State Champ Radio Business
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Independent talent agency 33 & West has hired veteran music agent Christianne Weiss to support the agency’s expansion. As part of her multiyear deal with 33 & West, Weiss is bringing the multiplatinum Grammy-nominated artist Starship to the company’s artist roster, with more to be announced in the coming weeks. Explore Explore See latest videos, […]
Guy Moot, CEO and co-chair of Warner Chappell Music, recently celebrated his five-year anniversary with the major publisher with a renewed five-year term. It’s easy to see why he’s staying on. Since taking the helm in 2019, Moot, along with co-chair and COO Carianne Marshall, managed to turn the company’s slow and steady long-term business, which originated all the way back in 1811 as Chappell & Co., into a modernized, fierce competitor with a honed A&R strategy. He focused on signing artist/songwriters with “cultural relevance” like RAYE, Mitski, Frank Ocean, Laufey, Zach Bryan, Teddy Swims and Benson Boone, recruiting the growing “mid tier” of artists, and buying catalogs, like his personal favorite David Bowie, that WCM can actively boost.
Moot’s wins have been more than just cultural — they are backed up by chart data. For the last three quarters, including this latest one, WCM — which regularly ranked third on Billboard’s Publishers Quarterly for Hot 100 songs — surpassed Universal Music Publishing Group to land in second place. It’s also No. 2 for the last two quarters amid Pop Airplay and No. 1 in market share on Country Airplay.
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But on a sunny April morning in his Downtown Los Angeles office, Moot tells Billboard that, despite WCM’s obvious wins, he is uninterested in sizing the company’s value by what its major competition is doing. “I don’t want to be just like them,” he says with a shrug. “I want to be doing our own thing.”
Warner Chappell’s thing is about leaning into the shifting music business head-on, echoing Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl‘s theme of 2024 as “the year of the next 10.” That includes the company’s new partnership with Bandlab and its artist service platform ReverbNation, through which WCM will provide administration to anyone who needs it and a full-service JV tier to develop Bandlab’s most promising writers. The company has also been working on a program to release collections of songwriter demos to the general public. With these and other initiatives, it hopes will help it stand out from an increasingly-crowded publishing field.
“This business is like no other business,” Moot says. “The competition is great, but almost no one actually sees it through and actually delivers something that’s worked. Last year, I said to all our team that we’ve got to double down and really deliver, and now, it seems like we’ve really gotten some momentum.”
Billboard: Robert Kyncl has been CEO at Warner Music Group for a little over a year now, and has put a strong emphasis on improving the technology at the company. Has that changed anything within Warner Chappell in terms of the way that you are looking at modernizing and keeping up with the speed of change?
Guy Moot: Definitely. I think a lot of the things that don’t add up in the music industry make him question, “Why, and how?” He’s tasked us to challenge the third parties for more transparency and speed of payment. We’re certainly investing a lot in tech. It’s not all delivered yet, but we know we need to fast-track for the next three to five years. We’ve always had issues in publishing with rights flows, transparency, PROs, but I also think the next big forefront will be how we get paid for UGC. That’s the real challenge. With those really sketchy sped-up versions, cover versions of our songs, there’s a lot of progress we’re making internally to match and track those and we’re seeing really great results. We want to get to a world where we can always find when somebody sped up one of our songs and there’s no master attached.
How can you track a song when it’s been manipulated like that?
Various matching tools, and it’s improving. I still think there’s a lot slipping through the net. When we make our digital agreements now, it’s still about setting terms that get songwriters paid more, but secondly, it’s also about getting levels of service and more data and info from the companies. I’m making a bold prediction here, and it’s a personal thing that I haven’t seen yet, but I’m hopeful AI will be helpful in the future of publishing administration. I’ve got a lot of hope that we will be able to completely map out a song’s DNA and then follow its uses through a whole ecosystem.
You’ve mentioned that you’d like to quicken the rate in which your writers get paid, but is that always possible? Some songs are released without complete publishing splits.
I think you’re as good as the information going in, and it’s not perfect. The MLC has actually been the nearest to having a comprehensive database, for America at least. And from our point of view, it seems to be working quite well. But it would be great if we had one authoritative database for the songwriting industry and we don’t.
What are you most proud of from your first five years on the job?
Carianne and I have been together five years, and we’ve seen a lot of progress at the company. When we got here, I had a couple observations. One, Chapell didn’t really have a strategy, in our point of view. It was a solid company. It was working great catalogs, and the other thing that I personally noticed from my A&R background is that we didn’t have many artists. We had a lot of songwriters for other artists at the time. I thought it was really important that we build a roster of both songwriters who do great work for others and artists who really mean something to fans and have some cultural relevance in a broad spectrum of genres. We started that process with Frank Ocean, but what’s exciting now is that we’re gaining artists not just across genres but across the world, and it feels like a new generation of artists.
The great thing about publishing is, you could do anything from an acquisition to a very short-term deal, but wherever you are, you’re really at the beginning of the process. We’ve got some great stories. Benson Boone is a great story for us right now. We’ve been there from the beginning with him attending our writing camps. Another one is when I was in the U.K., when we signed RAYE, she was very young. I think it was 2016. She’s had such a progression. Mitski, Zach Bryan, too.
I always use this term “culturally relevant signings.” I know we have just talked about some difficulties, but publishing’s easy if you sign someone you’re really proud of. Sure, our job is really complex sometimes, but also it feels really simple. What we do is we take the essence of what excites us about music, and we talk [to partners] about it.
So much has changed, even in five years. Music is more global, more artists are opting for independence over major labels, etc. What are you looking for when you are finding new music and new artists/writers?
