Business
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On Nov. 1, 1894, Billboard published its first issue, one that’s vastly different from today’s magazine, as well as Billboard’s expanded platforms. The premiere issue wasn’t even focused on the music industry; Billboard’s eventual trademark concentration on music, and, of course, charts, would develop over decades.
THE FIRST ISSUE
Before it became a weekly publication, and a 24/7 presence online, Billboard launched as Billboard Advertising. Its original mission? One that helps explain its name: “A monthly résumé of all that is new, bright and interesting on the boards.”
Upon its premiere, the eight-page magazine (priced at 10 cents an issue, or, 99 cents per year), was “devoted to the interests of advertisers, poster printers, bill posters, advertising agents & secretaries of fairs.”
The magazine’s first cover subject was R.C. Campbell, then-president of the Associated Bill Posters’ Association. “No more fitting tribute can be paid to Mr. Campbell than to state that he is a man of infinite resource, progressive ideas and tireless industry,” Billboard noted in the inaugural issue.
“In selecting his photograph for the first number of this magazine, the Editor was actuated by the fact that he is the acknowledged leader, the first and foremost and most eminent man in the field which we aim to cover.”
THE CHARTS
As 128 years have passed (and Campbell has ceded the cover to, most recently, Steve Lacy, Brad Pitt and Damien Quintard), Billboard’s mission to report on and analyze the entertainment business remains on point, although with, for the past seven-plus decades, a more specific focus on the music segment of the industry.
The magazine’s first national music chart, the 10-position “National List of Best Selling Retail Records,” appeared in the July 27, 1940, issue. Previously, Billboard had highlighted the national “Sheet Music Best Sellers,” “Records Most Popular on Music Machines” (compiled from national reports from phonograph operators), and “Songs With the Most Radio Plugs” on a handful of New York radio stations. The “National List of Best Selling Retail Records,” however, was the first to poll retailers nationwide on record sales.
Tommy Dorsey crowned the first retail list with “I’ll Never Smile Again.” The eventual standard, featuring vocals by Frank Sinatra, would total 12 weeks at the summit. The scorecard paved the way for the industry-standard Billboard 200 albums chart (which became a weekly chart on March 24, 1956) and Billboard’s present-day menu of Luminate data-based format-centric song and album rankings and more. The Billboard Hot 100 songs chart premiered Aug. 4, 1958, with Ricky Nelson’s “Poor Little Fool” the first of the tally’s 1,144 No. 1s and counting – right through Taylor Swift’s historic haul in the top 10 of the latest list, reflecting that, 128 years on, unprecedented feats can still be achieved in any week.
In more recent years, Billboard’s charts offerings have expanded to include surveys covering social and streaming activity, with streams added to the Hot 100’s weekly tabulation. Billboard has also launched the weekly Billboard Artist 100, expanded touring tallies, weekly surveys ranking songwriters and producers, the Billboard Global 200 and Billboard Global Excl. U.S. lists and more.
‘LET ITS GROWTH BE NATURAL’
Meanwhile, Billboard has grown to encompass multiple platforms, including the top-rated Billboard Music Awards, Women in Music, industry conferences, podcasts, and Billboard Live on SiriusXM, in addition to the weekly magazine and more.
“Although only in its swaddling clothes, [our] success is already absolutely assured,” Billboard proclaimed on page four of the maiden issue. “The publishers aim to have it always newsy and to maintain a high and exacting standard of excellence in all articles appertaining to the interest of its readers.”
As a “What They Think of Us” feature reflected, “Responses to the very modest prospectus demonstrated that beyond all doubt or peradventure … surely a journalistic youngster was never started under such auspicious circumstances.”
“Start the new paper in a small and inexpensive manner, and let its growth be natural. Do not force it. You will not need to. There is a field for it,” advised Col. Burr Robbins.
Added Al. Bryan of Cleveland, “It should have been started long ago.”
Amazon Music will expand its ad-free offering for Prime members from 2 million songs to more than 100 million songs, the company announced on Tuesday (November 1). There is one caveat, however: Prime members can only listen on shuffle, unless they upgrade to Amazon Music Unlimited.
Along with the increased access to music, Amazon announced that Prime members will also have access to a wide-selection of ad-free podcasts, plus a newly launched Podcast Previews feature that lets listeners easily test snippets of episodes to see if they like them.
