Business
Page: 408
Meta is poised to unveil a new app that appears to mimic Twitter — a direct challenge to the social media platform owned by Elon Musk.
A listing for the app, called Threads, appeared on Apple’s App Store, indicating it would debut as early as Thursday. It is billed as a “text-based conversation app” that is linked to Instagram, with the listing teasing a Twitter-like microblogging experience.
“Threads is where communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what’ll be trending tomorrow,” it said.
Instagram users will be able to keep their user names and follow the same accounts on the new app, according to screenshots displayed on the App Store listing. Meta declined to comment on the app.
Musk replied “yeah” to a tweet from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey saying, “All your Threads are belong to us,” along with a screenshot from the App Store’s privacy section showing what personal information might be collected by the new Meta app.
Threads could be the latest headache for Musk, who acquired Twitter last year for $44 billion and has been making changes that have unnerved advertisers and turned off users, including new daily limits on the number of tweets people can view.
Meta has good timing because Twitter users are growing frustrated with Musk’s changes and looking for a viable alternative, said Matt Navarra, a social media consultant.
Threads presents the “opportunity to jump to a platform that can give them many of the things that they want Twitter to continue to be that it no longer is,” he said.
Allowing Instagram users to port their profile to Threads could give the new app more traction with potential users by providing a ready-made set of accounts for them to follow, said Navarra, former director of social media at tech news site The Next Web and digital communications adviser for the British government.
Twitter has rolled out a series of unpopular changes in recent days, including a requirement for users to be verified to use the online dashboard TweetDeck. The policy announced Monday takes effect in 30 days and appears to be aimed at raising extra revenue because users need to pay have their accounts verified under Musk’s changes.
TweetDeck is popular with companies and news organizations, allowing users to manage multiple Twitter accounts.
It comes after outcry over Musk’s announcement this weekend that Twitter has limited the number of tweets users can view each day — restrictions that the billionaire Tesla CEO described as an attempt to stop unauthorized scraping of potentially valuable data.
Still, some users might be put off by Meta’s data privacy track record, Navarra said. And would-be Twitter challengers like Mastodon have found it a challenge to sign up users.
“It’s hard to tell whether the upset and discontent is strong enough to make a mass exodus or whether it will be somewhat of a slow erosion,” Navarra said.
Musk’s rivalry with Meta Platforms also could end up spilling over into real life. In an online exchange between Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the two tech billionaires seemingly agreed to a cage match face-off, though it’s unclear if they will actually make it to the ring.
Sherrese Clarke Soares‘ HarbourView Equity Partners and Diddy‘s Revolt are among the bidders finalizing second-round offers to acquire a majority stake in BET Media Group from Paramount Global, according to two sources with knowledge of the talks.
Jesse Collins Entertainment, which produced the Grammys and this year’s SuperBowl halftime performance by Rihanna, is also mulling joining HarbourView and Revolt’s joint offer for the package of networks that includes VH1, said one of the sources, who requested anonymity due to the confidential nature of the talks.
Paramount Global is reportedly exploring selling a majority stake in BET Media Group, which includes BET, BET+, BET Gospel, BET HER, BET International, BET Jams, BET Soul, BET Studios and VH1, for as much as $3 billion, as it looks to offload assets like book publisher Simon & Shuster and preschool service Noggin to focus on its streaming business.
Sources say other bidders submitting second-round offers for BET Media Group include Tyler Perry and Byron Allen. Paramount is reportedly looking to finalize deals this fall.
A spokesperson for BET declined to comment for this story.
Soares, whose private equity firm owns rights to songs by regional Mexican trio Eslabon Armado, Luis Fonsi and Florida Georgia Line, confirmed during a red-carpet interview with Billboard at the BET Awards that HarbourView has an active bid for the media group.
“We are here because of how much we support the brand and how excited we are about the opportunity around the brand itself,” Soares said, declining to share further details.
A former Morgan Stanley managing director, Soares founded HarbourView in 2021, initially to acquire publishing and music recording rights — an investment strategy she helped develop as CEO and co-founder of Tempo Music. More recently, Soares has guided HarbourView’s investments in media companies, aiming to build out a distribution network for content soundtracked by artists in its catalog.