We don’t just chase hits. I mean, we love hits, and we have a lot of hits, but we’re not just going out and buying every hit, chasing every hit. We often talk about the mid tier. I think in publishing we want people who consistently stream or slowly build. It’s going to be about fan bases and artist development. Those used to be fast-tracked by record companies, but that’s not so much the case now. I think sometimes you have to take a three-to-five-year approach if you’re developing, which many publishers do. Sometimes the economics of big label deals and the pressure that comes with that is too much. Not every artist is built for that.
Country music is everywhere right now, and Warner Chappell has the biggest market share in Nashville, according to Billboard’s Publishers Quarterly. How do you collaborate between the L.A.-based team and Nashville team?
Ben Vaughn runs an incredible team [in Nashville]. Everyone is talking about Nashville. I think you’re going to see more and more crossovers — you can already see it with the Dasha record in the U.K. We also see a lot of the country-adjacent artists, like Zach Bryan. I think it can all live together. I sat with Ryan Press, who runs North America for us, and Ben Vaughn last week here. I’m like, ‘“I don’t want to spend all this time working out what’s Nashville, what’s traditional, what’s country-adjacent. We’re all in it together.” I wouldn’t have it any other way.
What’s the balance between frontline and catalog? Catalog has seemingly become a more and more important part of a publishers’ business.
We look at catalog here with the same excitement as we do frontline, so David Bowie was incredible to buy. We don’t just have one head of catalog, we have a broad church of people from all different departments, like a catalog committee, where we talk about what we can do.
There are so many buyers in the catalog market right now. What do you think is the distinction between Warner Chappell and others as a buyer?
Don’t get me wrong, I have lots of friends who are in funds. We are partners with some of them. But Warner Chappell is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, music publishers. We are not going anywhere. We are not on a timeline or a window to sell. We’re not trying to buy an asset and sell it — we are here for the long term. Anything that we look at, we look at it through the lens of, How can we add value? How can we grow it? We’re not passive. So anything that we buy, we will have a plan for it. This can be anything, including that we know there are geographical areas where we can work it better specifically — like with George Michael’s catalog, we are working with the estate and identified that Latin America and Asia are two places where it’s been done well, but we can do better. Another big difference I noticed when I went to Warner is it’s a pure-play music company.
A source of mine called this the “year of the second sale” — saying that there are a number of funds looking to sell their assets. It’s been less about buying catalogs from artists directly this year and often about buying from other catalog owners. Have you seen that firsthand?
You’re starting to see some consolidation happen. I think some are just hitting that time horizon, some are just doing what funds do. You raise a fund, you have an exit window, a timeline horizon where you would expect to return money to your investors. Some of them may have overpaid. Some of them may just want to get out of the sector. There are a myriad of different reasons [why this is happening], but I think some of them are going to be long-term holders too.
Warner has been working on a special project with the Edith Piaf estate to use AI to clone her voice for use in a biopic about her life. It seems there could be some applications for AI within catalog marketing. Is Warner interested in doing more projects like this?
I think you can look at all of those things [enabled by AI] with the approval and respect of the estate. I think that’s the other thing you get from [selling to a] publisher, is we are music-first. We are going to do what’s right by the music, the songwriter and the artist. AI is interesting because we don’t know what the consumption and demand is yet. I mean, it was funny to see Frank Sinatra sing “Gangster’s Anthem” or something, but I don’t really see the real consumption there.
What is the most pressing issue for publishers as you see it?
I would say that one of the biggest challenges we’re all going to face as songwriters and publishers is how to get more songs out. Particularly as there are fewer huge stars, you’ve got to look at this game internationally. So we have an internal tool called Arrow, which is a searchable repository of our demos, and it’s multilingual, so someone in Hong Kong can look, and we can, too.
What sets WCM apart from the other majors?
There’s a focus on the individual here. Every songwriter is unique, so we meet them where they are in their careers and help them achieve their full potential. The same could be said for how we develop our team. We’ve created a culture where there’s a real, collective commitment to songwriters. Which is only possible because of each individual’s expertise.
This is something we’re quite proud to be building. Our songwriters benefit from being part of it — our global Warner Chappell collective — in terms of reach, collaborators and opportunities. And our teams around the world do, too.
Carianne and I are intentional about approaching everything from a human element. We certainly aren’t trying to be like anyone else. Being distinctive is about what you do and how you deliver on your promises, not what you say.
Britney Spears has reached a settlement to finalize her divorce from husband Sam Asghari, according to court documents obtained by Billboard.
Less than a year after the pair announced they would end their 14-month marriage, attorneys for both Spears and Asghari filed paperwork Wednesday in Los Angeles court to end the proceedings. The filings say the “uncontested” divorce is bound by “a written agreement regarding their property” and spousal support.
Asghari filed for divorce from Spears in August, citing irreconcilable differences. The pair had dated since they met on the set of her “Slumber Party” music video in 2016 before getting engaged in September 2021. They soon tied the knot in a star-studded Los Angeles wedding ceremony in June 2022, which featured a gatecrashing incident by a man Spears had briefly married in 2004.
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Following the news of the divorce, Asghari said at the time: “We will hold onto the love and respect we have for each other and I wish her the best always.” In her own statement, Spears said: “6 years is a long time to be with someone so, I’m a little shocked but … I’m not here to explain why because its honestly nobody’s business !!!”
The mention in Wednesday’s legal filings of a “written agreement” is likely a reference to a prenuptial agreement. When the pair married in 2022, TMZ reported that Asghari had signed “an ironclad prenup” which meant that he “doesn’t get a dollar from the fortune Brit’s made up to this point.” Such legal agreements are standard procedure for celebrities who have a large disparity in assets with a new spouse, since state law could potentially require splitting property in the event of divorce.
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Beyond referencing such an agreement, Wednesday’s filings included little detail. Asghari’s attorneys said he would “give up forever any right to receive spousal or partner support” except for what is listed in their settlement agreement. The extent to which Spears pays for his legal bills is also governed by the written contract.
