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Live Nation president/CFO Joe Berchtold might have been the sole defender of his company’s 2010 merger with Ticketmaster at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in January, but behind the scenes, he wasn’t alone.
Advising Berchtold and managing key relationships on Capitol Hill is a small army of over 30 lobbyists, deployed to defend the company from growing criticism by senators like Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. Klobuchar, who serves as the chair of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust and Consumer Rights, has made repeated calls to the Department of Justice to investigate Ticketmaster and break up the company if any wrongdoing is uncovered during a DOJ review of the consent decree it created to foster competition in ticketing. That review is expected to wrap up soon.
While Live Nation’s lobbying spending has been historically low for a company of its size and domi- nance, that’s changing. Last year, the company spent nearly five times as much on lobbying as it has in the past, according to data from Open Secrets, which uses public records to track such spending. From 2012 to 2018, Live Nation spent an average of $225,000 annually to lobby federal officials. In 2022, its annual lobbying expenses had increased to $1.1 million.
The company’s agendas include defending criticism regarding Ticketmaster’s handling of the Swift presale last November.
One of those insiders is Seth Bloom, a former longtime general counsel for the Senate’s antitrust subcommittee and advisory board member for the American Antitrust Institute. Another is Jonathan Becker, a former chief of staff and chief counsel to Klobuchar who now serves as a partner at law firm Mayer Brown and represented a dozen big-name clients in 2022, including Meta, Microsoft and Phillip Morris.
Live Nation now spends significantly more than its competitors in the touring sector. Last year, enter- tainment conglomerate AEG spent $140,000 on federal lobbying, according to Open Secrets, while secondary-market ticketing competitor SeatGeek spent $170,000 and Viagogo, the British company that bought StubHub in 2020, spent $140,000. Live Nation partner company Oak View Group spent $570,000 on lobbying, while Spotify, which has rolled out a new ticketing offering for concert promoters and is hoping to broaden its reach within the live space, spent $710,000.
Live Nation could spend even more this year as it ramps up efforts to exit the consent decree once the five year extension ends in 2024. The company now has more than seven lobbying firms working for it on issues that include ticketing, event safety and Federal Aviation Administration rules on the use of drones at events.
After weeks of strategizing how to salvage Ticketmaster’s reputation in the wake of last November’s Taylor Swift presale debacle and Live Nation president/CFO Joe Berchtold’s January grilling by the Senate Judiciary Committee, the ticketing giant’s parent company has settled on an approach that will ramp up lobbying to hit back at scalpers while educating consumers about ticketing fees.
Despite breaking two company records with the Nov. 15 The Eras Tour presale — the most tickets ever sold in a single day (2.4 million) and, according to the company, keeping 95% of those tickets off secondary sites like StubHub and SeatGeek — Ticketmaster found itself cast as the villain and Live Nation as a monopoly after a cyberattack disrupted over 100,000 transactions.
The outcry has led to a mixture of disbelief and self-reflection at Live Nation’s global headquarters in Beverly Hills, Calif. “The company enables music fans to connect with the world’s greatest artists through concerts and events that often become the cornerstone moments of people’s lives,” says a Live Nation executive who was not authorized to speak on the record. “Why the fuck do people hate us so much?”
Although the controversy over the Swift presale had to do with ticket availability rather than price — the prime complaint of Ticketmaster’s July 2022 Verified Fan sale of tickets to Bruce Springsteen’s 2023 tour — the executive says that Live Nation has determined that redeeming itself with consumers “starts with the fees,” which can add over 30% to the final price of a concert ticket.
“We’ve got to now go out and do a much better job so policymakers and consumers understand how the business operates,” Live Nation president/CEO Michael Rapino said during the company’s most recent investor call. “We’ve historically not had a big incentive to shout out loud that venues are charging high service fees or artist costs are expensive. But I think now [that] education is paramount.”
Ticketmaster’s main source of revenue comes from the fees it charges to process ticket transactions. A ticket’s face value goes to the artist, while the ticketing giant shares the fees it collects with the venues that contract for its services.
Ticketmaster typically keeps $2 to $5 per ticket for processing costs and a small portion of the fees it collects to recoup any loans, advances or bonuses it may have paid the venue to win its ticketing contract. Contracts for large venues can be worth millions of dollars. The balance of the fees collected goes to the venue, which uses the money to cover the cost of the show.
Traditionally, promoters book venues for artists, pay rent to use the space and hire its staff. What’s left over as profit is divvied up with the act, which typically receives 80% to 85% of that amount.