“When Amazon Music first launched for Prime members, we offered an ad-free catalog of 2 million songs, which was completely unique for music streaming at the time,” Steve Boom, vp of Amazon Music, said in a statement. “We continue… to bring even more entertainment to Prime members, on top of the convenience and value they already enjoy. We can’t wait for members to experience not only a massively expanded catalog of songs, but also the largest selection of ad-free top podcasts anywhere, at no additional cost to their membership.”
This expansion follows the news from April that Amazon Music Unlimited raised its price for Prime subscribers from $7.99 per month to $8.99 (or from $79 per year to $89) and similarly upped the cost of its single-device plan (for Amazon’s Echo and Fire TV devices) from $3.99 to $4.99 per month. Other prominent streaming services recently took similar steps, with YouTube’s Premium Family plan — which includes its music subscription service — jumping from $17.99 to $22.99 per month, and Apple Music individual plans climbing from $9.99 to $10.99.
Amazon launched Prime Music with over one million songs, primarily catalog material, in 2014. Two years later, the company rolled out a multi-tiered offering, Amazon Music Unlimited, with many more titles.
“From our perspective, with Prime we helped push the music industry away from the one-size-fits all approach to music streaming, and to go after different customer segments,” Boom told Billboard at the time. “We’re going to grow the market [and add] new customers to streaming with a great way to get into streaming with really low friction.”
In 2020, Amazon said it had “more than 55 million” subscribers across its various listening tiers.
WME has signed Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Yusuf/Cat Stevens in all areas.
Yusuf is embarking on a global tour in 2023 and is working on myriad other creative endeavors, including a new album that will mark his first set of new music since 2017’s Grammy-nominated The Laughing Apple.
Over the last few years, Yusuf has focused on revisiting his catalog as projects reach their 50th anniversary. In 2020, he released a re-recorded version of 1970’s Tea for the Tillerman as Tea for The Tillerman 2 and put out a boxset heralding the album, which includes his breakthrough U.S. hit, “Wild World.” Following the release of 50th-anniversary boxsets for Mona Bone Jakon and Teaser and the Firecat, a newly remastered 50th-anniversary edition of his 1972 album, Catch Bull at Four, will come out in December.
Last year, Yusuf, who is managed by his son, Yoriyos Adamos, landed on the New York Times’ Best Seller list with his children’s book Yusef’s Peace Train; he is also finishing work on his autobiography. As he told Billboard in a 2020 interview, with his book, “I’m trying to fill in the gap for so many people who almost have a mythological view of me so I’m trying to clarify who I am and how it happened. I’ve been illustrating [the book] as well.”
As Yusuf told Billboard in the same interview, the same quest has guided his musical exploration — and life — from early on. “When I started looking up at the sky from very early on, one of my biggest questions was where does the sky end? It was a metaphysical question I had from a young age,” he says. “And that’s been my task and my mission: to go explore the universe to find out where it’s leading to.”
Sony Music increased its annual forecast for revenue and operating income on Tuesday (Nov. 1) as it reported quarterly revenues were up 5.9% on the strength of its subscription streaming income and chart-topping hits.
Releases from artists including Beyoncé, Harry Styles, Future and Doja Cat helped Sony dominate Spotify’s Top Songs Global chart, with an average of 48 out of top 100 coming from the music major’s artists so far this year, executives said. That is up from an average of 36 songs in 2021.
Total Sony Music revenues rose 5.9% year-over-year to $2.58 billion (¥359.3 billion) for the second fiscal quarter ending Sept. 30. Operating income rose 23.9% to $570 million (¥78.7 billion) over the same period compared to a year ago.
Recorded music revenue rose 14.2% to $1.62 billion (¥224 billion). Within that segment, streaming for recorded music revenues rose 6.8% (in US dollars), physical revenues declined 4.2% (in US dollars) and “other” revenues, which includes sync licensing, merchandise and touring revenues, rose 33.4% (in US dollars) as the industry rebounded from a pandemic-led slowdown.
Publishing revenues overall rose 24% in US dollars. The visual media and platforms segment’s revenues declined 9% due to a softening in the Japanese company’s anime business.
Sony Music’s parent company believes the risk of a global economic slowdown is increasing due to rising tensions with China, high energy costs, persistent inflation and interest rates hikes in various countries. “We are taking steps to prepare for further deterioration of the business environment in each of our businesses,” said Hiroki Totoki, Sony’s executive deputy president and chief financial officer, during the earnings call.