The agreements were signed by attorneys for both sides. Spears was represented by celebrity divorce specialist Laura Wasser and her longtime personal attorney Mathew Rosengart, who also handled her long conservatorship battle. Asghari was represented by Neal Hersh, another well-known celebrity divorce attorney. Neither side immediately returned requests for comment.
News of Wednesday’s agreement was first reported by TMZ. To be finalized, the deal must now be signed by the judge overseeing the case, though that step is formality.
It’s been a busy few weeks for Spears’ lawyers. Last week, she reached another settlement to end a long-running legal dispute with her father Jamie Spears over allegations of misconduct during his years running the pop star’s 13-year conservatorship that ended in 2021.
Universal Music Group chairman/CEO Lucian Grainge penned a memo to staff, obtained by Billboard, about the music company’s new licensing agreement with TikTok that ended a three-month standoff between the two entities, saying the deal ended with “a decidedly positive outcome,” with TikTok agreeing “to key changes in several critical areas.”
The announcement of the new deal, which came after a high-profile dispute between the world’s largest music company and one of the current premier social media platforms in the world that first erupted in late January, was announced early this morning (May 2). The agreement will see UMG’s millions of compositions and songs, both from its recorded divisions and its publishing company, return to the platform “in due course.” The feud has been one of the biggest talking points in the music business for the better part of this year, with artists and songwriters caught in the middle of the corporate standoff and looking for alternate ways to promote and market their music beyond the parameters of TikTok.
In his memo today, Grainge broke down some of the particulars of the new agreement, saying that UMG was able to get TikTok to address its major concerns. “This agreement marks another significant step we’ve taken to guide the industry’s evolution towards a future where human artistry must be respected, artists and songwriters are treated fairly, and their fans are provided with platforms that better prioritize safety and integrity,” Grainge wrote.
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During the dispute, many in the industry were split about the issue and its effects on artists and songwriters, particularly those without much leverage or who were trying to build a following. Many music companies and organizations came out in support of UMG, saying that its fight for better remuneration and protections in an AI age was an important one for the industry as a whole, and dozens of artists also signed an open letter stressing the importance of protections against AI infringement and other issues. At the same time, many artists and songwriters — both developing artists that relied on TikTok to build a following, and some of the bigger names in the music business — decried the ban as having a negative effect on the industry, and some of the biggest artists in the world, including several with UMG connections, found ways around the ban and were able to continue to benefit from their music being on the app while the dispute dragged on.
Grainge acknowledged that friction in his memo today. “As an organization committed to breaking new ground, driving the industry forward, and protecting artists and songwriters from the negative effects of disruptive technology, we expect and even embrace the inevitable conflicts that will result from fulfilling our commitments,” he wrote. “But ultimately, the point of engaging in such conflicts is to find higher common ground from which progress can be made.”
As part of the agreement, Grainge referred back to the open letter that UMG penned in January when negotiations first collapsed, wherein the company outlined three issues it could not come to terms with TikTok on: fair compensation for artists, protection from AI, and safety for its artists. On the compensation issue, Grainge says the new deal improves compensation for artists and songwriters and that the “total value” from the partnership “will be more closely aligned with other platforms in the social music category,” referencing the amount of advertising money that social companies bring in even for content they host for free. He also wrote that TikTok will be working to improve its content identification moderation, and “implement tools and processes to help address provenance and attribution issues, helping artists and songwriters to more effectively monetize their work.”
On the AI issue, Grainge wrote that the platform “addressed the primary concern we expressed in our open letter that AI generated content would ‘massively dilute the royalty pool for human artists,’” and committed to respecting artists’ right of publicity to own their voices and to support training AI models on licensed content, rather than without artists’ or rights owners’ consent. That means the ability to take down “fake artist” AI content uploaded by third parties, among other protections.
In terms of safety for users and artists on the platform, Grainge wrote that the platform “agreed to take steps to address our concerns around platform integrity and the negative impact of social media on its users.” Some of those steps he outlined included “policies and tools to prevent and remediate hate speech and bullying,” as well as addressing deepfakes, infringing content and “algorithmic manipulation” on TikTok.
“I want to express my deep gratitude to all of UMG’s artists and songwriters who, over the last few months, have had to endure having their music removed from TikTok during the dispute,” Grainge ended on. “We appreciate how difficult this may have been for some of them and we are so grateful for their willingness to pursue the path we took. I have no doubt that their advocacy — both publicly and behind the scenes — will positively influence the future of the industry for all artists.”
Read Grainge’s full memo below.
Dear Colleagues:
I’m very pleased to share the good news that our dispute with TikTok has ended with a decidedly positive outcome: they have agreed to key changes in several critical areas (including artificial intelligence, platform safety, remuneration) and we will once again license our music to them.
This agreement marks another significant step we’ve taken to guide the industry’s evolution towards a future where human artistry must be respected, artists and songwriters are treated fairly, and their fans are provided with platforms that better prioritize safety and integrity.
I want to express how grateful we are for the outpouring of support from so many corners of the global music community over the last several months. Artist rights organizations, independent labels, music publishers, music advocacy groups and of course so many individual artists and songwriters were outspoken in their support, recognizing the importance of what we were seeking to achieve. United in purpose, they strengthened our resolve to fight for the result we have achieved: a deal that will benefit not only UMG artists and songwriters but the entire music ecosystem.
As an organization committed to breaking new ground, driving the industry forward, and protecting artists and songwriters from the negative effects of disruptive technology, we expect and even embrace the inevitable conflicts that will result from fulfilling our commitments. But ultimately, the point of engaging in such conflicts is to find higher common ground from which progress can be made. I am enormously proud of what our teams and our artists have been able to achieve with TikTok in finding that common ground on which we will build a foundation for a brighter future.