But as competition to book top-shelf headline talent has increased over the last decade, venues have reduced the rent they charge and promoters have agreed to take a smaller percentage of base ticket sales — sometimes as little as 5%.
As Rapino said on the investor call: “The artist takes most of that ticket fee base. So the way that the venue, the promoter or the ticketing company [earns its] revenue fees is through that extra fee.”
The increasing costs of concert production, which are borne by the promoter, have also wid- ened the gap between a ticket’s face value and the final amount charged after fees, which can induce sticker shock when two $100 tickets can end up costing $265. While it has been very profitable for Ticketmaster to cover more of a concert’s costs through these fees, it has helped turn ticket buyers against the company.
Ticketmaster executives are hoping a simple fix can solve the problem — showing the total cost of a ticket, face value plus fees, at the be- ginning of the checkout process. That method is already used in New York, where it is mandated by state law.
“We all want to know what is the true cost to see the show when we start shopping,” Rapino said on the call. “We wish that would be mandated tomorrow across the board [because] that would relieve a lot of the stress [and] the consumer’s perception that there’s this magical extra fee added on” that isn’t part of the overall show cost.
Ticketmaster and other ticketing companies have long debated whether to abandon what’s known as a “drip pricing” model but haven’t pulled the trigger because studies show that fans are more likely to make a purchase if the fees that are tacked onto the face value of a ticket don’t appear until checkout. Secondary-market ticketing companies have also adopted the practice, advertising tickets at prices below those sold on the primary market, then hitting consumers with a 35% to 45% markup at checkout.
In a move more closely tied to the Swift situation, Ticketmaster has also decided to target scalpers through legislation and proposed legislation called the FAIR Ticketing Act that would outlaw drip pricing and grant artists the ability to ban scalper websites from reselling their tour tickets. Support for the initiative includes all four major talent agencies, Universal Music Group and a number of management companies.
Pro-ticket scalping groups have proposed their own counter-legislation, effectively banning Ticketmaster from using its proprietary technology to stop scalpers. Neither bill has a congressional sponsor in either chamber of Congress, however, and unless that happens, neither has any chance of passing.
Ticketmaster does appear to have some serious muscle in its corner when it comes to the scalp- ing issue. In a February interview with Billboard, Gregg Perloff, founder and CEO of independent promoter Another Planet Entertainment, which produces San Francisco’s Outside Lands festival, said: “My question for [Congress] is, ‘Why are you picking on Ticketmaster and Live Nation when you should be outlawing brokers?’ They are the ones who screw up everything. Does every promoter take a few tickets? Does every venue have a few tickets? … Sure. But it’s the scalpers that make it so no one can get a decent seat except the rich. The Senate didn’t do the research they should have done before they started pontificating and acting like they knew what they were talking about.”
In addition, Perloff suggested that touring artists were partially responsible because they “really want to go on sale for the whole tour at once because they can advertise the whole tour at once and make a bigger splash.” Regarding Swift’s tour, he said, “There’s no system in the world — and this is where I have to defend Ticketmaster — that could have handled the onslaught.”
Also in February, at the Pollstar Live conference in Los Angeles, music mogul Irving Azoff and Madison Square Garden Entertainment chairman James Dolan took on pro-scalping journalist-podcaster Eric Fuller when he argued that scalping made tickets cheaper, citing discredited media reports of bargain bin-priced tickets available for Springsteen’s North American tour dates.
“It’s about a half-hour conversation, but you’re dead wrong,” Azoff told Fuller, who also operates a consulting business in ticketing.
“You got to take your hat off to this paid lobbying group that’s working for the scalpers,” Dolan chimed in. “These guys are pretty good. Maybe we should hire them.” In response, Fuller says Dolan’s comments are “grossly inaccurate.”
SEOUL — The bitter battle for control of K-pop’s fabled agency SM Entertainment has spilled out publicly like an episode of HBO’s Succession. K-pop’s largest agency, HYBE — home to boy band BTS — is pitted against the management of SM, which for years was South Korea’s dominant K-pop company. But as SM’s Lee Soo-man sided with HYBE against the company he founded, a corporate shakeup has turned into a battle royale.
SM sought to maintain its independence through a partnership with Kakao, a South Korean internet giant that has acquired several entertainment agencies. In February, Kakao said it would buy a 9.05% stake in SM against the wishes of Lee, SM’s charismatic founder and rock singer-turned-mogul, whose equity in SM allowed him to challenge the purchase in court.