In March, HarbourView led a $90 million investment in a minority stake in MACRO, a film, television and branding company founded by Charles D. King, whose projects include Judas and the Black Messiah. Directed by Shaka King, Judas made history in 2021 as the first-ever film with an all-Black production team to be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars.
“Our interest is to be fuel to the entertainment and media segment,” Soares told Billboard at the BET Awards, referencing HarbourView’s investments in catalogs and MACRO. Regarding the results of the bids for BET, Soares said, “We’ll let the cards fall where they may.”
Sara Evans signed with Nashville-based label Melody Place, which she joins in partnership with her own imprint, Born to Fly Records. The country singer is slated to return to the recording studio in October to work on new music, with an expected album release in 2024. It will be her first album of original material in seven years. “When the Melody Place team approached me about working together and expanding all the things I’d already been doing with my own label — Born To Fly Records, it became clear that they share the same passion and excitement about trying new and innovative things to connect fans with music,” said Evans in a statement. Evans is represented by manager Craig Dunn at One Spark Entertainment and agents Doug Neff and Becky Gardenhire at WME.
Independent artist Petey (“Don’t Tell the Boys,” “Lean Into Life”) signed with Capitol Records, which will release his new single, “I’ll Wait,” on July 7. He’s represented by managers Ethan Silverman and William Crane and agent Tor Breon at WME. He was previously signed to Terrible Records.
Bronx rapper Scar Lip (“Glizzy Gobbler,” “This Is New York”) signed with Epic Records, which will be releasing new music from the spitter “very soon.”
Singer-songwriter Vera Sola signed to City Slang Records, which released her new single, “Desire Path,” on June 28. It’s her first new release since 2019. Sola is represented by manager Jim Martin at XXVII Arts and agent Will Church at ATC.
Country singer/songwriter and rapper C’ing Jerome (“Barn Don’t Close”) signed a record deal with Average Joes Entertainment. The label released his latest single, “Average Joe,” on June 16.
Page 1 Management added London-based songwriter/producer Tommy Sanders and songwriter/producer David Kerckhoff to its roster. Sanders will work with Rob Turnham out of Page 1’s London office and Kerckhoff will work with Nina Musolino out of Page 1’s Nashville office.
Boston band Final Gasp signed with Relapse Records, which will release the group’s debut album, Mourning Moon, on September 22. The group’s 2021 EP, Haunting Whisper, was released by Triple B Records.
MNRK Music Group signed English “tech metal” band Turin to its heavy metal and hard rock imprint MNRK Heavy.
Twitter owner Elon Musk has limited the number of tweets that users can view each day — restrictions he described as an attempt to prevent unauthorized scraping of potentially valuable data from the social media platform.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
The site is now requiring people to log on to view tweets and profiles — a change in its longtime practice to allow everyone to peruse the chatter on what Musk has frequently touted as the world’s digital town square since buying it for $44 billion last year.
The restrictions could result in users being locked out of Twitter for the day after scrolling through several hundred tweets. Thousands of users complained Saturday (July 1) of not being able to access the site.
In a Friday tweet, Musk described the new restrictions as a temporary measure that was taken because “we were getting data pillaged so much that it was degrading service for normal users!”
Musk has pushed back on what he calls misuse of Twitter data to train popular artificial intelligence systems like ChatGPT. They scour reams of information online to generate human-like text, photos, video and other content.
Musk elaborated on the limits Saturday, saying unverified accounts will temporarily be restricted to reading 600 posts per day, while verified accounts will be able to scroll through up to 6,000.
After facing backlash, he tweeted that the thresholds would be raised to 800 posts for unverified accounts and 8,000 for verified accounts before later settling on 1,000 and 10,000 tweets, respectively.
The crackdown began to have ripple effects, causing more than 7,500 people at one point Saturday to report problems using the social media service, based on complaints registered on Downdetector, a website that tracks online outages.
Although that’s a relatively small number of Twitter’s more than 200 million worldwide users, the trouble was widespread enough to cause the #TwitterDown hashtag to trend in some parts of the world.
