Business
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Universal Music Publishing China has signed Tia Ray to a global publishing deal. Ray is a superstar in her home country and made history in 2018 with her song “Be Apart,” which sold enough worldwide to earn the No. 7 spot of IFPI’s Top 10 Global Singles Chart that year. She was the only Chinese artist to crack the top ten that year.
Reservoir has acquired the rights to rock talent Greg Kilhn. This includes publishing, recording, and distribution rights to Kihn’s Beserkley Records-era catalog. Songs from this time period include “Jeopardy” and “The Breakup Song (They Don’t Write ‘Em),” both of which charted on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart in the early 1980s.
Cutting Edge Media Music has acquired a majority interest in White Stork, a publishing company founded by film/tv composer Tom Howe (Ted Lasso, Daisy Jones and The Six, The Great British Bakeoff). As part of the deal, CEMM has invested in growing the publisher as a joint venture. Tamsin Dove, Chief Commercial Officer, has been selected to expand the business and drive global sync strategy.
Raedio has signed three new acts: Patrick Paige II, Ego Ella May, and Flwr Chyld. Each act will work with Raedio’s record label, music supervision and podcast ecosystem as part of their new agreements with the Issa Rae-founded firm.
Position Music has signed artist and songwriter KANNER to a worldwide publishing deal. Though she has earned credits on songs released by Katy Perry, Royal & the Serpent, Krewella, Siiickbrain, Rebecca Black and more, KANNER is also an artist in her own right. Her next single “MEGAPHONE MOUTH” will be released Friday, July 21.
Concord Music Publishing signs country artist and songwriter Tyler Halverson to his first-ever publishing deal. The worldwide agreement includes all of his future works.
Daytripper Music Publishing, the creative division of CCS Rights Management, has signed Ron Gallo to a worldwide co-publishing deal. On the label side, the Philadelphia-based singer songwriter is signed to Kill Rock Stars.
MNRK Music Group has partnered with Steel Sessions and its producers Francis “Buda Da Future” Ubiera, Dan “Grandz Muzik” Garcia, and Michael “Mike Kuz” Kuzoian. As part of the new partnership, the producers — along with the rising talent from Steel Sessions — will develop artists in the studio, sign them to MNRK, and provide production services for MNRK Urban’s releases.
Global recording industry trade body IFPI announced on Thursday that Frances Moore will step down as CEO at the end of the year, ending a consequential tenure that began in 2010. Moore has agreed to assist in the search for her successor at the organization, which represents more than 8,000 record company members worldwide, including all three major labels.
Moore joined IFPI in 1994 as regional director for Europe; her 13-year tenure as chief executive makes her its longest-serving leader ever and, according to IFPI, the longest-serving leader of a recorded music trade body.
Under Moore’s leadership, IFPI has guided the global industry through a throng of seismic changes, namely its transition to digital streaming, along with major initiatives to strengthen copyright protections and intellectual property rights and the ongoing fight against music piracy. Those initiatives helped lay the groundwork for the recorded music industry’s year-on-year recovery from the lows of just over a decade ago when piracy was rampant.
When Moore started at CEO in 2010, global music sales had fallen to $13.8 billion from a high of over $22 billion in 1999. Last year, recorded music sales had rebounded to $26.2 billion, a rise of 9% on the previous year and the eighth consecutive year of growth, according to the organization’s most recent “Global Music Report.”
Noteworthy achievements during her 13-year tenure include the hard-fought enactment of the EU Copyright Directive – a landmark piece of legislation, which made online platforms like YouTube liable for unlicensed content, effectively closing safe harbor protections in Europe, and which was passed in 2019 after extensive lobbying from IFPI.
Moore’s reign has also seen IFPI take a leading role in combating stream manipulation and copyright infringing websites around the world. Legal action taken or coordinated by IFPI in the digital era has led to around 5,200 infringing sites being blocked or shut down, says the London-based organization.