However, Totoki is less concerned about the prospects of its music division. Sony Corporation raised Sony Music’s revenue target for the full fiscal year by ¥90 billion yen to ¥1.37 trillion ($9.8 billion at Sony’s assumed exchange rate for the second half of the fiscal year). Executives also raised Sony Music’s operating income target by ¥35 billion to ¥265 billion ($1.9 billion at the assumed exchange rate). “Streaming is very successful and we don’t really have that much of a concern,” he said when asked by an analyst about what risks the music segment faces.
In addition, the company’s recorded music and publishing segments’ operating income benefitted from a one-time benefit of $41.2 million (¥5.7 billion) in the quarter from settlements of multiple copyright infringement lawsuits.
Volatile foreign currency markets in the quarter negatively impacted Sony’s sales and operating income, executives said, and caused a divergence in the company’s earnings as reported in Japanese yen versus the U.S. dollar. This positively impacted Sony Music’s earnings as calculated in yen – about 61% of the yen-denominated gain came from the impact of foreign exchange rates – and negatively impacted the company’s earnings when converted to dollars.
The company’s operating income margin rose 22%, or 3.3 points year-over-year, while its EBITDA margin, a key measure of company profitability, was up 26.5%, or roughly 3 points.
Former Warner Music Group executive and the Orchard co-founder Scott Cohen said on Tuesday (Nov. 1) he is taking a new job as chief executive officer of a fintech platform aimed at selling fractional shares in song catalogs.
Cohen, who stepped down from his role as chief innovation officer at WMG in September, said the aim of the new venture is to “fractionalize ownership of music royalties.”
Fractional shares are a familiar concept in finance, and brokerages like Robinhood and Fidelity Investments sell them as a way to buy a slice of a share for less than the price of the whole stock. The market for buying and investing in music publishing rights has traditionally been open to only the world’s largest music companies and, more recently, money managers.
Introducing fractional shares could change that by making it possible for more smaller investors to participate alongside the deep-pocketed private equity funds and major labels.
In an email to Billboard, Cohen said has already secured rights from major artists and catalogs, and his team is now working to build the platform’s technology.
“We have a very aggressive timeline,” said Cohen, declining to provide a specific date when the venture would launch to outside investors.
Prior to joining WMG in 2019, Cohen founded the Orchard with Richard Gottehrer in 1997 and built it into the largest independent distributor on iTunes when the download platform launched in 2003. Cohen and Gottehrer sold the Orchard to Dimensional Associates, the private equity arm of JDS Capital Management, the same year, and subsequently expanded into video, music licensing, marketing & analytics, royalty collections, sports media, neighboring rights and more.
In 2015, Sony Music Entertainment bought out Dimensional Associates for $200 million, and in 2017 merged it with RED into a single global distribution entity operating under the Orchard brand.
While Cohen’s new venture has not yet settled on a name, he described its aspirations and potential as “transformational” for the music industry.
“I am only interested in doing things at scale,” Cohen wrote.
Sony Music has set up a joint venture with label ONEWAY. Records focused on English-language repertoire from Israel.
ONEWAY. Records, which was founded by music executives and brothers Josh and Sam Fluxgold, who formerly managed Dennis Lloyd, the Israeli indie-pop artist known for his 2016 single “Nevermind” (released by Warner Italy).
The new venture will work to discover and develop new artists from Israel with “international appeal,” Sony says in a press release.
The Fluxgolds discovered Lloyd and helped guide his international success, which has featured Gold and Platinum records across several markets and sold-out world tours in the U.S., Europe and Australia. “Nevermind” peaked at No. 86 on the Billboard Hot 100 in August 2018 and reached No. 3 on Billboard’s Alternative Airplay chart.
“Josh and Sam have a proven track record for breaking Israeli talent abroad,” said Daniel Lieberberg, president of Sony Music Entertainment Continental Europe and Africa, in a statement.
The Fluxgolds will remain in Toronto, Canada, where they run ONEWAY., a Sony Music spokesperson confirms.
“During our time working in the Israeli market, we recognized the substantial talent that is being overlooked and underrepresented in the region,” the Fluxgold brothers said in a joint statement. “Together with our partners at Sony Music, we look forward to showcasing the unique Israeli sound and artists that the world has been missing.”