The higher threshold allowed on verified accounts is part of an $8-per-month subscription service that Musk rolled out earlier this year in an effort to boost Twitter revenue. It has fallen sharply since the billionaire Tesla CEO took over the company and laid off roughly three-fourths of the workforce to cut costs and stave off bankruptcy.
Advertisers have since curbed their spending on Twitter, partly because of changes that have allowed more sometimes-hateful and prickly content that offends a wider part of the service’s audience.
Musk recently hired longtime NBC Universal executive Linda Yaccarino as Twitter’s CEO to try to win back advertisers.
An Associated Press inquiry about Saturday’s access problems triggered a crude automated reply that Twitter sends to most media queries without addressing the question.
When Madonna was forced to reschedule her 84-date Celebration Tour on Wednesday after she was stricken with a bacterial infection and hospitalized in the ICU, concern immediately turned to the pop superstar’s health (luckily, she’s expected to make a full recovery). But for industry watchers, the postponement also raises an interesting question: Just how much does it cost to reschedule a tour of that magnitude?
It’s impossible to come up with a solid number given all of the moving parts involved in a tour of this scale, particularly without having access to any insurance policies or contracts with venues and vendors. But postponing that large of a tour just over two weeks short of the July 15 opener at the Rogers Arena in Vancouver, Canada — and then rescheduling it — will nonetheless amount to a huge endeavor requiring hours of phone calls, disruptions to people’s lives and plenty of sunk costs for venues, show crew members, ticket buyers and Madonna herself.
Live Nation and Madonna’s touring team have already spent millions on equipment and infrastructure. While much of the show is custom-built and designed, there are plenty of production pieces — from speakers to staging — that are rented from major backline companies. The tour has also chartered buses and trucks and rented venues, which are expenditures that require deposits with varying costs depending on demand and availability.
Live Nation and the Madonna tour will have to pay some of these deposits, especially for those high-demand items that can’t be redirected toward other tours. In some cases, they will also be on the hook for venue deposits for canceled shows, although most venues will waive the cost to maintain a good relationship with Live Nation, which brings many arenas most of their touring content.
The largest group impacted by the postponement will be the approximately 1.2 million fans who purchased tickets for the tour, representing hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. Some fans booked airline tickets, hotel rooms and rental properties around the tour, and some of those purchases will be deemed non-refundable. Those fans will have to make new plans after the rescheduled Madonna dates are announced, likely sometime in the next few weeks. Those who can’t attend might be able to get a refund, depending on what Madonna’s team decides, or sell their tickets on either a fan-to-fan exchange for face value or on a ticket resale site like StubHub or Vivid Seats.
The largest human costs will be borne by a much smaller group: the men and women working as roadies, touring professionals and support staff for the tour. With just over two weeks to go before opening, most positions on the tour have been filled, and many have started work building sets, editing content and rehearsing. As independent contractors, rescheduling the tour means their pay will be interrupted too, potentially leaving hundreds of people unemployed when they had planned to be working. While many, depending on the state, will receive a small severance and qualify for limited unemployment benefits, the disruption caused by the postponement will almost certainly mean that many touring professionals will not generate the income they had budgeted for this year and will now have to spend the months they thought they had secure employment looking for new work.
Fortunately, because the concert business is currently so strong at the highest level, there are more work opportunities in touring now than ever before, and some crew members will be able to immediately find replacement gigs. Others, however, will have to wait months until the rescheduled Madonna tour launches.
For the touring operation itself, the costs of the postponement could easily add up to millions of dollars. But the Celebration Tour has been so successful — more than 600,000 tickets were sold the first day tickets went on sale — that it will still amount to a huge financial windfall for Live Nation and Madonna when the tour eventually hits the road. That doesn’t mean it’ll be easy for everyone getting there
Big Machine Music has promoted Mike Molinar to president of the publishing company, effective immediately. Molinar will continue to report to Big Machine Label Group chairman and CEO Scott Borchetta.
BMM, a division of HYBE America, also announced the advancement of Alex Heddle to senior vp of publishing and Grayson Stephens to vice president, overseeing royalties and finance.