As the music industry has become more global, IFPI also created the IFPI Global Charts and in 2015, IFPI struck a blow to piracy by aligning the global release of new music to Fridays.
“After three decades with IFPI, thirteen of which as its Global CEO, it is time for me to hang up my spurs!” Moore,who trained as a barrister, said in a statement. “I have loved working for IFPI and the recording industry and feel so fortunate to have had the opportunity to serve in this role. I am very proud and appreciative of the IFPI team, both now and over the years. Every achievement has been the result of a team effort. ”
She continued, “I have had the good fortune of living through so much of the industry’s transformation from analogue to digital. On my first day at IFPI thirty years ago, I was dealing with legislation on blank tape levies and here we are today dealing with legislation on AI!”
Along with advocating and taking actions on behalf of it members, IFPI of course endures as the recorded music industry’s main resource for documenting the industry’s progress. It’s annual “Global Music Report” continues to be the standard, and under Moore IFPI launched the IFPI Global Charts, the industry’s official annual ranking for the best-selling artists.
In a written statement, the IFPI Main Board said, thanked Moore for “navigating IFPI through arguably the most demanding and complex period of modern music’s history. At once, she has led us through music’s digital transition and the industry’s expansion worldwide, enabling a return to growth that mutually benefits artists, labels and the broader music ecosystem. Not only has she herself been an excellent and effective advocate for labels and creators, but Frances has built an incredible team of professionals to assure that her legacy will carry on.”
BALI — When Denis Ladegaillerie takes his place on stage for the Music Matters conference in Singapore later this year, the Believe chief executive officer should have some tales to share. Success stories.
Ten years ago, Believe (then Believe Digital) embarked on an Asia Pacific odyssey. The risk is paying off, thanks in no small part to the expanding reach and adoption of streaming services, and the waves of regional acts passing through the pipeline, crossing borders like never before.
Ladegaillerie, the Paris-based music company’s founder, returns to the annual summit this September brimming with confidence for his business’s regional operations, which are now active in 15 APAC territories. Royalties to labels and artists have ballooned to €700 million ($784), Billboard can confirm. The magical €1 billion ($1.12 billion) milestone is on the horizon.
Believe established its APAC presence back in 2013, initially in Indonesia. Playing to the beat of its mantra, “local approach, global vision,” the brand set about building from scratch a network tuned to each local music scene, cognizant of the language, culture and genre specificities that make each market unique.
Believe paid tribute to its APAC origins in May by returning to Bali for a gathering of 130-plus staff, or “Believers” as they’re known within the company, from 11 countries.
Participants included Antoine El Iman; managing director of Southeast Asia and Australia/New Zealand; Dahlia Wijaya, country director, Indonesia; Georgette Tengco, country director, Philippines; Somwalee Limrachtamorn, country director, Thailand; and Mick Tarbuk, country manager, Australia & New Zealand, whose affiliate landed two ARIA No. 1 albums in 12 months, with Cub Sport’s Jesus At The Gay Bar (April 2023) and Northlane’s Obsidian (April 2022).
Cub Sport
Bryant
Also among guests, Believe’s streaming partners, including Paul Smith, managing director of YouTube Music APAC, one of the most powerful brands in the region (and also a guest speaker at ATM 2023), and several key artists, including Indonesia pop star Yura Yunita, a native of Bandung, West Java, who boasts more than 1.2 million followers on Instagram and upwards of 1 million subscribers to her YouTube channel.
The region “was untapped territory,” recounts Sylvain Delange, managing director Asia Pacific. “The business opportunity was tiny at the time because digital was not existent. Well, it existed, but it was ringback tones.”
The Frenchman is a big believer — in the traditional sense — that the pan-Asian music market could achieve lift-off; he was tapped to build the regional business from the ground up.
Previously, he served for five years in Tokyo, promoting French music abroad for the French Music Office. That organization no longer exists, though the relationships he built in Asia still do, and Delange got a head start.
