial value leakage to related parties that again sadly raises significant corporate governance concerns.”
Numis predicts that Hipgnosis investors’ views will be “mixed, particularly given the Round Hill offer,” analysts wrote in a Sept. 14 investor note. In that deal, announced Sept. 8, Round Hill Music Royalty Fund — a royalty fund listed on the London Stock Exchange like Hipgnosis Songs Fund — received a buyout offer from U.S. music company Concord. Unlike the Hipgnsosis deal, Concord bid for the entire publicly traded company — at a price 11.5% below Round Hill’s net asset value. It’s a more straightforward transaction than Hipgnosis’ proposed partial catalog sale.
Numis believes that Hipgnosis’ share price’s discount to NAV “may persist for some time,” which could mean the board and the investment advisor, Hipgnosis Songs Management, “will continue to come under pressure.”
Analysts at Stifel, who have long been critical of Hipgnosis and Round Hill’s music royalty funds’ valuation methodologies, focused on the value Hipgnosis Songs Fund was extracting from Hipgnosis Songs Capital. The $465 million transaction consists of two parts. The first disposal worth $440 million, which accounts for 95% of the purchase price, is 17.5% below the fair value and 26% above the catalogs’ acquisition price.
Little is known about the smaller, second disposal that amounts to a $25 million slice of a catalog acquired from Kobalt Music in 2020 for $323 million. Hipgnosis Songs Capital is not the buyer of the second disposal.
Adding to the deal’s complexity, Hipgnosis Songs Fund is on the hook for bonuses and other payments under the original acquisition agreements; the company believes that will amount to $5.5 million, and it will be capped at $30 million. In addition, Hipgnosis Songs Capital is due royalties on the acquired catalog earned going back to Jan. 1 — about $15.3 million through Sept. 14.
“The complex nature of the deal suggests that it is hard to say the NAV has been validated,” wrote Stifel analyst Sachin Saggar.
If the share price is any gauge of investors’ initial reaction to the deal, opinions aren’t good. Shares of Hipgnosis Songs Fund dropped 6.5% on Thursday and another 7% on Friday. The 13% two-day decline eliminated nearly all of the 15.7% bump the share price received on Sept. 8 following news of Concord’s bid for Round Hill.
If investors are considering what Hipgnosis Songs Fund has left after the sale, they will find many jewels remaining in its catalog, including Neal Schon of Journey, Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tom DeLonge of Blink-182, Neil Young, Blondie, Steve Winwood, Rodney Jerkins, Chrissie Hyde of the Pretenders, RZA, Teddy Geiger and The Chainsmokers. Five of those names — Journey, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Blink-182, Fleetwood Mac and The Chainsmokers — rank in the year-to-date top 500 recording artists ranked by global on-demand audio streams, according to Luminate. Two of them, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Fleetwood Mac, are in the top 100. It’s also keeping Walter Afanasieff, co-writer of Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” which is a No. 1 song in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada every November and December.
Hipgnosis is giving up some quality, though: The 29 catalogs in the first portfolio include 21 of 473 songs in Spotify’s Billions Club, five of Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs, and five of YouTube’s 30 most-viewed music videos. They include some older music by Barry Manilow and Rick James as well as newer artists like Poo Bear, RedOne, Martin Bresso and Colombian star Shakira, who ranks No. 55 in global audio on-demand streams. But, on average, these are younger songs with less proven royalty histories than the average song in Hipgnosis Songs Fund’s portfolio. In general, younger songs are less valuable than older, more established songs. Shareholders will vote on the sale at the annual general meeting.
The second disposal represents “non-core” assets worth $25 million that represent a small portion of the 33,000 songs acquired from Kobalt Music for $323 million in 2020. That deal also included the 18,000-song publishing catalog of Canadian music company Nettwerk. Hipgnosis Songs Fund said at the time it paid Kobalt an 18.3 times net publisher share multiple for the catalogs.
Hipgnosis believes the two disposals achieve multiple aims. The $465 million price tag is “the smallest possible that would provide the required capital” for share buybacks and debt repayment, the company stated in a press release. Also, the catalogs the company chose to sell leave intact “the fundamental investment case for Hipgnosis Songs Fund….by protecting the strength of the remaining portfolio.” Come October, we’ll see what investors are thinking.
As the COO/executive vp of Sony Latin Iberia, María Fernández is one of the most powerful people in Latin music. She not only runs the operational and financial aspects of the largest Latin music company but is also an artist and management-forward executive who oversees her multiple divisions with a famously empathetic style.
This week, Fernández’s work is at the forefront, as the RIAA Honors, which is celebrating Latin music this year, announced it was recognizing her as industry executive of the year for 2023. Fernandez will be feted during a ceremony in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday (Sept. 19) alongside Gloria Estefan (Icon), Emilio Estefan (industry trailblazer), Sebastian Yatra (artist of the year) and representatives Veronica Escobar and María Elvira Salazar (policymakers of the year).
A native of Venezuela who started her career in media, Fernández is a finance whiz who joined Sony as CFO and rose to the rank of COO five years ago. Her role expanded during the pandemic when she made mentoring and training young executives a central part of her job and a personal mission. She now oversees the strategic approach of the company and all of its different operations, including finance, people experience, technology and acquisitions, and is regularly involved in big artist deals. And ahead of the RIAA Honors, Fernández is Billboard’s Executive of the Week.