Sony will continue to lead its Israel business from its Continental Europe and Africa Head Office in Berlin, a spokesperson says, in contrast to its two main rivals, which have set up operations there over the past three years. Universal Music Group opened an office in Tel Aviv in 2020, becoming the first major label to set up standalone operations in the country; it is led by Yoram Mokady, a lawyer and entertainment executive. Universal Music Publishing Group followed suit in 2021, hiring Itamar Shafrir as general manager of the new outpost.
Warner Music Group said in May that it was launching Warner Music Israel and would open an office in Tel Aviv. Running the new imprint is Mariah Mochiach, general manager of Warner Music Israel, a veteran A&R and artist manager who worked for more than 10 years at Lev Group Media, which has acted as an Israeli distributor for Warner Music.
While still a relatively small market, Israel is a growing territory that ranked 27th in global music collections in 2021, with 35.6 million euros ($35.2 million), up 5.5% from 2020, according to international collections body CISAC. Pop artists like Noa Kirel, who is signed to Warner Music imprint Atlantic Records, are big at home but have struggled to cross over, though that could change for Kirel, who is slated to represent Israel at the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest in Liverpool, U.K. (Israel has won the contest four times since 1978.)
Last year, UMG and Simon Cowell’s Syco Entertainment said they would award an international recording deal to the winner of the upcoming season of The X Factor Israel, something previously unheard of in the Israeli music market. Cowell was set to be a judge on the fourth season of the show but pulled out in May of 2021, Variety reported.
In recognition of ADHD Awareness Month, Billboard has partnered with All Day Dreaming, a virtual coworking platform and community for talented ADHD artists and entertainment executives and its founder Hyla to host conversations with some of the creative ADHD brains in and around music.
Here, Hyla speaks with Damien Hooper Campbell, chief impact officer at StockX, the popular online marketplace for sneakers, apparel, electronics and more. After living decades with undiagnosed ADHD, Campbell has learned to manage his condition and has become a formidable business leader reshaping workplace misconceptions about ADHD in the process.
“The best way to establish an inclusive culture is to lead by example,” says Campbell. “As executive leaders, it’s important for us to be real human beings who do not always show up like everything’s perfect. It’s important that we are open to talking about it when it’s appropriate.”
Many people with ADHD are stuck in positions without the resources they need to succeed and many managers have no idea how to utilize their neurodivergent employees. More executives are needed to help set the tone at their companies and tell their story of how ADHD can be a major company asset if you know how to use it. Campbell breaks down his journey and shares the latest insights and techniques for employees, managers and executives on how best to navigate ADHD in the corporate world.
Below is a condensed and edited version of Hyla and Campbell’s conversation. Listen to the full interview on the All Day Dreaming podcast here.
Hyla: How old were you when you first realized you had ADHD?
Campbell: My elementary school years. I got expelled from two schools between kindergarten and first grade. The administrators would tell my mother, “He’s smart, he’s in advanced reading and mathematics classes but he’s got to stop walking out in the middle of class and getting into fights. We think Damien has ADHD.” In the ’80s, there was a negative stigma around any kind of learning disability so my mother, a strong, loving and protective single Black parent, was afraid and felt like, “Oh no, not my baby.” I had to learn to just push through.
At 26 things came to a head in my life. I was in investment banking working 70 to 90 hours a week and I couldn’t understand why I was watching other people zip through stuff. I knew I was smart and had the aptitude, but I was having a challenge. It became desperation.
I went to see Dr. Robert Johnson, dean of the medical school at Rutgers. He’s a Black man who focuses on young adults and adolescents. I didn’t go in talking about ADHD per se but in our first session he clearly picked up on it and asked, “Have you ever been tested for ADHD?”
I soon got tested and he said, “You’re off the charts for this,” and prescribed me Concerta.
How did it feel knowing you would have to take a pill everyday?
There was a bit of a stigma at first, like, do I want people to know that I take a pill every single day? But beyond my insecurity and near-term desire to hide it from the world was hopefulness because I knew that if the diagnosis was correct, and if the medication worked, that it was going to unlock a lot of things for me and make life better.
Also, I thought that this pill was going to solve everything. Like, I take this pill and it would be like the movie Limitless and I’d be good to go, but that’s not the case. You still have to put in your own effort, the pill is just an aid, essentially.