About a week later, Lee — a controversial figure who helped build the K-pop business over the last three decades but has been convicted of embezzlement in the past — privately approached HYBE founder and chairman Bang Si-hyuk, offering to sell about 80% of his SM shares to HYBE, with an option to sell the remaining chunk at a later date, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. As a result, HYBE now has a 15.8% stake in SM, making it the company’s largest shareholder.
Since then, the companies have traded almost daily salvos.
After a March 3 provisionary injunction upheld Lee’s court challenge to the Kakao acquisition, Kakao announced it had canceled its investment in SM and launched a tender offer seeking to buy 35% of SM from minority shareholders. HYBE is now appealing to SM shareholders to back its board nominees and vision for the company. SM sees the move as a hostile takeover and is asking shareholders to appoint independent directors. The clock is ticking before a March 31 annual shareholder meeting.
Both HYBE and SM have grand ambitions to expand K-pop and take on the major labels globally. HYBE increased its revenue 125% to 1.78 billion won ($1.41 billion) from 2020 to 2022, largely by acquiring Ithaca Holdings in 2021 for $1.05 billion and giving its founder, Scooter Braun, the reins to its U.S. operations, HYBE America. In February, HYBE America made its first major move, purchasing Atlanta-based hip-hop company Quality Control Music for $300 million.
SM hopes to more than double its 2022 revenue of 850 billion won ($644 million) to 1.8 trillion won ($1.36 billion) by 2025 through a mix of partnerships and acquisitions, which include acquiring a U.S. management company and, by the second half of 2024, launching its first U.S.-based artist. “Our plan is not limited to local activities of Korean artists,” co-CEO Tak Young-jun said in a Feb. 23 video.
The company plans to spend 350 billion won ($266 million) on a music publishing company and 300 billion won ($228 million) to acquire record labels, with two-thirds of that amount ($152 million) targeting U.S. companies “with a solid local network that can support Korean artists’ global expansion and have global production capabilities in genres complementary to SM,” Lee Sung-soo, SM’s chief creative officer and co-CEO, said in the same video.
But minus its powerful founder, SM doesn’t intend to take the world stage with HYBE’s help. It had envisioned Kakao as its preferred partner in a mission — dubbed “SM 3.0” — it has said it will still push forward with in order to expand outside of Korea and build outposts in Japan, Southeast Asia and the Americas.
A HYBE acquisition of a controlling interest in SM could potentially face regulatory scrutiny from South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission since it exceeds 15% of SM’s stock ownership. In 2022, HYBE was behind 26.8% of albums sold in Korea, while SM was behind 19.1%, according to Korea chart company Circle Chart.
As Lee Dominated, SM’s Luster Was Fading
Though few had predicted such a dramatic unraveling, SM was overdue for a transformation. Once the leading K-pop innovator, SM has debuted just one completely new act, Aespa, in the last five years. It continues to operate through a single pipeline with Lee at the helm of artist management and production, while rivals like HYBE and JYP Entertainment have diversified their portfolios, relying on multiple teams that produce more acts with more independence.
SM’s shares have been chronically undervalued, industry observers say, due to an arrangement where the company paid producing fees to a separate entity owned by Lee. SM paid Lee 24 billion won ($18.1 million) in 2021, equivalent to more than a quarter of SM’s operating profit that year. Even in years when SM produced a loss, Lee took home a sizable paycheck.
The board of directors, packed with Lee allies, allowed the practice to continue for years, until Align Partners Capital Management, a private equity firm, led a shareholder revolt last year. Lee, who now holds about 3% of SM shares, appears headed out the door. HYBE and SM say his role will be reduced if not completely phased out.
“It’s hard to put up a resistance in Korean culture,” Lee Changhwan, CEO of Align Partners, says about the difficulty in over-riding a founder and company’s biggest shareholder. “The governance structure has to go through fundamental changes.”
South Korean stocks are often undervalued, analysts say, since some companies can seem to be managed for the benefit of founders and families to the detriment of general shareholders. Still, in the HYBE-SM power struggle, SM shareholders appear to have won either way: The March 7 share price of 149,700 won ($113.84) is up over 116% since SM announced it would terminate Lee’s contract on Oct. 14.
A K-Pop Pioneer With A Criminal Past
The 70-year-old Lee, who founded SM in 1995, has been credited with making K-pop what it is today. Inspired by early MTV music videos and New Kids on the Block, which he watched during his master’s degree studies in California in the 1980s, he paved the way for K-pop to win overseas fans with a signature formula of visually striking performance and dance pop.
Lee crafted BoA, the female singer who SM scouted in 1998 when she was 11 years old, into the first K-pop artist to break through in the Japanese market; she went on to sell millions of singles and albums. Groups from TVXQ and Girls’ Generation to EXO and NCT have followed suit with international stardom. In 2000, SM became the first K-pop agency to list its shares publicly.