Delange “is an instrumental part of the transformation of the market that we’ve been a part of,” notes Ladegaillerie.
Timing is everything. Launch before the streaming platforms mature and make inroads, and the ship has sunk before it sailed.
Start too late, you miss out.
“When you have international players, and especially big players, like Apple, Spotify or YouTube entering the market, that levels the playing field for everyone,” reckons Delange.
Those big players, when they arrived, brought with them certain standards. “Standards of business practices, content management, monetization, good practices, in terms of marketing releases, and so on,” he continued, creating “a much healthier environment for the music ecosystem.”
The Asian market is as exciting as it is diverse, and the recorded music business is spiking.
The numbers back it up.
Luminate’s 2023 “Midyear Music Report” found that, overall, on-demand audio and video streaming in the first half lifted by 107% year-on-year – a world-leading rate of growth.
And earlier, the IFPI reported that Asia notched double-digit growth for the third consecutive year, up by 15.4%, “outpacing the overall global growth rate.”
China, meanwhile, has joined the recording music industry’s elite. According to the IFPI’s Global Music Report, the world’s most populous market is now the No. 5 ranked country for the first time, bumping France into No. 6. APAC accounts for four of the top 10 markets (Japan at No. 2, South Korea at No. 7, Australia at No. 10), and four of the top 10 acts globally are from APAC – BTS, SEVENTEEN, Stray Kids, and Jay Chou.
Believe itself has evolved from pure distribution-driven business into one focused on “local content, globally,” explains Delange, who confirms the Asia Pacific activities has generated north of €700 million in distributions.
That pile includes its businesses in India, Southeast Asia, China, Australia, New Zealand and Japan, where Believe is ranked No. 3 in terms of digital market share, according to Oricon market research, behind Universal and Sony Music, and ahead of Warner Music.
Acquisitions, investments and partnerships will continue to play a part. Notable deals struck in recent years include the acquisition of a stake in Philippines-based Viva Music and Artists Group (VMAG); the acquisition of India’s Venus Music, and subsequent rebranded to Ishtar; and the purchase of a 76% interest in South Indian soundtrack specialist Think Music, all in 2021.
“The objective for us is to is to strengthen our position on market segment by bringing in people that have a very specific expertise,” explains Delange. “Our positioning is to basically build on our past 10-year success, continue to educate. There’s still a lot of education to be done on many topics. We will continue to build on our teams, we’re going to continue to invest in local players, we’re going to continue to build the partnerships closely with the DSPS.”
Soon, the “emerging markets” tag will be gone from the vernacular.
A decade from now, “Asia would have been very-well emerged,” says Delange. “We do anticipate that Asia Pacific is going to become the largest music market in the world in the next 10 years.”
Independent venue executive Andre Perry will serve as the new board president of the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA). Announced at the second annual NIVA conference held in Washington, D.C., from July 9-12, Perry was elected after serving as vp of the board since 2021.
“Our NIVA family, our members, represent so many threads of the independent performance world, and it is an honor to be named NIVA’s next Board President,” said Perry in a statement. “We are small club owners, we produce festivals, we run performing arts centers, we are promoters, we are comedy people, we are music heads, we are multidisciplinary performing arts workers, we run for-profits — big, medium, and small 00 and we run nonprofits at a range of sizes, we are government affiliated or part of universities and colleges, or we are part of nothing — committed, brilliant loners who just do what we do for the good of the cause.”
Perry, who also works as the executive director of the Hancher Auditorium and the Office of Performing Arts and Engagement at the University of Iowa, will take over the president role from NIVA co-founder and founding president of the board Dayna Frank, who held the position for the maximum term of three years. Frank will continue her advocacy leadership as chair of NIVA’s advocacy and policy committee and continue to serve on the board of directors.
Frank led the association through the passage of the Save Our Stages Act, which resulted in $16.25 billion dollars in emergency relief for the live entertainment sector during the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, as a driving force behind the Fix The Tix campaign, Frank will continue her critical efforts to protect consumers, artists, venues and festivals against harmful and deceptive ticketing practices.