What are other tools and techniques you use to manage your ADHD? What makes you feel your most productive and focused?
At 44 years old, sleep is by far number one. Exercise is crazy important to me and diet goes right along with that. Meditation and prayer too. At one point, I was doing a good deal of chanting, it’s something that I want to get back into, I found that to be very, very centering.
You also need to think about the energy around you. It’s become cliche to say “protect your energy”, but man, it’s true. There are energizers and de-energizers; the older I get, the more intentional I am about the people around me. I’ve got a big heart and I love helping others, but I also need some people who are pouring into me. A big part of that is learning to say “no” and not always feel like I need to give a detailed reason why. Simply saying, “I’m sorry, I can’t but good luck with what you’re doing,” is really important.
When did you feel comfortable telling people at work you had ADHD? What prompted you to do it and how did you prepare?
In 2014, I was leaving the finance field in New York and moving to California to work at Google. I was literally trading suits and ties for hoodies. The tech space was so different – the offices had nap rooms, there were free Twizzlers in the cafeteria, people rocked purple hair, you could bring your dog to work, and all the cool things. Talk about sensory overload. I thought to myself, “let me pressure test this and see if they really want me.” I revealed it to the person who would become my manager in the interview process.
After a few rounds of interviews I said I want to be upfront that I have ADHD. I take medication for it every single day. Here’s some of the things it does and here’s what that means. I wanted my manager to understand how that lands on the team an how I work best.
I figured, if I’m going to do this – if I’m going to make this change – let’s go all the way and be completely transparent. That way I know you want me for who I am.
So in the interview process, you’re basically saying, “This is how I work and how I can be an asset to you”?
Sort of, but even to this day, I’m figuring out how I can be an asset with my ADHD. What I knew for sure, was that I was not going to be the most organized individual, and I wasn’t a project manager so I needed them to know that.
If it comes to engaging with other human beings, being creative, brainstorming and even strategy, I’m most certainly your guy. As for the operational execution, that’s something I’m gonna have to work a little bit harder at. While finding the right balance is something I’m still figuring out today, I’ve come to learn that more structure is actually good for me.
What do you say to someone who is afraid to tell their employer they have ADHD for fear it could hurt their standing at work?
First, I would validate them and say that’s a real feeling. It’s easy for me to tell you, “Oh, don’t worry about that. Forget it.” That’s a bunch of BS.
Second, I would ask that the person do a visualization. Close your eyes and think one year out. You’re in that job and you haven’t disclosed your ADHD. You haven’t discussed your needs and you’ve been wearing the mask that we all put on so many times as human beings, the mask that we think our employer wants to see. Think about the moment when the real you starts to rear its face in the form of ADHD. Now you’re having to compensate, and use your energy not towards the job but to cover your ADHD. Maybe you’re underperforming, maybe you’re having to overproduce and overcompensate. Now think about the burnout and anxiety that comes with that.
Third, I’d say you’ve done a bait and switch on your employer. You wouldn’t want them showing you a misleading glossy brochure. Oh, look at this wonderful, beautiful place to work, and everybody’s so happy and then you get there and find out that it’s toxic. You’d be pissed. So why do it to them?
Lastly, I’d say, it’s better to know now that you can be the real you rather than find out later that you can’t be yourself. And you’d have nobody else to blame except yourself. It’s one of those very personal and professional maturity stages that get you to feel confident enough to say “I need to disclose this now because it won’t be good for either one of us if I don’t.”
Would you recommend people bring up their ADHD in the interview process? What’s your advice on how to approach that?
A lot of that depends on where you are in your life, how comfortable you are saying it, and the severity of how you’re affected by it. I don’t have a one size fits all prescription for folks.
The first thing you should do is research the hell out of whatever organization you’re going to work for to see what their company culture is like. Do they have an ERG [Employee Resource Group] or a benefits team that actually focuses on things that one would classify as a disability? Are they the kind of company that actually welcomes people who have those disabilities with open arms?
If you’re junior in your career, and depending on your socioeconomic group, you might not have the luxury of getting passed up on a job that your family might be depending on you for. I can’t front and act like everybody has the luxury of feeling free to tell their employer. However, the more senior I’ve become, I’ve learned that having that conversation on the front-end has led to better resources. For example, getting an executive assistant was a game changer. You mean, there’s somebody who’s going to help me make sense of all the ideas in my mind that sometimes isn’t super productive? Beautiful!