Three months ago, on January 30, we issued an open letter to the artist and songwriter community that stated plainly that any new deal with TikTok would have to address three critical issues, including:
Protecting artists and songwriters from the harmful effects of AI, and dilution of royalties by a flood of AI content;
Improving the compensation paid to artists and songwriters; and
Prioritizing online safety for both TikTok’s users and our artists.
To convey to you the essence of what we’ve accomplished, I’ll highlight the gains we’ve achieved on all three issues within the context of why these issues have been so important for UMG and all of us as a community.
I. Protecting Human Artists from the Harmful Effects of AI
TikTok has now addressed the primary concern we expressed in our open letter that AI generated content would “massively dilute the royalty pool for human artists.” Further, they have made a number of commitments regarding AI that demonstrate respect for our artists’ and songwriters’ works and “rights of publicity,” as well as support of UMG’s principles on AI, including on training without consent.
AI technology, when used responsibly, offers artists enormous untapped potential, but when used irresponsibly, threatens to cause them deep harm. UMG has been leading the industry in addressing AI’s potentially harmful effects while embracing its opportunities. Our Responsible AI initiative, which was launched last year, puts the protection of artists and the advancement of their interests at the very core of how we think about AI. The goals of that initiative are:
·protecting human artists from being economically disadvantaged by AI;
·guarding against the use of AI-generated deepfakes; and
·requiring transparency in how AI companies train their models.
Our new agreement with TikTok will protect the integrity and value of human artistry and ensure that “fake artist” AI content uploaded by third parties that misappropriates the identities of our artists and infringes upon their right of publicity can be removed. This new deal will extend artist protections even further and promote a better environment for authentic artist/fan engagement.
The deal is only the most recent example of how we are advancing our AI initiative. Over the last year, with artists, as always, at the forefront of our strategy, we developed relationships with a wide array of leading tech companies and entrepreneurs and have been collaborating with a growing number of them on various market-led opportunities and approaches for the responsible use of AI.
II. Improving Compensation for Artists and Songwriters
Under the new agreement, artist and songwriter compensation will be greater than under our prior TikTok deal, and the total value UMG’s artists and songwriters garner from this partnership will be more closely aligned with other platforms in the social music category. Further, TikTok will implement tools and processes to help address provenance and attribution issues, helping artists and songwriters to more effectively monetize their work.
As technology evolves and allows fans to enjoy and consume music in new ways and from new sources, the health and vitality of the music industry requires that artists and songwriters be fairly compensated from the revenue generated by those new sources. Social media is a critical category for advancement of this objective.
In 2017, as the growth of social media was transforming culture, UMG and Facebook entered into the first-ever deal to monetize what had yet to be monetized—the use of music on social platforms. Since that first Facebook deal, the continued growth of social media and its free-to-consumer music engagement has been remarkable.
In fact, the revenue streams from this social music engagement generate tens of billions of dollars in advertising revenue for digital platforms. (And that consumer engagement also greatly benefits platforms in another way—it enables them to acquire customers for their other business ventures, such as eCommerce.) Given the vast sums that music generates for these platforms, any claim that the “free promotion” they provide would ever be sufficient and fair compensation for the use of that music would be absurd.
Revenue streams from several categories that are “free to the consumer” today (such as ad-supported streaming, synch and neighboring rights) account for more than 30% of all revenue for the entire global recorded music industry—almost double what it was a decade ago. For some artists, that can translate into anywhere from 20% to 40% of their income from recordings.
With the commercial significance of this sector in mind, during the last few months, we’ve accelerated engagement with music on other monetized social platforms including Snapchat, Instagram and YouTube Shorts. And, in a recent agreement with Spotify—which will make available a range of new features that were previously found only on social media platforms—we’ve even broadened the very definition of the social music category. In short, the income from social media is increasingly important income to artists, songwriters, labels and publishers, which is why we have pushed hard—and will continue to push hard—to protect and develop it.
III. Providing Online Safety for TikTok’s Users and Artists
Under our new deal, TikTok have agreed to take steps to address our concerns around platform integrity and the negative impact of social media on its users.
The harmful consequences of unmonitored social media have been highly publicized of late. It is a critical part of our mission to work toward promoting the safety and integrity of environments for our artists and their fans.
Some of the concerns on our agenda with TikTok will include safeguards such as policies and tools to prevent and remediate hate speech and bullying. Some of the platform integrity measures include important steps to help address deep-fakes, infringing and unauthorized content and algorithmic manipulation.
I want to close by saying something more about the unprecedented support we received from the music community, especially those individual artists and songwriters who raised their voices in various forums. Of special note are those who signed the recent Artist Rights Alliance open letter which called on tech platforms to employ AI in a responsible manner and not at the expense of recording artists and songwriters. Their widespread support underscored the importance of striking AI protections. In particular, I want to express my deep gratitude to all of UMG’s artists and songwriters who, over the last few months, have had to endure having their music removed from TikTok during the dispute. We appreciate how difficult this may have been for some of them and we are so grateful for their willingness to pursue the path we took. I have no doubt that their advocacy—both publicly and behind the scenes—will positively influence the future of the industry for all artists.
Thank you to all who helped make this possible. This is yet another example of what the music community can accomplish when we work together.
Lucian
Chinese music streaming service provider NetEase Cloud Music entered a licensing agreement with K-pop label JYP Entertainment, granting it the right to digitally distribute JYP’s catalog in China. JYP artists include J.Y. Park, TWICE, Stray Kids, BOY STORY, ITZY, Yao Chen and NMIXX.
TikTok announced a partnership with European ticketing provider CTS Eventim through which artists can now promote their live dates in their TikTok videos and sell tickets via the CTS Eventim platform. The feature is available to any certified artist on TikTok in Germany, with additional markets to follow.
