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Nick Carter is hitting back against a lawsuit that claims he raped a 17-year-old girl on his tour bus in 2001 following a Backstreet Boys concert in Tacoma, Wash.
In a countersuit filed in Nevada court Thursday (Feb. 2), the singer claims he’s the victim of a “five-year conspiracy” orchestrated by three individuals “to harass, defame and extort” him by latching onto the #MeToo movement. Among other allegations, Carter says the alleged victim of the assault, Shannon “Shay” Ruth, was manipulated into filing her lawsuit by Melissa Schuman Henschel — a former member of the teen-pop group Dream, who previously accused Carter of assaulting her in 2003 when she was 18 years old — and Schuman’s father, Jerome Schuman.
“Ruth was a vulnerable and highly impressionable individual, craving attention and desperate to fit in,” the lawsuit reads. “Schuman and Jerome groomed and coached Ruth, coaxing her to inflate her initial claim of being abused at the hands of a third-party, to being physically abused at the specific hands of Carter, and, finally, to being sexually assaulted by Carter.” The countersuit goes on to highlight the evolving nature of Ruth’s claims against Carter in social media posts as well as “numerous factual changes and amendments” made to her initial police report against him over a period of 12 months.
In addition to claims that the co-defendants illegally conspired against him, Carter accuses the defendants of defamation owing to various social media posts and a podcast appearance in which they variously accused him of being “a rapist,” an “abuser,” a “#SerialPredator” and more.
Also named as a defendant is the holder of the @ElaineModo Twitter handle (under the name Olay Elaine Mcintosh) — though the countersuit alleges that the account is likely orchestrated by the Schumans and Ruth to spread false information about him from a source designed to appear independent.
Carter is asking for damages of no less than $2.35 million — the amount he claims he lost in various career opportunities — as well as emotional distress damages, punitive damages and more.
In an emailed statement sent to Billboard, Ruth’s attorney, Mike Boskovich of Corsiglia McMahon & Allard, said: “Why should Nick Carter be believed with his long history of abusing females. A jury will weigh the evidence and decide.”
One particularly eyebrow-raising allegation in the countersuit involves Carter’s late brother, singer Aaron Carter, whom Nick alleges the Schumans and Ruth used as a pawn to try to “legitimize” their claims against his older brother. “The Schumans’ timing couldn’t have been better since, at the time, Aaron was addicted to drugs, battling serious mental health issues, and engaged in a misguided campaign of retaliation against Carter and other members of his family who were worried about Aaron and pushing him to seek professional help,” the complaint reads. It adds that the Schumans went so far as to accompany Aaron to a court hearing after a restraining order application was filed against him by Nick and his wife following a series of threatening social media posts by the younger Carter.
The countersuit notes that Aaron later recanted his previous statements backing up the women’s claims on Instagram and during a subsequent podcast appearance, but that the Schumans and Ruth continue to use those earlier statements to try to lend credibility to their claims.
In the wake of Melissa Schuman’s initial allegations against Carter in November 2017, the singer claims that, in addition to career and financial blowback, he has become the target of death threats and been forced to hire private security for himself and his family. He alleges that he and the Backstreet Boys were dealt an even costlier financial blow after Ruth filed her lawsuit last December, losing at least $2.35 million due to the cancellation of promotional events, contracts and endorsement deals with companies including MeUndies, VRBO, Roblox and ABC, which scrapped the group’s A Very Backstreet Christmas Special due to air on the network after Ruth’s lawsuit was filed.
Though named as a co-defendant, throughout the filing Ruth is depicted as little more than a pawn in a game designed to bring the Schumans wealth and attention. The countersuit paints Melissa specifically as a desperate fame-seeker who is using the allegations against Carter to revive her dormant career as a singer and actress. Jerome, meanwhile, is characterized as akin to an attack dog, regularly making “aggressive, nasty, and, often, threatening” statements on social media against Carter and his fans.
The lengthy countersuit includes a detailed account of Ruth and Melissa Schuman’s inconsistent statements since making their accusations and attempts to discredit them by noting that they waited 19 and 14 years, respectively, before going public about the alleged assaults. “Upon information and belief, Schuman and Ruth deliberately waited for the applicable limitation periods to run so as to allow evidence to spoil, witnesses to die or disappear, and memories to fade in an effort to evade any thorough investigation into their false claims,” the countersuit reads.
With respect to Ruth’s claims, the countersuit alleges that no autograph signing event was held outside Carter’s tour bus on the night in question, as she claimed in her lawsuit, and includes evidence that after going to the Tacoma police nearly 20 years later, Ruth continually contradicted important details in her account — including an initial claim that Carter had only “injured her arm.”