“NIVA has made history in our three years of existence, and there are many challenges ahead for our industry. However, I know that our Association, chapter leaders, and members are capable of tackling these challenges because we have done it before,” said Frank in a statement. “One of those challenges is predatory ticket resellers. Together, independent venues, festivals and promoters will work with Congress to pass Fix the Tix and continue laying the groundwork to create the industry our fans deserve.”
NIVA’s membership also elected two new independent live entertainment industry leaders to its board of directors: Shahida Mausi and Jamie Loeb.
Mausi is president and CEO of the Right Productions, vp and chief strategic officer of the Black Promoters Collective (BPC) and operator of The Aretha Franklin Amphitheatre in Detroit.
Loeb is the senior vp of marketing at Nederlander Concerts. With more than 30 years of local, regional and national experience, she was instrumental in creating the vision for NIVA’s first two conferences and in planning NIVA’s Save Our Stages Fest in 2020.
“As NIVA embarks on this new chapter, the Association remains resolute in its mission to support, promote, and advocate for independent venues across the country,” said NIVA executive director Stephen Parker in a statement. “The appointment of Andre Perry as Board President, Dayna Frank’s continued leadership on federal advocacy, NIVA’s new slate of Board officers and the addition of Shahida Mausi and Jamie Loeb to the Board, signals a renewed commitment to advancing the interests of independent venues and festivals and ensuring their continued viability in an ever-evolving live entertainment ecosystem.”
Full 2023-2024 slate of NIVA Board Officers:
President: Andre Perry, executive director of the Hancher Auditorium and the Office of Performing Arts and Engagement, University of Iowa
Vp: Audrey Fix Schaefer, head of Communications at I.M.P.
Vp: Jim Brunberg, founder of Revolution Hall, Mississippi Studios; Composer/Performer
Treasurer: Brad Grossman, COO of Helium Comedy
Secretary: Jesica Gerbautz, CEO of Pnk Moon Productions
Continuing their service as board members:
Dayna Frank, co-founder of NIVA, founding president of the NIVA Board and CEO at First Avenue & 7th St Entry
Grace Blake, programming director at City Winery NYC
Kira Karbocus, president/COO at Newport Festivals Foundation
Hal Real, founder/CEO at World Cafe Live
LONDON — When the European Union announced plans to regulate artificial intelligence in 2021, legislators started focusing on “high risk” systems that could threaten human rights, such as biometric surveillance and predictive policing. Amid increasing concern among artists and rights holders about the potential impact of AI on the creative sector, however, EU legislators are also now looking at the intersection of this new technology and copyright.
The EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act, which is now being negotiated among politicians in different branches of government, is the first comprehensive legislation in the world to regulate AI. In addition to banning “intrusive and discriminatory uses” of the technology, the current version of the legislation addresses generative AI, mandating that companies disclose content that is created by AI to differentiate it from works authored by humans. Other provisions in the law would require companies that use generative AI to provide details of copyrighted works, including music, on which they trained their systems. (The AI Act is a regulation, so it would pass directly into law in all 27 member states.)
Music executives began paying closer attention to the legislation after the November launch of ChatGPT. In April, around the time that “Heart on My Sleeve,” a track that featured AI-powered imitations of vocals by Drake and The Weeknd, drove home the issue posed by AI, industry lobbyists convinced lawmakers to add the transparency provisions.
So far, big technology companies, including Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft, have publicly stated that they, too, support AI regulation, at least in the abstract. Behind the scenes, however, multiple music executives tell Billboard that technology lobbyists are trying to weaken these transparency provisions by arguing that such obligations could put European AI developers at a competitive disadvantage.
“They want codes of conduct” — as opposed to laws — “and very low forms of regulation,” says John Phelan, director general of international music publishing trade association ICMP.