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Warner Music South East Europe launched Balkan Electro, a new EDM-focused label, in collaboration with Ensis Records. Through the deal, Ensis artists can be distributed, upstreamed and marketed through the new label. Warner Music Poland will also collaborate to sign new local talent to Balkan Electro, which will additionally team with Amsterdam-based Spinnin’ Records and the dance-focused teams at Warner Music Central Europe and Warner Music France. The first releases on Balkan Electo are Prisko and TBX’s “Back to 95” (April 19), Melli’s “Losing My Mind” (April 26) and Kevin’s Palacios and Jordan’s Grace’s “Bright As You” (May 10).
The City of El Paso has approved a $30.9 million performance-based incentive agreement to support the creation of Notes Live‘s new $80 million, 12,500-capacity open-air amphitheater in El Paso, Tex., to be named the Sunset Amphitheater. According to a press release, the project will support more than 2,000 direct and indirect jobs with the potential to generate a $5.4 billion impact for the El Paso community. Construction is slated to begin in late 2024 with an opening set for early 2026.
Concert discovery app Songkick teamed up with Black music and culture ticketing and marketing company Shoobs in a deal that will see Songkick list and promote Shoobs events to its 155 million users via its app, website and eCRM. The partnership is designed to boost the visibility of Black culture events and performers including Afro Nation Portugal, Burna Boy and Piano People in the Park.
Ticketing company AXS acquired a majority stake in WRSTBND, a provider of access control, credentialing and point-of-sale solutions for live events and venues. WRSTBND will use the investment to grow its capabilities and offerings to clients while integrating AXS’ Mobile ID technology with WRSTBND’s ecosystem. “[WRSTBND’s] hardware and software technology combined with the scale of AXS’ premier festivals and live event clients, including Coachella, New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Fest, and Hyde Park BST will create the most seamless and cutting-edge access and payment solutions available anywhere,” said AXS chief strategy officer Marc Ruxin in a statement.
Celebrity Coaches, which provides transportation and logistics for live events, acquired Nashville-based entertainment coach leasing company Moonstruck Leasing. The acquisition will add several luxury Prevost motorcoaches to Celebrity’s existing fleet. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The Irish Music Rights Organisation (IMRO), an international performing rights organization, partnered with music recognition technology company Audoo to implement its Audoo Audio Meter in select public spaces and retail locations in urban areas across Ireland, with plans to expand it to all business types in the country. The partnership is designed to help promote a more accurate and transparent breakdown of royalty distributions to music creators by recognizing background music being played via Audoo Audio Meteres and reporting the data back to IMRO. Business owners in Ireland can request an Audoo Audio Meter free of charge.
Private equity firm PAI Partners acquired a majority stake in Audiotonix, which designs, engineers and manufactures professional audio mixing consoles, production software and ancillary products. Investment house Ardian (which acquired Audiotonix in March 2020) will retain a minority stake alongside Audiotonix management. The U.K.-headquartered Audiotonix specializes in designing, engineering and manufacturing products that help enable high sound quality for several formats, including concerts, theater shows and sporting events. Its products have been used on tours by artists including Coldplay and U2 as well as at the Super Bowl and Sphere in Las Vegas.
RoEx, a tech startup driving intelligent audio production tools, was awarded a 250,000 pound ($313,000) grant by national innovation agency Innovate UK as part of a funding competition called Creative Catalyst: AI in the Music Industry. The grant will support the research and development of RoEx’s new model, ProStyle, which will provide a platform for mix engineers to partner with RoEx to train a machine learning model that captures their individual mixing style, thereby allowing them to monetize their sonic identity. Through this, the goal is for musicians and creators to have the ability to mix tracks in the engineer’s style using ProStyle.
Full-service entertainment marketing company FlyteVu and Club CMO, a community of more than 1,500 chief marketing officers across 30 cities globally, struck a partnership through which FlyteVu will offer Club CMO members “backstage” access — both in-person and virtually — to FlyteVu-marketed sports, music and pop culture events. Through the partnership, Club CMO members will be offered a closer look at FlyteVu’s industry expertise and knowledge, which they can then take back to their own organizations.
Former Nickelodeon producer/writer Dan Schneider fired back at the team behind the bombshell series Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV on Wednesday (May 1) in a lawsuit in which he alleged that the documentary series wrongly implied that he sexually abused the child actors he worked with.
According to the Associated Press, Schneider filed the defamation suit against Warner Bros. Discovery and other companies behind the investigative series in Los Angeles Superior Court, claiming in the suit that the show’s trailer and episodes deliberately mixed and juxtaposed images and mentions of him with the criminal sexual abusers spotlighted in the show with the implication he was involved.
Former teenage actor Schneider (Head of the Class) split with Nickelodeon in 2018 after more than a decade at the center of some of the network’s most successful, star-making shows, including All That, The Amanda Show, Kenan & Kel and as executive producer of Zoey 101, iCarly and Victorious, with the latter three, respectively, launching the careers of Jamie Lynn Spears, Miranda Cosgrove and Jenette McCurdy and Victoria Justice and Ariana Grande.
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Schneider took center stage during many storylines in Quiet, which interviewed the casts and crews of several of Schneider’s most successful shows to describe how the sets he was responsible for often sexualized their young teen stars in a sometimes tense, toxic work environment some described as abusive. The series originally ran on the ID channel in March and is now available to stream on Max.
Among the bombshell revelations in the series that spotlighted descriptions of sexual abuse of child actors was the emotional commentary from Drake & Josh star Drake Bell, who described his grooming and sexual abuse by former childhood dialogue coach Brian Peck; Peck was convicted of sexually assaulting a Nickelodeon child actor (Bell) in 2004. In the third episode, Bell graphically recounts the abuse he suffered at Peck’s hands when he was 14- and 15-years-old.