In further denying Melissa Schuman’s claims, Carter alleges that, far from a rape, the two engaged in consensual sex on the night in question. After highlighting Schuman’s prior statements that she tried to avoid the singer in the wake of the alleged rape, the countersuit adds that she not only completed work on the movie they were filming together after the alleged assault but recorded a duet with Carter and later performed it live with him. It also points to various supportive social media posts Schuman made about Carter as recently as May 2017.
You can read the full lawsuit below.
United Talent Agency is making significant changes to its board of directors.
The company, led by CEO Jeremy Zimmer, is adding two new independent directors, expanding the board beyond its own executives and investors for the first time.
The new directors are Paul Wachter, the founder and CEO of investment firm Main Street Advisors, and Ceci Kurzman, the founder of Nexus Management Group. Wachter will also become chairman of the board for UTA.
With Wachter becoming chairman, UTA co-founder Jim Berkus will step aside from that role, which he has held for the last 25 years, a source close to the company confirms to The Hollywood Reporter. The source added that while Berkus will no longer be on UTA’s board, he remains “very active” at UTA. Berkus co-founded UTA in 1991 with Zimmer and Peter Benedek, and became sole chairman of the firm in 1997, THR reported that year.
The changes to the board come as UTA has spent the last few years transforming its business via expansions and acquisitions. Last summer, the agency secured an investment from EQT Partners and said at the time that it would use the cash to pursue an expansion and growth strategy. EQT is now UTA’s largest minority investor.
And while its agency competitors CAA and Endeavor have pursued megadeals (with CAA acquiring ICM, and Endeavor pushing further into live sports via its acquisition of the rest of UFC and a betting data firm), UTA has made a number of smaller, more targeted acquisitions.
The company acquired the U.K. literary and talent agency Curtis Brown Group last year, and last month acquired the literary agency Fletcher & Company in a push to grow its publishing business. The company also bolstered its UTA IQ data business by buying analytics firm MediaHound, and perhaps most notably made a big expansion into marketing and consulting via the $125 million acquisition of Michael Kassan’s strategic advisory firm MediaLink.
The additions of Wachter and Kurzman are sure to raise questions about UTA’s future, as they will be the first independent directors on the company’s board. UTA has had investors on the board, but never independent directors, who are often tapped to provide more neutral guidance, particularly as a company pursues further growth.
In a statement, Zimmer said that the company and EQT “together recognized the value of adding experienced outside voices to the board to help us continue to pursue our goals.”
“The addition of Paul and Ceci, with their web of expertise in entertainment and technology, finance and corporate governance, is another powerful signal about the trajectory of our company and the work we are doing on behalf of our clients,” he added. “Both Paul and Ceci are passionate about artists and culture and recognize the importance of how UTA can continue to lead into the future.”
“I’ve watched Jeremy and UTA build one of the most dynamic businesses in entertainment, sports and media. These industries are going through a generational transformation, and UTA is uniquely positioned to be one of the companies at the center of it,” added Wachter in a statement. “I’m very honored to join as board chairman and thrilled to be a part of how UTA continues to innovate for their clients and investors.”
“Culture, entertainment and sports are universal throughout the world, creating new forms of disruption and opportunity every day. UTA touches every corner of these ecosystems and has the growing reach and capabilities to continue to drive success for the extraordinary artists, athletes and clients they represent,” Kurzman added. “I’m excited to work with the rest of the UTA board to continue to innovate and pursue their vision.”
This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
Los Angeles-based private equity firm Shamrock Capital raised $600 million in a new fund aimed at acquiring film, television, music, video games and sports rights, the company announced Thursday (Feb. 2).
Founded in 1978 as Roy E. Disney‘s family office, Shamrock now says it has $4.4 billion of total assets under management, including $2 billion in its content strategy, thanks to the close of this new fund, the Shamrock Capital Content Fund III.
Shamrock has become a powerful force in music catalog investment space, which continues to draw in deep-pocketed Wall Street investors, like Brookfield Asset Management.
Shamrock made headlines in 2020 when it bought Taylor Swift’s Big Machine catalog from Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings. (Braun’s firm acquired the master recordings as part of its acquisition of Big Machine in 2019.) Last month, Shamrock bought a portion of Dr. Dre’s music income streams and some owned music assets alongside Universal Music Group. Its other investments include Stargate’s publishing catalog, the trade publication AdWeek and the fantasy sports platform FanDuel.