In addition to an executive assistant, what are some resources, at all levels of the org chart, that are reasonable to ask for? Maybe things people wouldn’t think they could have access to.
Again, ask if there’s an ERG, or an affinity group at the organization that’s focused on inclusion. Companies these days often have employee resource groups for women, LGBTQ+, Black and Latinx communities, and more.
Additionally, ask about benefits. We often talk about benefits in the context of monetary compensation like bonus structures or equity, but ask what kind of insurance platform the company uses. Ask about access to therapy. Are they allowing you a certain number of sessions with a therapist? Is it unlimited? If not, how much will it cost me to keep going? Do they actually give you the ability to choose a therapist of color, specific gender or speciality? Does the insurance cover prescription drugs? Do they have a program where your medication can be delivered to you? I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve totally screwed myself because I waited for my prescription to run out. If I can’t get a session with my therapist right away then I’m stuck without my meds.
Third, if project management and organizational structure is a challenge for you, see what resources they have to help with that. We don’t all have to be experts at everything; maybe there are developmental opportunities you can tap into.
I’ve also heard from people in the All Day Dreaming community that you should think about where you sit. Are you more productive around others or better alone? At 8 a.m. or 8 p.m.? Is there flexibility for when you’re available? And asking for things like noise canceling headphones or paying for your Headspace app. It’s your boss’s job to put you in a position to win and these are easy things to help you do that. Also ADHD is covered under the Disabilities Act so there are legal protections employees have.
Totally. There’s some things that you can try to solve for in advance. And then there’s some things that you do once you start, which I call “contracting”. If you’re a manager, you should be contracting with your team about what works best for you and what works best for them around communication. A few examples:
If you receive an email on the weekend, are you expected to respond immediately?What’s the most efficient way for you to communicate? Email, Slack?What forms of communication are you uncomfortable with? Text, social DMs?
Even if you’re not the manager, it’s important to contract on those things and make sure your team knows what works best for you – obviously, within reason – and vice versa.
What’s your advice to a manager or executive who doesn’t know how to best utilize or manage a person with ADHD?
Be clear on your expectations of the outcome, but also give them the space to be creative in how they get there. You want to provide some structure by being really clear about what you expect and what the non-negotiables are. At the same time, you’re also giving them the space and freedom to be creative. People with ADHD often take a route many have never considered to get something done.
The other thing that’s really important is to have frequent check-ins on how it’s going. As roles and projects evolve, what you contracted on day one may need to change on day 90 or year two.
Finally, give ADHD people latitude for creativity. Celebrate them and leverage their spontaneity when team culture gets a little stale. They can be a great asset.
A large percentage of ADHD people work in creative industries. However, I hit a wall when it came to finding music executives at high levels willing to talk about their ADHD publically. This was especially true of the women I spoke to who know the power of their story but weren’t ready to tell it.
You’re one of the few C-suite execs of any industry who is very publicly open about it. What’s your advice for someone at your level who wants to share their story?
I think there’s two layers of going public about it. Start with your team. I talk to my teammates about it, I’m okay with it, and I’m very proud of it. I explain to them how seeing a therapist, getting a diagnosis, and taking medication has changed my life. Then normalize it at the company level.
One of the first times I brought it up in a company-wide all-hands meeting, I was traveling around the world to the company’s different global locations. I misplaced my luggage and was without my medication for four days. I got up on stage in front of 300 employees and I said, “Look, I’m here with you but if you see me rambling a little bit, just know, it’s because I have ADHD.” And told them the story of losing my bags and meds. After that session I had an employee come up to me and say they really appreciated that I shared my story because they had never seen a leader do that publicly. They told me that they also have ADHD and take the same meds.
I’m fortunate at StockX because we have an amazing benefits program that offers therapy and more. We have a CEO who understands the importance – he sits on the board of nonprofits that focus on mental health – so it’s really part of the company culture. While we continue to create new initiatives around inclusion, I’m of the mind that the best way to establish an inclusive culture is to lead by example. As executive leaders, it’s important for us to be real human beings who do not always show up like everything’s perfect. It’s important that we are open to talking about it when it’s appropriate.