Other former actors on Nickelodeon shows from the Schneider era also allege that they were rife with sexism, racism and inappropriate behavior involving underage stars and crew and alleged predatory behavior. The show suggests that Schneider’s shows tended to put young women in comedic situations with overt sexual implications, while depicting him as an angry and emotionally abusive boss, including specific allegations of sexual harassment and gender discrimination form women who worked as writers under him on All That.
Among the allegations are that he displayed pornography on his computer in their presence in the writers’ room and often asked for massages from female staffers with the implication that they could help get the women’s sketches on the shows, which he has denied.
According to the AP, the suit claims “Quiet on Set’s portrayal of Schneider is a hit job. While it is indisputable that two bona fide child sexual abusers worked on Nickelodeon shows, it is likewise indisputable that Schneider had no knowledge of their abuse, was not complicit in the abuse, condemned the abuse once it was discovered and, critically, was not a child sexual abuser himself.” In addition to Discovery — parent company of ID and Max — the suit names the show’s producers as well, Sony Pictures Television and Maxine Productions. The suit claims that the series and its trailer unjustly implicated Schneider in child sex abuse by showing pictures of him, some with his arm around young actresses, amid discussions of what they said were unsafe environments on his sets.
The series claims that kid actors were made to wear suggestive costumes and act in inappropriate sketches with clearly pornographic undertones. All That actor Leon Frierson talks about his superhero character, Captain Big Nose, who wore tights and underwear and a prosthetic nose with matching noses on his shoulders.
“You can’t help but notice that it looks like penises and testicles on my shoulders,” he says in the series, adding that one sketch included Captain Big Nose blasting a giant sneeze caused by his allergy to asteroids, with the punchline consisting of him shooting messy goo on the face of a young woman. “The joke in that sketch is effectively a cum shot joke. It’s a cum shot joke for children,” culture writer Schaachi Koul says in the premiere episode of the five-part series. “Looking back, it’s very strange. Frankly, it was just uncomfortable,” says Frierson, who also describes that getting close to “kingmaker” Schneider could result in another level of success for the young actors. “It was important to be on his good side, and he made it known who was on his good side,” he says.
Nickelodeon, which was not named in the suit, said in a statement in the series that it could not “corroborate or negate” the allegations from two decades ago, but that it investigates all formal complaints and has strict protocols for shows starring minors.
Schneider, 58, was not interviewed for the series, but issued a YouTube video apology after the show aired in which he said he was sorry for “past behaviors, some of which are embarrassing and that I regret.” The suit is seeking financial damages to be determined at trial for what it described as “the destruction of Schneider’s reputation and legacy” via “false statements and implications” as well as the editing and removals of portions of the series and trailers.
“Schneider will be the first to admit that some of what they said is true,” the lawsuit claims according to The Huffington Post. “At times, he was blind to the pain that some of his behaviors caused certain colleagues, subordinates, and cast members. He will regret and atone for this behavior the rest of his life. But one thing he is not — and the one thing that will forever mar his reputation and career both past and present — is a child sexual abuser.”
In a statement to HuffPo, Schneider said the series “highlighted mistakes I made and poor judgment I exhibited during my time at Nickelodeon. … There is no doubt that I was sometimes a bad leader. I am sincerely apologetic and regretful for that behavior, and I will continue to take accountability for it.”
Stories about sexual assault allegations can be traumatizing for survivors of sexual assault. If you or anyone you know needs support, you can reach out to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN). The organization provides free, confidential support to sexual assault victims. Call RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline (800.656.HOPE) or visit the anti-sexual violence organization’s website for more information.
K-pop giant HYBE posted its lowest total revenue in two years as its recorded music segment sank to its lowest level in seven quarters, the South Korean company announced Thursday (May 2).
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HYBE had first quarter revenue of 360.9 billion won ($271.5 million), down 12.1% year over year and the lowest since posting 285 billion won ($214.4 million) in the first quarter of 2022. Operating profit fell precipitously to 14.4 billion won ($10.8 million), down 72.6% from the prior-year period.
HYBE’s share price was barely affected by the slowest quarter in years. The share price initially rose 1.7% to 205,500 won ($149.23) but my midday had fallen to 201,500 ($146.33), down 0.2%. The stock is down 13.7% year to date, however, and fell 12.6% last week following news that HYBE will report the CEO of its ADOR imprint, Min Hee-jin, to the police for “breach of trust and other related allegations.”
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Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), a measure of profitability that strips out non-cash items, was 39.8 billion won ($29.9 million), down 45% year over year and the lowest since the first quarter of 2021.
Concerts revenue of 44 billion won ($33.1 million) was up 74.5% year over year. Although that was the biggest year-over-year increase of any category, the first quarter of 2023 was abnormally slow. HYBE’s latest quarter was on par with 45.3 billion won ($34.1 million) of concert revenue in the fourth quarter of 2021, the first quarter the company had performances after COVID-19 restrictions shut down the touring industry.
Recorded music, the company’s largest segment at 40.2% of total revenue, fell 21.3% to 145.1 billion won ($109.2 million). HYBE successfully debuted two new groups during the quarter. Sparkling Blue, the debut EP by PLEDIS Entertainment boy band TWS, sold 260,000 units in its first week for and accumulated 500,000 units in the first nine weeks of release. Girl group ILLIT’s EP, Super Real Me, released through BELIFT LAB, sold 380,000 units in its debut week and reached the 500,000-unit mark in just four weeks. The single “Magnetic” debuted at No. 91 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in April.
Merchandising and licensing fell 11.9% to 60.7 billion won ($45.7 million). Contents fared worse, dropping 29.8% to 61.1 billion won ($46 million).
Weverse, HYBE’s social media platform, saw its monthly active users (MAUs) decline for the second quarter. After reaching a peak of 10.6 million MAUs in the third quarter of 2023, MAUs fell to 10.1 million in the fourth quarter and 9.2 million in the first quarter. Both average revenue per paying user and payment amount fell below levels reached in 2022 and 2023; HYBE does not provide specific numbers for either metric.