“We are truly grateful to our existing and new investors for their commitment to this fund and our strategy overall,” said Patrick Russo, partner at Shamrock. “The closing of SCCF III continues to build on our multi-product platform and long-term strategy of owning and financing premium content and media rights. Our track record of successfully investing in these sectors stands out and uniquely positions Shamrock to capitalize on the trends, changes, and opportunities across the global media and entertainment landscape.”
In 2021, Shamrock expanded into the lending space with a $196-million debt fund intended to loan money to intellectual property owners across music, film, TV, games and sports. Shamrock’s Capital Debt Opportunities Fund raised the money from both existing and new limited partners and is managed by Shamrock partners and other investment professionals, including pension funds, foundations and financial institutions.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is filled with hundreds of artists that combine commercial success with cultural influence: The Beatles (class of 1988), U2 (class of 2005), Blondie (class of 2006), The Who (class of 1990), Stevie Wonder (class of 1989), Bob Dylan (class of 1988) and Whitney Houston (class of 2020) represent dozens of No. 1 records, platinum records and Grammy Awards (and one Nobel Prize in literature).
Sometimes, as with Parliament-Funkadelic (class of 1997), importance can also be measured by the number of times their songs were sampled in hit songs. In other instances, such as the Grateful Dead (class of 1994), inclusion of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame comes from an unmatched touring legacy more than a relatively modest sales history (In The Dark reached No. 6 on the Billboard 200 chart in 1987).
But influence alone might not be enough. In 2022, voters opted not to induct proto-punk groups New York Dolls and MC5, pioneering Afro-funk musician Fela Kuti and new wave group Devo (whose track “Whip It” reached No. 14 on the Hot 100 in 1980). They even passed on Beck, whose 180,000 album equivalents units far surpassed both Pat Benetar and The Eurythmics, although his airplay audience was far lower.
Influence can trump commercial success in determining who voters induct, however. The Ramones (class of 2002) and Velvet Underground (class of 1996) had little commercial success when active. Even as their fame grew over the decades, neither band’s catalog sales matched their significant cultural importance. The Hall has purposefully set aside space to recognize the genre’s foundational musicians. Blues greats such as Robert Johnson (class of 1986), Lead Belly (class of 1988), Howlin’ Wolf (class of 1991) and Elmore James (class of 1992) were inducted as “early influences” for their incalculable impact on rock music, not their album sales figures.
None of this year’s nominees have 2022 consumption numbers nearly as low as MC5 (8,000), New York Dolls (7,000) and Kuti (37,000) had in 2021. Warren Zevon is the at the bottom of the group with 66,000 units. Last year, Carly Simon’s 91,000 units was the lowest of the inductees.
Kate Bush, also passed over for induction in 2022, could have better odds this year after her 1985 recording “Running Up That Hill” re-entered the Hot 100 — peaking at No. 3 — thanks to the Netflix series Stranger Things. Last year, that renewed interest pushed Bush’s album equivalent up 326% and her U.S. radio audience up more than 5,400%, according to Luminate.
Returning nominees Rage Against the Machine and A Tribe Called Quest have some of the highest consumption figures of this year’s batch. Both groups had about the same number of equivalent units in 2021 and 2022. Soundgarden’s 218,000 album equivalent units are in the middle of the pack but could be helped by its airplay audience that ranked second only to Bush.
WME’s music department has promoted seven to partner and 12 to agent across its global offices in Beverly Hills, New York, Nashville, London and Sydney.
Agents recently promoted to partner are: Dave Bradley (co-head of WME’s pop division based in London, with clients including Dua Lipa, Kim Petras and LCD Soundsystem); Brendan Long (London-based and representing electronic music artists including Richie Hawtin, Eric Prydz and Adam Beyer); Henry Glascock (Nashville-based, with clients including Parker McCollum, Catie Offerman and Randy Rogers Band); Doug Singer (Beverly Hills-based, with clients including Orville Peck, Blood Orange and Vince Staples, also appointed department lead for podcast and book tours); Bradley Rainey (who leads WME’s music for visual media group, with a roster that includes Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, Randy Newman and Max Richter); Levi Jackson (who leads the tour marketing team for all WME clients including Adele, Luke Combs, Travis Scott, Bruno Mars, Foo Fighters and more) and Jared Rampersaud (Beverly Hills-based and working across the agency’s roster, specializing in live performances for private events and brand activations).