“I’m so proud to announce that Mike Molinar has been appointed President of Big Machine Music. His leadership, vision, artist relations and song sense are unmatched,” Borchetta said in a press release. “We are also acknowledging the outstanding work and accomplishments of BMM’s Alex Heddle and Grayson Stephens as they continue to power the Machine to new heights.”
Molinar has nearly three decades of experience as a music publisher and advocate for creatives. He has led Big Machine Music since its inception in 2011, overseeing the company’s ongoing growth of a diverse roster and dynamic catalog of over 14,000 songs (including the RIAA Diamond-certified “Beautiful Crazy” (recorded by Luke Combs), “In Case You Didn’t Know (Brett Young) and “Speechless” (Dan+Shay), while also leading the company’s impact beyond its Nashville base with the addition of a West Coast division based in Los Angeles. Molinar has been named a Billboard Country Power Player for four consecutive years, and was selected for the Nashville Cohort of the Harvard Young American Leaders Program in 2021. Molinar currently serves as a board member on the National Music Publishers Association, Mechanical Licensing Collective designated by the U.S. Copyright Office, Music Health Alliance, Academy of Country Music and Country Music Hall of Fame Education Council.
Heddle recently celebrated a decade at BMM and represents songwriters Jessie Jo Dillon, Ryan Hurd, Matt Dragstrem, Geoff Warburton and Sara Davis, who recently earned her first Grammy Award nomination with “abcdefu” (GAYLE) for song of the year. A graduate of Leadership Music’s class of 2022, Heddle currently serves on the AIMP Nashville board and as a Music Row Ambassador for St. Jude Children’s Hospital. The Belmont University alum’s career includes time at Love Monkey Music, Writer’s Den Music, Propoel Music Publishing and Ash Street Music.
A graduate of Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business, Stephens brings nearly 14 years of publishing administration experience to the vice president role, having previously held positions at Sony Music Publishing prior to joining Big Machine Music in 2017.
“I’m honored by Scott Borchetta’s continued faith and partnership. Big Machine Music is my home; our incredible team and world-class songwriters are my family. I’m proud to continue our journey together,” Molinar added in a press release. “In that spirit, I can’t understate how important Alex Heddle and Grayson Stephens have been through these past several years of transition and growth. I’m so happy to see their efforts recognized with such well-deserved promotions.”
BMM’s current roster includes Billboard’s 2022 Songwriter of the Year Laura Veltz, Brett Young, Ryan Hurd, Jessie Jo Dillon, Matt Dragstrem, Geoff Warburton, Sara Davis, Eric Paslay, Justin Moore, Maddie & Tae, Anna Vaus, Matt Roy, Mike Eli, Daniel Ross, Callista Clark, Tyler Rich, Laci Kaye Booth, Troy Cartwright, Ayron Jones, Dalton Mauldin and Teddy Reimer. Catalog writers include Luke Combs, Brandy Clark, Jonathan Singleton and Josh Thompson.
300 Entertainment continues to bolster its roster of young talent with the signing of newest act BlakeIANA, a Midwest-based rapper on the rise for her song “BING BONG.” “When I heard BlakeIANA, I was impressed and definitely excited by the sound,” 300 Entertainment co-president Selim Bouab tells Billboard. “Once I sat down with her face-to-face, […]
Ryan Beuschel joined The Neal Agency as head of business development, where he’ll assist in artist development across a TNA roster that includes Morgan Wallen, HARDY and Anne Wilson. The Michigan native is fresh off a nine-year tour of Warner Chappell Music, where he rose to vp of A&R and is credited with signing recently crowned Billboard Country Power Players rookie of the year Bailey Zimmerman (a TNA client). Beuschel got his start interning at Universal Music Publishing Group and later held roles at UMG and ASCAP. “Ryan has been a close friend of mine for many years,” said agency founder and co-head Austin Neal. “He carries the same entrepreneurial spirit and artist first mentality that aligns with the core values of our company.” Reach Beuschel at Ryan@TheNealAgency. net.
Sony Music’s distribution and indie artist services company AWAL hired Vijay Basrur to captain its expansion into the opportunity-rich India and South Asia markets. This new chapter for AWAL follows the acquisition of Basrur’s homegrown digital distribution service, OKListen, which works with 4,000-plus artists across India. Based in Mumbai and supported by Sony Music India, the Basrur-led AWAL division will help indie-centric artists with their marketing, creative, synchs, radio promotion and, of course, distribution needs. He’ll report to AWAL CEO Lonny Olinick and Sony Music India managing director Vinit Thakkar. “The independent music community across the region is full of potential,” said Olinick.