Here, Fernández discusses her finance background, her role as a mentor within her community and the state of Latin music around the globe. “It’s a moment in history when you can show that Latin music is not only one genre, and the fact that we have amazing artists representing each one of those genres and seeing that on global charts is extremely fulfilling.”
You have a background in finance. How do you apply that to your job at a music company?
I think I bring to the more strategic, financial and operational areas the understanding of artists’ needs and therefore how we can organize ourselves to incorporate those needs in everything that we do. For instance, an artist will want to do a more expensive video because they have a creative vision. From a purely financial standpoint, you won’t see a return from that investment because the streaming of the video won’t compensate for the level of investment. But when you understand why that is important for the artist and how it fits into the whole strategy, not only do you understand the logic of what you want to do, but you can sell it.
That’s interesting because “Let me talk to finance” is among the more dreaded words one can hear.
Historically, the financial group is the team that says no to everything. And there’s a struggle between the creative and financial groups. One thing we’re trying to do more and more is make sure both sides understand each other’s needs. By the way, you can say exactly the same thing when we’re talking about employees because the base of the values in our region is that we have two rosters: artists and employees, and we need to take care of both of them. You need superstar employees and executives to manage superstar artists.
I think you’re unusual in that you work often and directly with managers. I cannot tell you how many times a manager has told me, “I’m meeting with Maria Fernández today.” What happens when your mutual needs don’t align?
I work with a lot of managers and maybe there’s a logic as to why a manager needs something for their artist, but that need doesn’t necessarily align with our needs in that moment. But it’s always [about] how to make sure we understand each other even if we’re not always going to be on the same page. To me, it’s the messaging. The way I see it, we are here to serve. We’re here to make things easier, [even] with all the limitations we have in a corporation and making sure we follow procedure.
What are you proud of in the last year?
The presence of our artists on the charts and the variety of genres on the charts. Right now, you have urban songs, but you have Shakira on the top of the charts with a song like “Acróstico.” Then you have regional Mexican artists like Fuerza Regida and an artist like Luísa Sonza from Brazil at the top of Spotify Brazil with a bossa nova song called “Chico.” It’s a moment in history when you can show that Latin music is not only one genre, and the fact that we have amazing artists representing each one of those genres and seeing that on global charts is extremely fulfilling. And to be honest, what I’m doing in terms of helping the next generation of executives, especially women, to make sure they’re prepared continues to be the highlight of my career at this point. I’ve dedicated a lot of time to that and I feel very proud of the accomplishments in terms of getting them ready to be promoted, changing jobs, doing new things in the organization.
What did you specifically do in terms of your mentorship work?
What I’m doing personally is I am dedicating a significant amount of time to take care of the career development of employees in the U.S. and also in the region, in order to allow them to take over executive leadership positions in the future. We do mentoring, talk to them, we develop career plans, if they have an issue we discuss the issues, if they need training in a particular area, through conversations we figure out what they’re missing to get to the next level. We follow up on plans to make sure they have everything they need.
That sounds very time-consuming for a busy executive. How do you manage?
You’d be surprised. Sometimes you don’t need to do too much. Sometimes someone simply has a blind spot and the second you tell them about it, they can go in and fix it. We’re always busy. And we’re not always taking the time to analyze where you’re at, what do you like, what makes you happy. My policy is very simple. Anyone who wants to talk to me can get on my agenda. If they need to talk to me every week, I’ll be there every week.
Is this mandatory?
No. But anyone that asks me to mentor them, I do. At this point, it’s 80% women and 20% men. And the fact that I can do it, shows that others can do it too. If we can have that ripple effect that we can make a little bit of time in our very busy schedules to help someone else when they need it, I think by default this will make us a better company. Formally I started during the pandemic, around 2020. And I’m proud to say that some of the people I started mentoring at that time are now in senior positions in the organization.
I still see very few women in really senior leadership positions in our industry. How can this change?
I am very happy to report that I’m seeing it happening. I personally don’t like the idea of a woman getting the position because she’s a woman, but because she’s the best candidate. And what I’m proud of is, we’ve been able to have many more women in senior positions applying and making sure they’re the best of the best. In Sony Music, we have such talented women in the structure that I don’t think it’s going to be challenging to find very compelling female candidates when you’re trying to fill a position.
What do you see happening with Latin music now?
A big difference is people [who are not Latin] are used to equating “Latin music is urban music,” and that’s not the case. Latin music is very rich, it has a lot of genres, it has a lot of history. “Latino” is not reggaetón. Latino is 100 genres per country. And that to me means more and more artists are open to collaborating with artists from different places. Camilo collaborated with an artist from India; Luísa Sonza is on a song that features Demi Lovato, singing in Portuguese. Soon we will see what will happen with Korean music being more present in the U.S. I think it’s a new era in terms of music.
What is your biggest challenge?
The challenge for a region like ours is, how do we make sure we collaborate with everything that is happening and make sure people understand the music, the artist and what they want to accomplish? How do you create global artists when their presence in some charts is limited? For example, in Brazil, over 90% of the chart is local music, and in general, most of the countries are going back to local music. So, as a global company, how do you balance those things? The importance of the local artist, [and then] the local artist wants to be global. How do we fulfill those dreams?
Peggy Gou has expanded her WME representation and is now globally represented by the agency. Based in Berlin, Gou’s 2023 tour schedule has included EDC Mexico, Sónar Barcelona, KappaFuturFestival, Lollapalooza Stockholm, Electric Castle, Creamfields North and ARC Music Festival. Upcoming plays include Australia’s Beyond The Valley and Wildlands festivals. She’s also played events including Primavera, […]