Those promoted to agent in contemporary music include Kidder Erdman, Phillip Richard and Henry Delargy in Beverly Hills; Anna Horowitz and Josh Sanchez in New York; Tom Larner in London; and Brendan Moylan in Sydney. In Nashville, Becca Chisholm, Caleb Fenn, Carter Green and Kanan Vitolo became agents in the country music department and Morgan Carney became an agent in Christian music.
“These promotions showcase the breadth of our client roster and how far we can go in servicing our artists,” said Lucy Dickins, WME’s global head of contemporary music and touring, and Becky Gardenhire, co-head of WME’s Nashville office, in a joint statement. “We are so proud of the leadership and ingenuity each of these individuals has demonstrated, and we look forward to what they will achieve.”
In 2020, after years of steady growth, the vinyl market exploded. Sales climbed over 46% in the United States, according to Luminate. Then, remarkably, they jumped another 51% in 2021.
But in 2022, that growth plummeted to a rate that was far more pedestrian: Luminate reported that sales were up a little more than 4%. (Pull two juggernauts — Taylor Swift‘s Midnights and Harry Styles‘ Harry’s House — out of that number, and growth was less than 1%.) Year-over-year growth also fell in the United Kingdom from 23.2% to 2.9%, according to the British Phonographic Industry.
“Some labels report sales are down,” says Nick Gordon, chief partnership officer at Symphonic Distribution. And big retailers like Walmart offered some titles at a heavily discounted price around the holiday season, stoking fears among the smaller players that those stores had overbought — maybe an indication of slackening demand.
Despite these figures, Gordon believes the vinyl market remains “healthy.” And several of his peers — from distributors to indie-label heads, chain stores to independent retailers — also seem unruffled by the slower growth. “It corrected the market,” says Todd Oenbrink, sales director for All Media Supply, a Florida-based indie wholesaler.
“It feels like a welcomed return to normalcy,” agrees Terry Cole, founder and owner of Loveland, Ohio-based store Plaid Room Records and the label Colemine Records. “It feels way healthier. This industry is not set up for rapid growth.”
And according to Russ Krupnick, managing partner of the market research company MusicWatch, “core metrics” in the vinyl market are still “showing strength.” “Our initial look at the data from 2022 is indicating that the number of vinyl buyers is still holding up,” he continues. “And in early projections, it looks like the used vinyl market is going to be up by double digits.”
During the first two years of the pandemic, demand for vinyl grew like crazy, outpacing production capacity. But retailers, distributors and manufacturers consider those two years an aberration — from 2015 to 2019, year-over-year growth ranged from around 9% to 17%.
When few music fans were going to shows due to COVID-19, “vinyl took a far greater share of music fan spending than it would otherwise take,” says Stephen Godfroy, director and co-owner of Rough Trade, which saw 30% growth in vinyl sales in 2022. “We saw exuberance for all sorts of things during the peak COVID era — vinyl, Netflix, cooking lessons, home improvement,” Krupnick notes.
Now listeners “are spending money on other things — going out drinking, going out eating, going to gigs — whereas they couldn’t do that much in lockdown,” says Peter Quicke, chair of independent label Ninja Tune. (Vinyl sales for Ninja Tune rose over 25% in 2022.) Even so, vinyl sales still grew.
With higher prices for raw materials and labor, the cost of records has also increased, another potential growth dampener. Several independent store owners expect major-label prices to increase again in 2023. “We keep hearing there are more [price hikes] to come,” says John Kunz, owner of Waterloo Records in Austin. “I wonder how that 10- or 20-something shopper is going to be able to afford that.”
Price sensitivity, especially in an uncertain macroeconomic climate, is a chief worry in the independent record store owner and label community. Already “we see customers backing away from the high prices for new releases,” says Michael Kurtz, co-founder of Record Store Day.
But at the same time, the vinyl industry’s production capacity is expected to rise in 2023. Slower growth last year “was less about people suddenly not wanting to buy as many records and more about the amount of records available to purchase,” says Cameron Schaefer, CEO of Vinyl Me, Please. (VMP sales were up 15% in 2022.) “The biggest limiter on growth is just pressing.” “We could have sold much more vinyl in 2022 if only we could have gotten hold of more supply of the right product,” Godfroy agrees.
Independent labels are still struggling with long turnaround times, executives say, which leads to missed sales for their artists — especially when an album doesn’t hit stores and streaming services at the same time. But more plants are coming online — Vinyl Me, Please expects to have its own new plant operational this year, for example — and existing facilities are adding capacity.