This week, Taylor Swift made history in more ways than one with the release of her latest album, The Tortured Poets Department. But perhaps the most mind-boggling of all the records she set was the first-week vinyl sales for the album, which came in at 859,000 — by far the largest sales week for a vinyl album in the modern era, blowing past the second-largest week by more than 160,000 units.
That second-largest week, by the way? The debut frame of her last release, 1989 (Taylor’s Version), which sold 693,000 vinyl copies in the week ending Nov. 2, 2023. In fact, Swift has the top four biggest vinyl sales weeks in history — all of which have come in the past 18 months — and six of the top eight, reflecting not just the industry-wide popularity boom for the format, but her own evolving strategy and emphasis on physical media and fan-focused collectibles.
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For Tortured Poets, Swift released six different vinyl variations (in addition to nine CD versions and four cassette versions), four of which were available widely and two of which were exclusives, one signed iteration through her own web store and one through Target. Of the four widely available, each included a different bonus track, and each have individually sold enough copies to top the vinyl sales charts for the week: the Manuscript edition (342,000); the Bolter edition (85,000); the Black Dog edition (79,000); and the Albatross edition (62,000).
That’s a continuation of the strategy she’s deployed in force since her, for lack of a better phrase, pandemic albums, Folklore and Evermore. And it’s a shining success story for how artists have been capitalizing on the resurrection of vinyl as not just physical art piece but also merch item, as the format has continued to surge for 18 years in a row, having hit 43.2 million U.S. sales in 2023, amounting to $1.35 billion in revenue, according to the RIAA.
Swift’s own career, in terms of album output, has grown along with that trend. Her self-titled debut album was released 18 years ago, in October 2006, a year when vinyl revenue sales in the U.S. were a mere $23.7 million. At that point, vinyl was such a niche market (and Swift was such a new artist) that for Taylor Swift and her second album, Fearless, Swift didn’t even release vinyl editions until May 2016, when they sold 500 copies and 1,000 copies, respectively, in their first week of availability. By the time of 2010’s Speak Now, Swift’s star power was much more formidable, but vinyl was still pretty niche; all vinyl sales in the U.S. that year accumulated $124.2 million, according to the RIAA, and Speak Now moved 500 copies in its first week.
Red, in 2012, was a true breakthrough moment for Swift in terms of her pop career, and the vinyl business had itself added nearly $100 million in value in just two years, to $213.3 million; Red sold 1,000 copies in the first week it came out in the format. Two years later, when she released 1989, the vinyl industry had added another $100 million per year, and the standard vinyl moved 11,000 copies in its first week of availability. For 2017’s Reputation, a slightly delayed street date release led to a 9,000 sale week in what was technically its second week of availability, with Swift still sticking to the standard vinyl option.
It was for Lover that Swift’s strategy first began to change, as she began experimenting with vinyl offerings beyond the standard black record, and the numbers began to really jump. When the album came out on the format in November 2019, it was as a colored double-vinyl, sold exclusively at Target, which helped boost that first-week number to 18,000 copies — at the time, the largest vinyl sales week by a woman since Adele’s 25 during Christmas week 2015 (reflected on the Jan. 9, 2016, chart). By 2019, vinyl sales in the U.S. had reach the half-billion-dollar mark — and the real jump for the format was on the horizon.
The figures for Folklore — 9,000 copies week one — at first may seem like a regression. But the pandemic brought about two competing trends: both an aggressive jump in the popularity of vinyl, and vast, industry-wide supply-chain issues related to the production of it. Since Folklore was a surprise release on July 24, 2020, the vinyl was delayed until November; but Swift sold digital-physical bundles when the album was first released, meaning that the digital sale was counted during the July release week, but when the vinyl finally shipped in November — the first-week availability tracked here — the sales were not counted as vinyl, as they had already been counted as digital. (The chart rules have since changed so they are no longer counted together.) So while Folklore’s first week as a wide release had 615,000 album sales, there’s no clear way of delineating how many of those sales included vinyl copies; and the first-week figure in November, of 9,000 copies, represents the number purchased during that week, when many of Swift’s die-hard fans were receiving the album, though it was not tracked that way.
Nonetheless, Folklore was the first Swift album to really lean in to the vinyl-as-collectible trend, with seven alternate covers in addition to the standard black pressing available. Evermore would follow suit, with another pandemic-related delay helping its first week: The album was released in December 2020, but the vinyl came out in May 2021, allowing for five months of banked pre-orders, and with a collectible tweak: It was available in two green-colored variants and a red-colored Target exclusive, resulting in a then-record 102,000 vinyl sales in its first week of availability.
What followed was the furious slate of re-releases of her older albums, as well as her own new releases, many of which followed similar strategies — and led to truly eye-popping, record-breaking numbers. Fearless (Taylor’s Version), also with a delayed physical release, came with two vinyl versions, a gold variant and a red Target exclusive, leading to a 67,000-copy first week; Red (Taylor’s Version) followed shortly after with two versions, both of which were four-LP sets that sold for $49.99 and led to a 114,000-sale first week, re-setting her own record.
By the time Midnights rolled around a year later, Swift’s playbook was complete: multiple covers, multiple colored vinyl variants and multiple vinyl editions of each album. Midnights had four variant editions sold widely, as well as another as a Target exclusive, while each of the wide releases were also available as signed copies. The result: 575,000 LPs sold in a week. Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), the following July, had three colored variants, one of which was a Target exclusive; 268,000 vinyl sales later, it also entered the pantheon. And 1989 (Taylor’s Version) completed the pre-Tortured Poets set: five color variants, one a Target exclusive with an extra bonus track, and 693,000 LPs sold in its first week.
Since the pandemic year of 2020, vinyl sales in the U.S. ballooned from $820 million to the 2023 peak of $1.35 billion in revenue. And while that’s an industry-wide trend, Swift’s strategies, and successes, have surely had plenty to do with it, too.