Even before PSY and BTS became global household names, Lee was lecturing publicly about K-pop conquering the world — and about a future when non-Korean singers would join the fray and be trained and managed by K-pop production teams.
Lee’s artistic vision and drive didn’t make up for the company’s corporate governance problems, however. Shareholders have in recent years slammed SM for losses from non-music businesses such as a winery and restaurants while Lee was still getting his producer’s fees. Several SM acts have seen members leave acrimoniously over what they called harsh training and “slave contracts,” resulting in government intervention, including shorter contracts for K-pop trainees and stars.
In 2002, Lee made headlines when he fled the country to escape prosecution while facing embezzlement allegations. After a brief stay on Interpol’s wanted list, he surrendered to Korean authorities and was convicted for siphoning off 1.15 billion won ($892,000 at the time) in company funds during a recapitalization round, which he used to buy shares in SM. (He served three years of probation, and in 2007 he received a presidential pardon — and then returned to the company.) SM has also paid fines for tax evasion, most recently in 2021.
In recent weeks, Lee Sung-soo, the co-CEO who is also nephew to founder Lee’s late wife, leveled a series of accusations at his uncle, which range from previously undisclosed tax evasion through a shell company based in Hong Kong to making “arbitrary” changes to SM bands’ musical direction to advance his own business interests.
While the elder Lee has not directly addressed the allegations, HYBE has responded that it was unaware of such an arrangement during the deal’s signing. In a statement to Billboard, HYBE says its SM acquisition was made “following research on the corporate fundamentals, including publicly disclosed information about SM.”
Snoop Dogg teamed up with U.K. tech entrepreneur Sam Jones on Shiller, a live broadcast platform set to launch in April that will offer content creators a suite of tools to monetize their content, including the ability to token-gate their video and audio, share products from commerce sites and promote NFTs. According to a press release, the app “combines best of web3 technology with live, interactive video and audio streaming, to provide a one-stop-shop for creators, including NFT projects, artists, brands, and key opinion leaders, to monetize their following and connect with their audiences.”
B2B streaming technology company Tuned Global acquired Swedish music technology company Pacemaker, which holds several patents for its AI-driven DJ applications. “Thanks to Pacemaker, Tuned Global extends its B2B streaming technology dominance by now offering enhanced AI tools that will hook and excite users as part of our white-label music apps, as well as in a standalone product for companies who aren’t yet our customers,” said Tuned Global MD/founder Con Raso in a statement. Pacemaker’s AI DJ is capable of weaving together tracks and other audio, while a “match machine “can help curators instantly dig up great tracks in a massive catalog and keep the groove going for workouts, therapeutic sessions, or other playlist-driven moments,” according to a press release.
DJ/producer Steve Aoki launched Audio Media Grading in partnership with Collector Archive Services. The new company will provide grading, preservation and authentication services for grading vinyl records, cassettes, CDs and 8-track.
Cutting Edge Media Music (CEMM), a division of Cutting Edge Group, formed a strategic venture with Village Roadshow Entertainment Group that will encompass all of Village Roadshow’s past and future music publishing assets, soundtrack album releases and music supervision services for film and TV. The venture will be overseen by Brian McNelis, who heads CEMM division Lakeshore Records, along with Lakeshore’s Eric Craig, who will provide music supervision and music department support across the Village Roadshow slate. Village Roadshow COO Louis Santor will take the lead in implementing all aspects of the deal.
B2B distributor FUGA expanded its global user-generated content and rights management offering by completely integrating rights management company Adrev. Both are owned by Downtown Music. The integration formalizes months of collaboration between FUGA and Adrev, according to a press release, which states that with the integration, “both FUGA and Adrev clients will now be provided with an extended service aimed at amplifying and simplifying UGC and premium video content monetization into one, seamless environment.”
BMG partnered with Stockholm-based artist management company Scandinavian Talent Management (STM), which also specializes in music supervision, music publishing and live events. “We are delighted with BMG’s trust and are confident that we can create many synergies with their global resources and networks,” said STM founder/MD Henrik Johansson in a statement. STM clients include Swedish rock-pop singer-songwriter and BMG artist Kristofer Greczula; British guitarist, songwriter and producer Chad Neale; and Mando Diao bassist Carl-Johan “CeeJay” Fogelklou.