There are other potentially positive signs. Krupnick published a study on “the vinyl revolution” in 2022 which found that the most common barrier to buying records was “I don’t have or want to buy a turntable;” similarly, Luminate’s year-end report noted that only 50% of vinyl buyers have a record player. But “when Harry Styles came out last year, we saw a spike in turntable sales,” says Crissi Bariatti, music buyer at Barnes & Noble. “We are converting a lot of new vinyl fans” who might purchase LPs for years to come. (The chain had an “amazing December” for vinyl sales, and “January numbers are great” as well.)
Fluctuation in growth isn’t uncommon, of course. “Ebb and flow in vinyl sales over short periods” is natural, according to Scott Hagen, CEO of Victrola, a product of “what the new releases are, what the availability is in that moment in time, and what the general traffic in retail is.” (That was down in the fourth quarter of 2022.) Schaefer from Vinyl Me, Please predicts that “the next two years will give a much better preview of what to expect from the vinyl industry in the long term.”
“People got excited by high numbers in the years prior,” he continues. “If we can get to 10% a year, stay there and do that well? That’s healthy.”
Lizzo is now — legally speaking — 100% that b-tch.
In a decision issued Thursday (Feb. 2), a tribunal at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ruled that the superstar could register “100% That B-tch” as a federal trademark for clothing — meaning Lizzo now has exclusive rights to use the phrase on apparel.
Last year, the agency rejected Lizzo’s application for the trademark on the grounds that it was merely a commonplace “motivational phrase” aimed at “female empowerment,” not the kind of unique brand name that’s eligible for trademark protection.
But the USPTO’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) overturned that ruling Thursday, saying that people who see the phrase on a t-shirt would immediately think of Lizzo.
“Consumers encountering ‘100% That B-tch’ on the specific types of clothing identified in the application ― even when offered by third parties ― associate the term with Lizzo and her music,” the appeals board wrote in its ruling.
Lizzo included the famed lyric — “I just took a DNA test, turns out I’m 100% that b-tch” — in her breakout smash hit “Truth Hurts,” but she didn’t actually didn’t come up with it herself. Instead, the singer pulled it from a popular internet meme, and she has since given its creator — Mina Lioness — songwriting credit on the hit track.
In refusing to give Lizzo the trademark, the USPTO had pointed out that backstory, arguing that even if the singer “popularized” the phrase, she was still not entitled to legally “appropriate” it for her own exclusive use on consumer goods.
But in Thursday’s decision, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board disagreed — ruling that Lizzo had clearly “popularized the lyric” and elevated “a lesser known phrase” into “more memorable status.”
“Lizzo did not originate the expression she encountered as a Twitter meme,” the board wrote. “Nonetheless, lyrics from songs are more likely to be attributed to the artists who sing, rap or otherwise utter them, rather than the songwriters.”
An attorney for Lizzo did not immediately return a request for comment. The USPTO does not comment on rulings by the TTAB.
Read the entire decision here:
Universal Music Group chairman and CEO Sir Lucian Grainge is calling on music industry executives to come together to get artists paid. Last night (Feb. 1), Grainge addressed an audience of Billboard Power 100 honorees in Los Angeles with the hope that the most powerful business figures in the industry can come together on the side of creatives.
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“Our industry is entering a new chapter where we’re going to have to pick sides, all of us are going to have to pick sides,” Grainge said from the stage in Hollywood. “Are we on the side of FinTech [Financial Technology] and functional music, functional content? Or are we on the side of artistry, and artists?”
Grainge was the first executive to take the stage after Billboard editorial director Hannah Karp opened the ceremony and introduced Grainge who, once again, landed the top spot on the Billboard Power 100 list this year. Grainge takes the top spot as the leader of UMG which reported third-quarter earnings of 2.66 billion euros (approximately $2.9 billion), up 13.3% year over year in constant currency, a fifth-straight quarter of growth since the company spun off from Vivendi in fall 2021.
His call to action was based on the idea of disrupting the music industry, but from those who care most about it. “I’ve always seen opportunity in disruption. And for those of us that have been in the business, made our living out of music, boy have we seen an enormous amount of disruption,” said Grainge. “But the problem is that all too often we’ve let others disrupt our industry. But if we work together across the music community, we can disrupt the status quo instead. And that offers enormous opportunity for real music, real artists. Now, that’s what I call powerful.”
The executive was also quick to thank his colleagues at UMG and provided a shout out to its label Republic Records, which landed the No. 1 label of the year based on current market share. But Grainge’s short and poignant speech focused on his love of music and those who work on behalf of artists.