Live event production and rehearsal studio Rock Lititz and development firm Al. Neyer have teamed to open a 55-acre Nashville entertainment rehearsal and production campus, Rock Nashville, in 2025.
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The deal will include 44 acres of development over a 55-acre site in Nashville’s Whites Creek neighborhood. The Rock Nashville campus will include three buildings with more than 515,000 square feet of sound stages as well as creative offices and production facilities in various sizes with the capacity to support various production specifications for live shows, from local bands to A-list artists. The campus will include resources for performers and 13 band and production studio rehearsal spaces ranging from club/theater sizes to amphitheater, arena and stadium-scale (including one space up to 95 feet tall to replicate venues of that size), as well as set storage, backline rental, artist relation offices and a community cafe.
The campus is expected to become home to nearly 35 companies, including rehearsal studio complex SoundCheck, which had a hand in designing Rock Nashville and helped spearhead the strategic partnership between the team at Rock Lititz and Al. Neyer. SoundCheck will move from its current home on Cowan Street in Nashville, where it has been located for over three decades. Additionally, Clair Global, which provides live production spaces, systems integration and audio solutions, will be located at the new campus.
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Groundbreaking for the new facility occurred in mid-April, and construction is expected to be completed in Fall of 2025. Rock Nashville is expected to be home to 400 employees, and 85 employees at support businesses.
“As a full-service developer, we’re thrilled to be involved in the design, construction, and development of the future of Music City and live entertainment. As we continue to invest in the growing market of Nashville, this is our first foray into the entertainment world. We couldn’t imagine a more perfect operating partner to bring a new offering to the Nashville market alongside,” said Patrick Poole, Nashville Market Leader for Al. Neyer, in a statement.
“As we approach ten years since Rock Lititz opened its doors, we’ve been eager to find the next space and partner for expanding our support for the live entertainment industry. This unique and hard-working community thrives with access to specialized training, mentoring, and resources to help create custom live experiences for audiences worldwide. It is with great excitement that we’ve identified Nashville and Al. Neyer as the right city and partner. We are passionate about growing this network, and Nashville is the perfect location to join with other industry leaders to create something special,” added Andrea Shirk, Rock Lititz President and CEO, in a statement.
“SoundCheck has been part of the Nashville entertainment community for over 30 years, and we couldn’t be more excited to make Rock Nashville our new home,” said Soundcheck GM Kindal Jumper. “As Music City continues to grow as a premier destination for all genres of music, the campus’s state-of-the-art facilities will allow Soundcheck to meet the growing needs of today’s acts, ensuring the highest caliber production experience for artists and crews from Broadway to Bridgestone.
Rock Lititz was founded in 2000 by Troy Clair, owner of Clair Global, and Adam Davis, CEO of the TAIT Group. The Rock Lititz campus in Pennsylvania opened in 2014 and is home to more than 40 companies that support the live entertainment space.
SAG-AFTRA members have voted to ratify the 2024 Sound Recordings Code which requires the record labels — Warner Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Disney Music Group — to abide by its AI safety rules. Notably, these are the first-ever explicitly defined compensation requirements for the release of sound recordings containing AI voices.
With a vote of 97.69% to 2.31%, SAG-AFTRA members, which include actors as well as singers and recording artists, now will receive this protections, effective immediately, for the term of 2021-2026. Now, the term “artist,” “singer” and “royalty artist” under this agreement only can refer to human talent. “Clear and conspicuous” consent is required prior to the release of a sound recording that uses a digital replication of an artist’s voice.
Artists who are replicated are also entitled to receive specific details about the replica’s intended use and to minimum compensation. Compensation for artists must align with the royalty share the artist would earn on other sound recordings under their contract, and sessions singers must receive a minimum of three sides per project. A minimum of 28 hours notice of any recording session for the purpose of creating a digital replica is expected and that session time should be paid as work time.
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Additionally, blanket consent for digital or AI replication is prohibited. Instead, record labels must obtain consent on a per-project basis — a provision which will prevent labels from asking artists to sign away their digital likeness for lengthy terms as part of their deals.
In the year since Ghostwriter’s fake-Drake song “Heart On My Sleeve” brought conversations about AI voices to the forefront, little has been done to actually enforce the protection of artists’ identities. While the federal government is considering a few bills (like the draft NO FAKES Act and the NO AI FRAUD Act) to create a nationwide right of publicity that would create uniform protection for artists’ names, images, and voices, these protections, for now, remain a patchwork of varying state laws that were largely written before artificial intelligence presented new use cases for AI.
“Singers and recording artists have a profound impact on our culture, and I’m thrilled that they’ve achieved a contract that not only recognizes their value with significant wage increases, but also provides them essential protections around artificial intelligence,” said SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher. “We celebrate our human performers! I applaud the negotiating committee and staff, the record labels, and SAG-AFTRA members for getting this contract across the finish line!”
SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director & Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland said, “This contract secures groundbreaking A.I. guardrails while also achieving crucial and substantial wage increases, and other key wins for singers and recording artists. Protecting human artistry will always be SAG-AFTRA’s priority, and I’m heartened that our members have a contract that provides immediate gains and recognizes the importance of human contributions to the industry. I also want to acknowledge Negotiating Committee Chair Dan Navarro and the entire committee and staff for their outstanding and dedicated work in achieving this agreement.”
Sound Recordings Code Negotiating Committee Chair Dan Navarro said, “Members’ feedback played a key role in the formation of this contract and the negotiating committee prioritized the concerns that were most crucial to the singers and recording artists impacted by these terms. We’re proud to have achieved these essential wins in A.I. protections along with substantial wage increases and gains in health and retirement funding.”
Other wins included wage increases and gains in health and retirement funding. To read the full list of provisions, see here.