Chordal partnered with AI developer AudioShake to launch Auto-Instrumental, described as an “on-demand instrumental solution” for music supervisors that’s designed to streamline synch placement. “Auto-Instrumental reduces the time of obtaining an instrumental from days or weeks (if it even exists!) to a matter of seconds, making it immediately possible to trial music to picture,” said Chordal co-founder Grayson Sanders in a statement.
Film and TV company Gunpowder & Sky signed a multi-year, multi-project development and production deal with Audible. Under the deal, Gunpowder & Sky will provide Audible with an exclusive first look at the studio’s slate of audio initiatives covering music, pop culture and more. In February, Audible released In the Cut with Ghetto Gastro, an eight-episode Audible Original podcast executive produced by Gunpowder & Sky. Two upcoming music-oriented podcasts from the companies — Lighters in the Sky and Shelved — “will reveal iconic, often undercover, music stories to the masses,” according to a press release. The first-look deal builds on an existing collaboration that has spawned multiple installments in Audible’s Words + Music franchise.
Global music piracy crept up in 2022, marking the second straight year it has increased after a period of steady decline, according to a report from MUSO, a U.K. technology company. MUSO, which tracks consumption across websites around the world to “to understand the true picture of digital piracy,” logged more than 15 billion visits to music piracy sites in 2022.
Piracy has been a thorn in the music industry’s side for more than two decades. In recent years, however, the widespread adoption of streaming has led to a steep drop in the types of peer-to-peer and file-sharing behavior that once threatened to bring the music business to its knees.
In a world driven by streaming, rather than downloads or CD sales, the industry is increasingly focused on a different set of issues. Key among them is streaming fraud, which is not driven by fan’s desire to have more music at their fingertips. Instead, this activity often involves bad actors siphoning money away from the music business — by running bot networks that play 31-second white-noise recordings nonstop on Spotify, for example.
Growth in streaming revenues shows signs of slowing, meaning that every dollar that leaks out of the music ecosystem is becoming more important to labels. And MUSO’s report shows that piracy, even if it has faded from headlines, isn’t negligible.
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For example, Justin Bieber‘s songs, albums, or “music bundles” — which could include an entire discography — were illegally downloaded over 1 million times across the peer-to-peer/torrent network in 2022, for example, with more than 40% of those downloads coming from the U.S. MUSO detected more than 950,000 illegal downloads of David Bowie‘s music, more than 780,000 across Bruce Springsteen’s catalog, and more than 750,000 involving Bob Dylan releases.
The U.S. accounts for 7% of all piracy traffic picked up by MUSO, third only behind Iran (15.05%) and India (10.29%). Despite the prevalence of streaming among U.S. listeners, their appetite for piracy far outpaces their peers in other major music markets like the U.K. (1.86% of piracy traffic) and Germany (1.92%). And more than half of all the piracy in the U.S. takes place via stream-ripping, which relies on programs to get around YouTube’s copyright protection and convert audio into MP3s.
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In 2019, the RIAA said it was monitoring more than 200 stream-ripping sites. Labels have taken legal measures to go after some of these: In December 2021, a U.S. judge ordered a pair of Russian sites to pay more than $80 million — $50,000 for each of the 1,618 copyrighted works infringed — in damages. The judge wrote that 1,618 was “likely on the low end of Defendant’s indeterminable number of violations.” Tofig Kurbanov, the owner of the sites, subsequently appealed the ruling.
RIAA chief legal officer Ken Doroshow said at the time that “this litigation sets out vital first principles that should chart a path for further enforcement against foreign stream-rippers and other forms of online piracy that undermine the legitimate market for music.” The ruling, he said, “is a major step forward to protect artists, songwriters, record labels, and consumers from one of the most pernicious forms of online piracy.”
Despite the judgement, MUSO’s data indicates that stream-ripping remains the most prevalent form of piracy in the U.S., accounting for more than half of piracy demand in the country (51.3%). This is well above the global average, which MUSO found to be 33.4%.
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Overall, music piracy has fallen by more than half since 2017, according to MUSO. But the company predicts another small rise in 2023.
“For the Film and TV sectors, MUSO’s data indicate that piracy demand will continue to increase across 2023, as inflationary and economic pressures result in subscriber losses for the various legal streaming services,” the company’s report notes. “This will drive users to illegally stream or download the content they want to watch via piracy sites. MUSO does anticipate seeing a similar uptick in music piracy across 2023,” but one that will be “less marked than [in] other industries.”
The Cadillac Three members Jaren Johnston and Neil Mason have teamed with Warner Records via a joint venture to launch the Nashville-based label War Buddha Records.