Another argument is that summarizing training data “would basically come down to providing a summary of half, or even the entire, internet,” says Boniface de Champris, Brussels-based policy manager at the Computer and Communications Industry Association Europe, which counts Alphabet, Apple, Amazon and Meta among its members. “Europe’s existing copyright rules already cover AI applications sufficiently.”
In May, Sam Altman, CEO of ChatGPT developer OpenAI, emerged as the highest-profile critic of the EU’s proposals, accusing it of “overregulating” the nascent business. He even said that his company, which is backed by Microsoft, might consider leaving Europe if it could not comply with the legislation, although he walked back this statement a few days later. OpenAI and other companies lobbied — successfully — to have an early draft of the legislation changed so that “general-purpose AI systems” like ChatGPT would no longer be considered high risk and thus subject to stricter rules, according to documents Time magazine obtained from the European Commission. (OpenAI didn’t respond to Billboard’s requests for comment.)
The lobbying over AI echoes some of the other political conflicts between media and technology companies — especially the one over the EU Copyright Directive, which passed in 2019. While that “was framed as YouTube versus the music industry, the narrative has now switched to AI,” says Sophie Goossens, a partner at global law firm Reed Smith. “But the argument from rights holders is much the same: They want to stop tech companies from making a living on the backs of their content.”
Several of the provisions in the Copyright Directive deal with AI, including an exception in the law for text- and data-mining of copyrighted content, such as music, in certain cases. Another exception allows scientific and research institutions to engage in text- and data-mining on works to which they have lawful access.
So far, the debate around generative AI in the United States has focused on whether performers can use state laws on right of publicity to protect their distinctive voices and images — the so-called “output side” of generative AI. In contrast, both the Copyright Directive and the AI Act address the “input side,” meaning ways that rights holders can either stop AI systems from using their content for training purposes or limit which ones can in order to license that right.
Another source of tension created by the Copyright Directive is the potential for blurred boundaries between research institutions and commercial businesses. Microsoft, for example, refers to its Muzic venture as “a research project on AI music,” while Google regularly partners with independent research, academic and scientific bodies on technology developments, including AI. To close potential loopholes, Phelan wants lawmakers to strengthen the bill’s transparency provisions, requiring specific details of all music accessed for training, instead of the “summary” that’s currently called for. IFPI, the global recorded-music trade organization, regards the transparency provisions as “a meaningful step in the right direction,” according to Lodovico Benvenuti, managing director of its European office, and he says he hopes lawmakers won’t water that down.
The effects of the AI Act will be felt far outside Europe, partly because they will apply to any company that does business in the 27-country bloc and partly because it will be the first comprehensive set of rules on the use of the technology. In the United States, the Biden administration has met with technology executives to discuss AI but has yet to lay out a legislation strategy. On June 22, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said that he was working on “exceedingly ambitious” bipartisan legislation on the topic, but political divides in the United States as the next presidential election approaches would make passage difficult. China unveiled its own draft laws in April, although other governments may be reluctant to look at legislation there as a model.
“The rest of the world is looking at the EU because they are leading the way in terms of how to regulate AI,” says Goossens. “This will be a benchmark.”
Driven by K-pop groups such as Seventeen, Stray Kids and Tomorrow X Together, sales of the top 400 physical albums in South Korea totaled 55 million through June — a 57% increase from the prior-year period, according to Circle Chart, the company that manages music charts in the country.
Seventeen had 21 titles in the top 400 albums and accounted for 16.2% of the tally’s sales, totaling 8.9 million units. Meanwhile, HYBE, the company behind Seventeen, was responsible for 40.4% of sales in the top 400.
Physical album sales in the United States don’t come close to those numbers. In a country of about 52 million people — less than one-sixth of the United States’ 332 million people — South Koreans bought an average of 1.06 albums per person in the first half of the year (counting only the top 400). That’s 23 times the United States’ per-capita album purchase rate of roughly 0.05 units (also counting only the top 400, according to Luminate).