“Working on behalf of artists and working to grow this industry has been my life’s passion and I’ve been very lucky,” Grainge said. “I feel very strongly that if we’re to succeed, more than ever, we need to come together as an industry, to fight for artists, and for music.”
He continued: “Let’s focus our energy on rewarding those that make great music and those that made music great. Let’s break artists, fight to get them paid, and to give fans real joy.”
While accepting the UBS & Billboard Trailblazer Award at Billboard’s Power 100 Event at Goya Studios in Hollywood on Wednesday night (Feb. 1), Harbourview Equity Partners founder/CEO Sherrese Clarke Soares struck a somber note during an otherwise celebratory evening.
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“Harbourview has been a dream of mine for many years in the making, and I feel grateful that I’m able to do my life’s work,” said the executive, who has acquired nearly 40 catalogs since launching the company in October 2021. “However, at the same time I experience the joy of receiving the recognition, my heart is heavy. At first I could not really sort why, but as I prepared to board my flight to head out West, the words hit me, ‘I just want to get home.’”
Those words — spoken by Tyre Nichols, the Black man who died after being beaten by police officers following a traffic stop in Memphis on Jan. 10 — formed the crux of Clarke Soares’ brief speech, in which she also acknowledged other recent incidents of hatred, including mass shootings in California and the anti-Semitic vandalism of Jewish synagogues.
“Echoing in my head and in my heart, emotions ran deep as I thought of the last words of a young man 100 feet from his home, and I realized that over the last few weeks, as a country and as a community, we’ve beared witness to so much disregard and undervaluing of life,” Clarke Soares continued. “And so while I’m honored to stand before you today, I know our work at Harbourview will not be done until we use our power to trailblaze a path through music, storytelling and art that connects our collective humanity, humanizing each precious life, so that everyone makes it home to their families at night.”
Named one of Billboard‘s Change Agents in 2021 while serving in her previous role as founder/CEO of Tempo Music, Clarke Soares has consistently pointed to the importance of fostering diversity through her work — both in the staff she hires and the investments she makes. Before taking the stage, her efforts on that front were also highlighted by Wale Ogunleye, former football player and head of sports & entertainment at UBS, who presented Clarke Soares with the award while noting her “extremely diverse” team and “culturally…and musically diverse” portfolio of music catalogs.
Clarke Soares reiterated that overarching mission during her speech by invoking the phrase “Out of many, one people” — “a phrase we say at Harbourview, and we embody it if you look at our team,” she said. “And as a company, our trailblazing should not only be measured in the economic barriers that we break, but in the impact we have to be a place of hope without fear to tell stories that shape hearts and minds for love and humanity. And we ask all of you in this room, with all of your power, to join us in that journey.”
Clarke Soares was one of five individuals to accept awards at the high-powered event on Wednesday. Also honored were Noah Assad (executive of the year, presented by Bad Bunny); Avery and Monte Lipman, COO and CEO of Republic Records, respectively (label of the year, presented by Kim Petras); and HYBE chairman Bang Si-Hyuk (the Clive Davis visionary award, presented by Clive Davis and Scooter Braun).
SiriusXM reported its full-year 2022 revenue grew by 4% to $9 billion on Thursday, as increased numbers of streaming subscribers helped the company hit its financial targets for the year.
While key metrics like earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) were up 2% at $2.8 billion, executives struck a cautious tone on a call with investors, saying they expect softness in the year ahead.
“We broadly anticipate a softer first half (of 2023) in terms of revenue, EBITDA, and subscriber growth as compared to the back half of the year,” SiriusXM chief executive Jennifer Witz said on the call. “We are not issuing subscriber guidance at this time, although we anticipate we’ll see modestly negative self-pay net adds for the year as economic and demand uncertainty persists, auto sales remain soft, and we moderate marketing spend for our streaming service early in the year ahead of planned product improvements late in 2023.”
SiruisXM reported net income of $365 million in the fourth quarter ending Dec. 31, up from $318 million the year prior. EBITDA for the quarter rose 10% to $742 million. The company reported 348,000 net new self-pay subscribers for the year.
The company said late last year it would embark on a broad effort to cut costs, as it invests in the back-end technology and user-friendliness of its SiriusXM app. Updating the app’s infrastructure so that the company can bring new products to the app quickly is a key part of the company’s growth strategy.
In a memo to staff last year, Witz said the company will be looking at all ways to trim costs, including possible job cuts, as it weighs how to handle macroeconomic challenges like declining advertising budgets and auto manufacturer delays.