The first signing to the venture is Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Rett Madison, who recently wrapped a run of shows with St. Paul & The Broken Bones and is slated to play during SXSW 2023.
“As artists ourselves, we created War Buddha first and foremost as a home for artists,” Johnston said via a statement. “In partnering with our longtime friend Aaron Bay-Schuck, alongside Tom Corson and the stellar Warner Records team, we saw the opportunity to mix our dirt with Warner’s power to create a venture fostering both creative expression and commercial success.”
“We want the label to offer a platform for artists with unique perspectives who fit out, not in, and feel unafraid to tell their stories unapologetically,” Mason added. “Rett is the perfect first signing for the label: an artist with the incredible ability to capture life experiences in songs that make the listener feel they are in those moments with her. We’re so grateful to Aaron and Tom for the chance to build this label together.”
Nashville natives Johnston and Mason, along with their The Cadillac Three cohort Kelby Ray, have released albums via Big Machine Records including 2016’s Bury Me in My Boots, and a pair of 2020 projects, Country Fuzz and Tabasco and Sweet Tea. As songwriters, Johnston has written songs recorded by artists including Tim McGraw (“Southern Girl”), Keith Urban and Eric Church (the duet “Raise ‘Em Up”). Mason has written songs recorded by artists including Miranda Lambert (“Old Sh*t”), and Jake Owen (“Days of Gold”).
“For as long as I have known Jaren and Neil, they have never taken a conventional path,” said Bay-Schuck, co-chairman & CEO of Warner Records, via a statement. “They’ve been fearless in their pursuit of great art, never compromising any integrity or authenticity in their approach to their own artistry or collaborations as songwriters and producers for other artists. As we continue to build the Warner Records brand as one that is always a safe and encouraging place for artists who dare to be different, take risks, and have a point of view, it made total sense to partner with War Buddha on their mission to do the same. We are very excited to welcome Rett Madison as the first artist from this partnership and we can’t wait to see what other unique and amazing talent Jaren and Neil discover.”
“I couldn’t be more thrilled to be joining the Warner Records family with War Buddha!” Madison said. “I’ve felt such genuine enthusiasm from Neil and Jaren in regards to my music and their total support of me sharing my most authentic, artistic voice feels refreshing. I can’t wait to see what we all build together.”
SoundCloud named Eliah Seton as its new CEO, the company announced today (March 9). Seton, who has served as president of the company since 2021, replaces Michael Weissman, who is leaving the company “for a new opportunity,” according to a press release.
Simultaneously, the company announced that Union Square Ventures founder Fred Wilson has been named chairman of the board. Wilson, who has been on the board at SoundCloud since 2011, replaces company founder and former CEO Alexander Ljung, who will be taking a new role as chairman emeritus and remain a member of the board.
“As the only platform with direct relationships with artists and fans at scale, SoundCloud has a singular opportunity to forge the future of the music industry by unlocking the full power of fandom,” Seton said in a statement. “I am grateful to Mike for our partnership, to Fred and the board for their confidence and thrilled to work alongside our incredible leadership team to realize that vision.”
Seton joined SoundCloud from the Warner Music Group, where he spent a number of years first working for former WMG CEO Stephen Cooper, then as senior vp of strategy and operations for Warner International, before moving to ADA, eventually being named president of independent music and creator services for the major label. He moved to SoundCloud in 2021 during a shakeup of the company, during which Weissman moved into the CEO role and SoundCloud began an evolution from an indie-focused streaming service towards a hybrid organization that now offers label and artist services, as well as distribution, audience insights and a growing roster of artists and partnerships.
During that period, SoundCloud also rolled out a fan-powered royalties initiative, which switched up how independent creators got paid on the platform, and Seton led the deal that brought Warner Music artists into the fan-powered royalties fold. In August, the company laid off 20% of its global staff while it pursued a different strategy amid the advertising-affected market, though in December it announced its revenue grew 19% in 2021, according to financial statements published in Germany. In the past year, SoundCloud has inked joint ventures with Quality Control’s management wing Solid Foundation and Atlanta-based management and services company Third & Hayden, and partnered with artists such as Lil Pump, Tekno and Aly & AJ, among others.
Wilson replaces Ljung as chairman, who originally founded the company and was its CEO from 2007 to 2017, at which time Kerry Trainor took over as CEO and Weissman as COO. According to a press release, Ljung will “remain closely engaged and available to the company’s management team and employees going forward.”
“I have served on SoundCloud’s board for more than a decade and can honestly say that I have never been more excited about the direction and leadership of the company,” Wilson said in a statement. “Eliah’s passion for the business of music, relationships and vision are exactly what is needed for the next phase of SoundCloud’s growth. On behalf of the board, I want to thank Mike for his leadership, dedication and partnership over the past several years and welcome Eliah to this new role.”