Comparing South Korea’s first-half physical album sales numbers to those of the United States demonstrates just how big of a gap exists between the two countries in terms of consumption habits. In the United States, superfans and direct-to-consumer sales helped boost physical album sales 13.3% to 41.1 million in the first half of the year — a big improvement from 4.7% decline in the year-ago period. But that figure pales in comparison to South Korea, a country with less than one-sixth the population. Sales of the top 400 physical albums in the United States totaled 15.4 million units over the same period — 72% fewer than in South Korea.
Taylor Swift’s rabid fanbase is the closest thing the United States has to the fandom seen in South Korea for K-pop groups such as BTS. Swifties, as they’re known, helped created intense demand for the pop titan’s Eras Tour, which overloaded Ticketmaster’s website in the United States and turned her concerts into civic events recognized by local politicians. Her album releases have become events unto themselves as fans snap up multiple versions of vinyl LP and CDs.
But Swift’s U.S. physical album sales in the first half of 2023 can’t compare to sales for the top artists in South Korea. In the United States, Swift dominated physical album sales in the first half of the year with a 7.4% share of the top 400 — more than twice the number of the runner-up artist, K-pop group Stray Kids. Through June 30, she totaled 1.15 million physical album sales across her catalog. Those numbers sound impressive until you consider them against the 8.9 million overall sales for Seventeen in South Korea.
In terms of physical sales for single albums, Swift also finished atop the heap in the United States. Her 2022 album, Midnights, sold 430,000 units through June 30. (Swift’s new album, Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), was not included in the top 400 of the first half of 2023 because it was released in July). But the top-selling album in South Korea was Seventeen’s 10th Mini Album ‘FML,’ which sold 5.5 million units over the same period. In fact, a whopping 13 albums surpassed the 1-million-unit threshold in South Korea through mid-year. It’s worth noting that even if Midnights had doubled its physical sales number in the United States through mid-year, it wouldn’t have reached the top 10 on South Korea’s chart.
Kane Brown released “Heaven,” a love-drunk single that practically radiates romantic bliss, in the fall of 2017. The following May, the track topped Billboard’s Country Airplay chart and climbed to No. 15 on the Hot 100. Despite this success, “we never tried to cross it over” to pop radio, says Martha Earls, who manages Brown. “In what world would you have an almost Diamond-certified single that you didn’t try to take over to pop? It was a different time. Back then, that opportunity just was not there.”
Today, Earls says, conditions are different — she “absolutely would” have promoted “Heaven” to the Top 40 format. “Let’s take it to pop [radio] tomorrow!” she jokes.
This summer, country singles are finally starting to fare better on the Billboard Pop Airplay chart: Morgan Wallen‘s “Last Night” is at No. 5 on the latest ranking, while Luke Combs‘ “Fast Car” hit No. 20. (They also sit at No. 1 and No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, respectively.) “Most Top 40 programmers are protective of pop music sounds,” says Steven Shannon, music director at KZFN in Moscow, Idaho. “It’s unusual to have two country songs out at the same time that are in the Top 20.”
With that in mind, “it’s nice to see more people being open to our format,” adds Chris Kappy, who manages Luke Combs. “I appreciate the fact that people can look at country music just like they look at any other genre.”
In the past, pop radio has flirted with country periodically but never really embraced the genre, suggesting that the success of Wallen and Combs could be another temporary blip. (Pop radio’s arms-length approach to country is part of the reason why, before this year, the last track to top both Country Airplay and the Hot 100 was Lonestar‘s “Amazed” in 2000.) “I guarantee that most Top 40 programmers are resistant” to adding country to their playlists, Shannon says. Sure enough, one pop PD tells Billboard, “I’d rather be playing hip-hop.”
As a result, country executives say they still only consider attempting a pop radio campaign in special cases. But shifts in the music landscape could point to a bigger role for country in the pop airplay mix moving forward. The genre’s audience is surging — country’s consumption has increased by a whopping 20.3% year-over-year in the first 26 weeks of 2023, according to Luminate, making its popularity tough to overlook. (By contrast, pop is up by 7.6%.)