Linda Bloss-Baum will depart SoundExchange, where she is senior vp of government relations and public policy, to join the Kogod School of Business at American University as a full-time faculty member. The Washington D.C.-based Bloss-Baum started at SoundExchange in 2021 after holding roles at Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group and Time Warner Inc. At the Kogod School of Business, where she has been an adjunct professor for a decade, she’ll serve as assistant program director in the business and entertainment program and teach two undergraduate courses. Bloss-Baum officially starts her new job on Aug. 15.
Ticketing and events marketplace Tixr continues a hiring spree with the appointment of Irene Hedges to chief strategy officer. Hedges, most recently Warner Bros.’ svp of corporate business development and strategy, will spend her time at Tixr launching new business verticals and expanding the company internationally, among other duties. Other recent appointments at Tixr include Matt Baca to vp of finance, Acacia Diaz to vp of marketing and Nate Liberman to vp of sports. But wait there’s more: industry veteran Sara Mertz was promoted to vp of music partnerships – venues.
ICYMI: Rihanna stepped down as Savage X Fenty boss … Patrick Moore was appointed CEO at Opry Entertainment Group … Jarred Arfa was named evp/head of global music at the newly launched Independent Artist Group … SoundCloud promoted Tracy Chan to chief content officer … Runner Music hired Amanda Hill as co-chief creative officer … German music rights body GEMA announced Dr. Tobias Holzmüller will take over as CEO starting in October … and UMG Nashville named Charlene Bryant as svp of business development and strategy.
Lauren Lieu was promoted to senior director of creative at Play It Again Music Group, the full-service music company founded by singer-songwriter Dallas Davidson. In her new role, Lieu will serve as head of PIA’s publishing arm, which has a roster including Davidson, Lee Brice, Lewis Brice, Tyler Farr and Dylan Marlowe, among others. “Lauren Lieu is a warrior,” remarked Davidson. Prior to joining PIA in 2021 as director of creative, she served as creative manager at ole Music Publishing. Reach Lieu at Lauren@piamusic.com.
PR firm Shore Fire Media promoted Alena Joyiens to senior account executive. The Brooklyn-based publicist joined Shore Fire in 2019 as a junior account executive and since then was upped to account executive, leading campaigns for Kesha, Bonnie Raitt, ODESZA, Debbie Gibson and other clients. Her remit has also included several book campaigns, including for Decoding ‘Despacito’: An Oral History of Latin Music by Leila Cobo, the chief content officer for Latin music at Billboard. Joyiens can be reached at ajoyiens@shorefire.com.
Speaking of, Erica Goldish has left Shore Fire for a new opportunity at brand strategy & communications firm FYI Brand Group, where her client roster includes 21 Savage, Cardi B, DJ Khaled, Doja Cat, Metro Boomin’, Travis Scott, Wizkid and many more. Goldish joined Shore Fire in 2021 as a junior account executive and dropped the junior a year later.
Nashville Bites: Charly Salvatore’s marketing/management firm underscore works added two new employees: artist manager/director of marketing Jamie Ernst and associate manager Jordin Wentworth. Ernst is a former Average Joes day-to-day manager who brings Sister Hazel to the underscore client list. Wentworth was recently a ClearBox Rights project manager … Shore Fire Media promoted Nashville-based Olivia Del Valle to senior account executive from account executive … Mason Stanfield joined KATC Colorado Springs, Colo., as PD/morning host. He arrives after working the morning shift at KRMD Shreveport, La. … KUZZ Bakersfield, Calif., morning team Cliff Dumas and Tanya Brakebill announced their retirement from radio following their June 23 shift. –Tom Roland
TikTok’s parent company ByteDance launched its own music creation tool called Ripple on Friday (June 30th) for a small group of beta testers in the U.S.