Opry Entertainment Group (OEG) has made a minority investment in country music lifestyle brand Whiskey Riff in an effort to draw a younger audience to its properties.
OEG, which counts the Grand Ole Opry, Ryman Auditorium, WSM Radio and the Blake Shelton-inspired Ole Red slate of restaurants/music venues among its portfolio, plans to use the alignment with Whiskey Riff to reach a younger demographic, attract new audiences to its brands, develop a stronger digital presence and further support emerging artists.
“They have created a really compelling brand, one that has built an incredibly loyal following,” says Mark Fioravanti, president and CEO of Ryman Hospitality Properties of Whiskey Riff. “They attract a younger demographic, and this gives us another way to connect our brands and the artists we support with younger fans.”
Fioravanti declined to comment on the specific percentage invested in Whiskey Riff or if OEG plans to increase its ownership stake in Whiskey Riff in the future.
Created by Steve Gazibara and Wes Langeler in 2015, Whiskey Riff has become a destination website for consumer country music news and content, as well as for outdoors and lifestyle content that resonates with the country music audience.
Across the Whiskey Riff brand umbrella as a whole, including Whiskey Riff social media accounts as well as @RIFFOutdoors, @WhiskeyRiffShop and @WhiskeyRiffRaff, the company says the sites have collectively drawn over 3.3 million social media followers. Over half of Whiskey Riff viewers are between the ages of 18-44.
Gazibara tells Billboard of launching Whiskey Riff, “I just thought, ‘If you are a college kid sitting in class, you don’t have a place to go to get a playlist, a podcast, a funny story, an outdoors thing, music stories and maybe a funny t-shirt if you want to get it for a concert.’”
“We share a certain segment of fans with Opry Entertainment, but we also have different fans in certain capacities,” Langeler adds. “The Opry does a great job of promoting rising artists that are independent and then they also bring on seasoned veterans, [Country Music] Hall of Fame members. I think we can really just help each other grow and continually bring new fans to each other.”
One element the Whiskey Riff co-founders insist won’t change is the site’s distinctive voice.
“The Opry knows we’re gonna have opinions,” Gazibara says. “They don’t have a say in the content, obviously, but of course you want to amplify their content that fits with our audience—and there is plenty of that from their end.”
Currently, OEG supports emerging artists in multiple ways, including Grand Ole Opry debut performances, as well as the “My Opry Debut” series, which runs on television network Circle, OEG’s joint venture with Gray Television. Additionally, new acts garner support through the Opry NextStage program, and performances at various Ole Red locations (Ole Red is set to add a Las Vegas location later this year).
OEG and Whiskey Riff are considering a range of collaborative options, including podcasts and cross-promotional retail/branding opportunities. “You might see some of their brand of products in our brick and mortar locations,” Fioravanti says. “We are just starting to have those discussions, but it’s an opportunity to collaborate with our retail capabilities.”
Gazibara and Langeler envision further amplifying Whiskey Riff’s lifestyle content, including food, hunting, fishing and other sports. Meanwhile, the Colorado-based Whiskey Riff will soon have a full-time Nashville presence; the site’s operations manager will relocate to Nashville, while the site’s Nashville-based assistant editor will move to a full-time role.
“They will have access to go backstage [at the Opry], talk to people, maybe get some fun, rapid-fire content before artists go onstage, or show the jam band-kind of thing that often happens backstage,” Langeler says. “We want to give fans an inside look at stuff they maybe wouldn’t have seen.
“The Opry is the greatest country music institution in the world,” Langeler adds. “I think we will be a machine going forward, pumping out content, giving fans that access and telling great stories. Country music is such a rich storytelling fabric and we will be able to help the Opry amplify that, and they will be able to help us to be able to tell these stories.”
Apple Music is ready for its long-awaited dive into classical music, with a standalone app. Announced Thursday (March 9), Apple Music Classical is pitched as the “ultimate classical experience,” and is said to be years in the making.
The app will invite classical fans to stream hundreds of curated playlists and thousands of exclusive albums, plus view exclusive artworks and digital portraits, browse composer biographies, editorial notes and more. AMC launches on March 28 but is available to “pre-order” now in the App Store.
Apple Music subscribers will be able download and use Apple Music Classical at no additional cost to their plan. While it’ll be a standalone app, only Apple Music subscribers will have access to it.