Country singles get to shine on pop radio roughly once a decade, according to Guy Zapoleon, a veteran radio consultant. He is known in radio circles for his “10-year music cycle” theory, which divides pop airplay into three distinct periods: the birth phase, the extremes phase, and the doldrums phase. Terrestrial radio is currently very much in the doldrums — “the worst doldrums of all times,” Zapoleon declares — and during these periods, it’s customary for Top 40 programmers to cast around for hits elsewhere, roping in singles from country or the format known as “adult contemporary.”
In the past, Zapoleon says, this has led to increased airplay for country at Top 40 for periods lasting two to three years. In 1963, Johnny Cash, Skeeter Davis, and Bobby Bare were beneficiaries of this trend; in 1974, programmers embraced Glen Campbell, Charlie Rich, and Mac Davis; in the early 1980s, Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers, and Eddie Rabbitt were added on to Top 40 playlists, boosted in part in the wake of the success of John Travolta’s 1980 film Urban Cowboy.
This context suggests that Wallen and Combs may be helping Top 40 through a rough patch, but that the dalliance won’t last. “If history is an indication, I think maybe this [playing more country at Top 40] might be just a trend,” says Matt Mony, program director for WYOY in Jackson, Mississippi. “It’s sort of like what we saw with all the sample-songs that we were playing” — think Bebe Rexha and David Guetta’s “I’m Good (Blue)” — “that’s starting to lighten up a bit.”
Country artists seeking Top 40 airplay don’t just have to win over pop programmers, they also have to worry about country programmers’ possessiveness. “In the past, there was a sense that if an artist crossed over from country they were leaving the format,” Earls acknowledges. With Brown, “we almost created two careers,” she adds. “We would have a song go to Top 40” — including collaborations with Marshmello, blackbear, and Swae Lee — but also “make sure that we released music to super-serve the country fans too.”
Adrian Michaels, vp of innovation, radio, and streaming at BMG’s Stoney Creek Records, has been on an impressive streak with Jelly Roll, a 38-year-old who spent time in prison for dealing drugs, got out and built a budding rap career, and then turned into a country breakout. Jelly Roll is now starting to receive some pop airplay after enjoying success at both country and rock radio. “It definitely bruises some [programing] people when they see” artists move to other formats, Michaels says. “I get yelled at a lot. But the audience has a much bigger voice than a gatekeeper saying, ‘this belongs on this station only, because we’re the ones who broke them.’”
And that voice has gotten a lot louder lately. The runaway success of “Last Night” and “Fast Car” is taking place amidst an eruption of interest in the genre that Wallen and Combs call home. “We’re seeing a global moment for the genre right now, and that is opening up some space at other formats,” explains Stacy Blythe, svp of radio promotion at Wallen’s label, Big Loud.
Those other formats may not be able to continue to look past country if that growth continues. “What I hope happens is that [pop radio programmers] see the numbers coming in on streaming, and if this [country song] is streaming as much as this [pop single], obviously that shows there are people out there listening,” Kappy says. “It’s contemporary hits radio. They should be playing the contemporary hits of the day.”
In addition, terrestrial radio’s role in the music ecosystem has shifted dramatically in the last decade in ways that might make the pop airwaves more hospitable to country. One key difference is that many young listeners have abandoned radio for streaming services and TikTok; a recent survey from the consultancy Jacobs Media Strategy found that the average age of radio listeners is around 55 years old.
This bodes well for the cross-format popularity of country, which the radio industry historically views as a genre favored by more mature listeners. “Another reason country is working so well at Top 40 right now is because we’re dealing more with women 25-plus, and that’s a really good fit for that genre,” Mony says.
And “as the Top 40 format continues to age up, programmers should consider country crossovers,” adds Cat Collins, a radio consultant and former vp of Top 40 and Hot AC for Townsquare Media.