Ripple offers audio recording and editing capabilities as well as a “melody to song” function, which allows users to hum a melody and spits out an instrumental version of it in an assortment of genres. TikTokers could use it to create sounds for their videos.
The beta launch of Ripple makes sense at a time when the music industry is increasingly cognizant of the fact that young listeners are no longer content to sit back and just listen to someone else’s song — they want to add their own twist, or even make one themselves. Ole Obermann, TikTok’s global head of music, told a conference earlier this year that listeners “want to put their fingerprints on the song.”
This is becoming a common sentiment: Surveys show “how much Gen Z wants to actively participate in music,” Tatiana Cirisano, music industry analyst and consultant at Midia Research, told Billboard last year. In March, John Fleckenstein, COO of RCA Records, told Billboard that “Gen Z has an expectation, because they’ve grown up as digital natives, that if you do something, they can iterate or comment on it. That doesn’t end in the comments section of a social media post: It’s now bleeding into the art itself.”
One of the companies that has had a lot of success by making it easy for the masses to make music music is BandLab, a free app which had more than 60 million registered creators pumping out more than 16 million songs a month at the start of the year. Meng Ru Kuok, the company’s CEO, is fond of saying “we think everyone is a creator, including fans.”
Right now, millions of aspiring creators use BandLab or GarageBand or another program to make or manipulate audio, which they might then upload to TikTok as an original sound. But if Ripple becomes popular, TikTok’s massive user-base could produce soundtracks for their videos without ever leaving a ByteDance app.
And ByteDance has already launched another popular app that meshes well with TikTok: CapCut. CapCut “makes it a lot easier for your everyday user to be able to create more polished videos,” Jen Darmafall, director of marketing at ATG Group, told Billboard earlier this year. “You don’t have to have a particular skill set when it comes to editing — there are templates on the platform for you to go and plug in what you want, whether it’s photos or videos or text overlays or transitions. That’s helped it skyrocket.”
Colombian urban artist Ryan Castro has sued King Records, the indie label belonging to fellow Colombian artist Kevin Roldán for breach of contract of his management and label agreements in two separate complaints. The lawsuits — filed in Medellín, Colombia, in April and May, respectively — both name King Records, which is Roldán’s label.
A third suit, arguing breach of contract in terms of publishing agreements, is expected to be filed in the coming weeks, according to Castro’s attorney and manager, Leo Arango.
The lawsuits come as Castro is hitting new career highs. On July 7, he’s slated to release a new single, “Chimba de reggaetón” with Mexican star Peso Pluma (to be distributed by Sony Latin), while earlier this year he released both the “Corazón Roto” remix with Brray and Jhayco and “Ojitos Rojos” with Blessd. Additionally, he was named a Billboard “Latin Artist on the Rise” in June 2022.
The complaints mark the latest developments in the short relationship between Castro and Roldán, which started off on a positive note back in July 2020, when Castro signed management, recording and publishing contracts with Roldán’s company, King Records.
However, by 2021, the suit claims that Castro was requesting, and not receiving, financial statements from the label. In November 2021, in an effort to mend things between the two artists, says the suit, the two signed a separate agreement to create a new company, Awoo King Records. Under that agreement, the lawsuit alleges, Castro would have a 50% interest in the company and a majority share in revenue. However, Roldán would still control the finances of the company for the first year.
Castro’s career flourished thanks to hit singles like “Mujeriego,” which was distributed by Sony Music Latin. However, the suit alleges that Awoo King Records was still not providing proper accounting to Castro, who says he was still owed monies from King Records. The complaint further alleges that in August 2022, Castro’s attorneys realized that funds from Awoo King Records had been taken out of the company without Castro’s knowledge or authorization, draining some of the money needed to support his career.
After Roldán allegedly refused to give Castro the reins of the company, Castro sued. In his complaint, he claims he is owed money from digital distribution agreements and royalties and that the alleged financial improprieties have hurt his career.
A tribunal in Medellín is expected to hear the first of the two filed complaints in the coming weeks.
Arango says the legal issues aren’t impeding Castro’s ability to work or record, however. Aside from preparing the release of his single with Peso Pluma, he says Castro is also working on an album, likely due at the end of the year.
Roldán’s attorney, Pold Alexander, declined to comment for the story.