At launch, the service will boast the world’s “largest classical music catalog” with over 5 million tracks and works from new releases to recognized masterpieces, according to a statement.
The app’s search engine can locate recordings by composer, work, conductor, and even catalog number, and audiophiles will be rewarded with “thousands” of recordings rendered in immersive spatial audio.
Apple’s full-on plunge into classical follows the tech giant’s acquisition of Primephonic, the Netherlands-based classical music streaming service, in a deal announced back in Aug. 30, 2021, a precursor to the launch of a dedicated experience for classical music fans, which was tentatively planned for 2022.
“We love and have a deep respect for classical music, and Primephonic has become a fan favorite for classical enthusiasts,” Oliver Schusser, Apple’s vice president of Apple Music and Beats, said at the time. “Together, we’re bringing great new classical features to Apple Music, and in the near future, we’ll deliver a dedicated classical experience that will truly be the best in the world.”
That dedicated classical experience is set to go live later this month everywhere where Apple Music is offered, with the exception of China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan; those regions will follow at an unspecified date, reads a corporate statement. Also coming soon is Apple Music Classical for Android.
The app will be available for all iPhone models running iOS 15.4 or later.
Jury deliberations began Wednesday (March 8) in the trial of three men accused of murdering rising rap star XXXTentacion during a 2018 robbery outside a Florida motorcycle shop after the alleged gunman’s attorney argued that DNA evidence proves his client and another man are innocent.
Attorney Joseph Kimok gave the final defense closing argument in the trial of three men accused of first-degree murder, telling jurors that while the artist struggled with his killers before being shot and DNA was found on the body and on a stolen necklace, it wasn’t from his client, 28-year-old Michael Boatwright. Nor was it from accused second gunman Trayvon Newsome, 24, or accused getaway driver and ringleader Dedrick Williams, 26.
“Whoever (XXXTentacion) struggled with is not in this courtroom,” Kimok told jurors as the four-week trial neared its conclusion. “The DNA proves that someone not named Michael Boatwright or Trayvon Newsome participated in this murder.”
A fourth man, Robert Allen, pleaded guilty last year to second-degree murder and testified against his former friends. Attorneys for all three men say he is lying about their clients’ involvement in the slaying and robbery, which netted $50,000. They also say Broward County sheriff’s detectives botched the investigation, failing to consider other possible suspects including Canadian rap star Drake, with whom XXXTentacion had an online feud.
Lead prosecutor Pascale Achille in her rebuttal argument Wednesday admitted that Allen is not a perfect witness, that he has previous felony convictions, but co-conspirators in murders rarely are.
“Plans hatched in hell do not have angels for witnesses,” she said.
Achille said that while detectives never found the guns, masks and money, only Williams was arrested within days of the shooting, giving the others time to hide any evidence. She said the lack of DNA evidence linking the defendants to the killing is irrelevant — that fact does not exclude them. She said much more importantly, cellphone data shows the defendants were together near the motorcycle shop at the time of the slaying and that Bluetooth data puts them in the SUV used by the shooters at that same time.
During her primary closing argument Tuesday, Achille played surveillance video from the motorcycle shop and elsewhere that she says backs up Allen’s testimony. She also played cellphone videos the defendants allegedly took hours after the killing that showed them smiling and dancing as they flashed handfuls of $100 bills.
Boatwright, Williams and Newsome all face mandatory life sentences if convicted. Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty. While the three are being tried together, the jury has to decide separately on each and could convict just one or two. The jurors deliberated for about an hour Wednesday before adjourning. They will resume Thursday.
XXXTentacion, whose real name was Jahseh Onfroy, had just left Riva Motorsports in suburban Fort Lauderdale on June 18, 2018, with a friend when his BMW was blocked by an SUV that swerved in front.
Surveillance video showed that two masked gunmen emerged and confronted the 20-year-old rapper at the driver’s window, and one shot him repeatedly after a 45-second struggle. They then grabbed a Louis Vuitton bag containing the $50,000, which XXXTentacion had just withdrawn from the bank. They then got back into the SUV and sped away. The friend was not harmed.
Prosecutors say the three defendants and Allen set out that day to commit robberies and went to the motorcycle shop to buy Williams a mask. There they spotted the rapper and decided to make him their target.
Prosecutors say Allen and Williams went inside the motorcycle shop to confirm it was him. They then went back to the SUV they had rented, waited for XXXTentacion to emerge and ambushed him, according to prosecutors.
The rapper was a platinum-selling rising star who tackled issues including prejudice and depression in his songs. He also drew criticism over bad behavior and multiple arrests, including charges that he severely beat and abused his girlfriend.