Some radio experts also believe that the pop format has strayed from its roots in the past decade-ish as a platform that elevates all the hits, regardless of their origin. “The theoretical ideal of Top 40 is to play hits from across the spectrum of music, a notion that has largely faded, as most Top 40s have been sticking to a very narrow lane,” says Larry Rosin, president of Edison Research. Recent country singles that did well on pop radio — like Dan + Shay‘s 2021 hit “10,000 Hours” and Gabby Barrett‘s 2020 smash “I Hope,” both of which cracked the top 10 — gained access in part by incorporating Top 40 mainstays (Justin Bieber and Charlie Puth, respectively).
Top 40 stations are going through a brutal period of low ratings; could the “narrow lane” approach be adding to the format’s troubles? For Zapoleon, it’s simply a matter of numbers: Country singles accounted for more than 20% of the year-end Hot 100 in 2022, but around 1% of the year-end Mediabase Top 40 chart. “That’s a lot of country hits Top 40 isn’t playing,” he says. “Hopefully they wake up.”
SiriusXM’s Hits 1 is one of five Top 40 stations already testing “Need a Favor,” a growling, lighters-up power ball from Jelly Roll that has spent multiple weeks atop the rock radio chart and is inside the top five at country radio. “We’re not waiting for campaigns to come in our direction,” says Alex Tear, vp of music programming for SiriusXM and Pandora. Too often, “radio is late to the game.”
His peers may be more receptive to Jelly Roll this year than in years past. “I don’t want to jinx anything, but don’t be surprised if, by the time this comes out, you see [Jelly Roll] really popping up at Top 40,” Michaels says. “It’s a wonderful feeling for us to take somebody from Music Row here and have this much reach.”
HarbourView Equity Partners has acquired selected recorded and publishing assets of Blackbear, the hit songwriter and artist whose credits include “Hot Girl Bummer,” “Do Re Mi” and songwriting collaborations like Justin Bieber‘s “Boyfriend.” In the U.S., Blackbear’s catalog has generated 4.45 million album consumption units, according to Luminate. While the deal announcement doesn’t specify what […]
Management firm Wasserman has unveiled a deal to buy CSM Sport & Entertainment, the UK-based agency.
Terms of the purchase agreement were not disclosed, but Casey Wasserman’s lifestyle marketing and management business is looking to grow its presence in the pro sports business arena worldwide. The move comes as Hollywood talent agencies look to increase representation of marketable pro sport leagues and players as they seek entertainment and endorsement deals.
CSM, which arranges partnerships between marketing brands and rights holders, recently did event marketing and hospitality services for Major League Baseball games in London between the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs, and handled event marketing for The All England Lawn Tennis Club, the organizers of the Wimbledon pro tennis competition.
The proposed transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2023, Wasserman said. Founded in 2002, the firm represents sports and entertainment figures, musical artists, brands and properties worldwide.
Wasserman operates across six continents, 23 countries and more than 45 cities, including Los Angeles, New York and London and battles for market share in some areas against agencies like CAA and WME as they have also raised their presence in the global sports arena to represent media rights, athlete representation and sponsorship deals.
In 2020, Wasserman acquired the hockey-focused agency Acme World Sports as well as Lithuanian basketball agency BBaltics. And Casey Wasserman is part of LA28, which helped organize Los Angeles’ bid for the 2028 Olympics.
Since 2016, when the company rebranded from Wasserman Media Group to Wasserman, the firm has expanded further into culture, media and entertainment, adding creative and marketing agencies like Laundry Service and Boris Agency, and launched a social audience data platform called Unlock.
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
Rising reggaetón star Yng Lvcas has signed a global publishing deal with Warner Chappell Music Mexico, the company tells Billboard. The signing comes on the heels of Yng Lvcas’ massive success with the “La Bebe” remix featuring Peso Pluma. The reggaetón song has so far spent 17 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, peaking at No. […]