Hyla is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, interviewer and the founder of All Day Dreaming, a community for talented ADHD creatives and entertainment executives struggling with focus, productivity and burnout. All Day Dreaming hosts daily virtual co-working sessions, weekly Q&As with experts, a newsletter and a podcast. For more information and memberships go to AllDayDreaming.org.
Amazon has laid off around 150 employees at its recently launched live-radio app Amp, according to a report at Business Insider. Though Amazon would not comment on the numbers in the report, the company confirms to Billboard that it has chosen “to consolidate a few teams” at the division.
“At Amazon we think big, experiment, and invest in new ideas to delight customers,” said the company in a statement. “We also continually evaluate the progress and potential of our products and services to deliver customer value, and we regularly make adjustments based on those assessments. We’ve made the decision to consolidate a few teams so we can focus on the growth and scaling of Amp.”
Amazon is working to identify other opportunities within the company for affected employees.
Launched in March, Amp allows users to host their own shows by streaming music from a catalog of tens of millions of licensed songs from the three major labels, as well as Indies including Beggars Group, PIAS, Believe and CD Baby. Though it’s designed primarily for non-celebrity creators, Amp also hosts or has announced shows from high-profile artists including Pusha T, Tinashe, Travis Barker, Lil Yachty, Lindsey Stirling, Big Boi and Nicki Minaj, who brought her Apple Music show Queen Radio to the platform at launch. In September, Amp announced it would launch a monthly fund to reward emerging U.S.-based creators for building loyal audiences on the app.
The cuts at Amp come on the heels of Amazon’s Q3 earnings report on Thursday (Oct. 27), when the company revealed it had grown its headcount by just 21,000 employees — a sharp year-over-year drop after it added 133,000 employees over the same period in 2021.
On a call with reporters, Amazon CFO Brian Olsavsky said the company was “preparing for what could be a slower growth period” in an anticipation of an economic slowdown, citing inflation and rising energy costs, among other factors. “We are going to be very careful on our hiring,” Olsavsky added. “We certainly are looking at our cost structure and looking for areas where we can save money.”
Billionaire Elon Musk is already floating major changes for Twitter — and faces major hurdles as he begins his first week as owner of the social-media platform.
Twitter’s new owner fired the company’s board of directors and made himself the board’s sole member, according to a company filing Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
He’s also testing the waters on asking users to pay for verification. A venture capitalist working with Musk tweeted a poll asking how much users would be willing to pay for the blue check mark that Twitter has historically used to verify higher-profile accounts so other users know it’s really them.
Musk, whose account is verified, replied, “Interesting.”
Critics have derided the mark, often granted to celebrities, politicians, business leaders and journalists, as an elite status symbol.
But Twitter also uses the blue check mark to verify activists and people who suddenly find themselves in the news, as well as little-known journalists at small publications around the globe, as an extra tool to curb misinformation coming from accounts that are impersonating people.
“The whole verification process is being revamped right now,” Musk tweeted Sunday in response to a user who asked for help getting verified.
On Friday, meanwhile, billionaire Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal said he and his Kingdom Holding Company rolled over a combined $1.89 billion in existing Twitter shares, making them the company’s largest shareholder after Musk. The news raised concerns among some lawmakers, including Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut.
Murphy tweeted that he is requesting the Committee on Foreign Investment — which reviews acquisitions of U.S. businesses by foreign buyers — to investigate the national security implications of the kingdom’s investment in Twitter
“We should be concerned that the Saudis, who have a clear interest in repressing political speech and impacting U.S. politics, are now the second-largest owner of a major social media platform,” Murphy tweeted. “There is a clear national security issue at stake and CFIUS should do a review.”
Having taken ownership of the social media service, Musk has invited a group of tech-world friends and investors to help guide the San Francisco-based company’s transformation, which is likely to include a shakeup of its staff. Musk last week fired CEO Parag Agrawal and other top executives. There’s been uncertainty about if and when he could begin larger-scale layoffs.
Those who have revealed they are helping Musk include Sriram Krishnan, a partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, which pledged back in the spring to chip in to Musk’s plan to buy the company and take it private.
Krishnan, who is also a former Twitter product executive, said in a tweet that it is “a hugely important company and can have great impact on the world and Elon is the person to make it happen.”
Jason Calacanis, the venture capitalist who tweeted the poll about whether users would pay for verification, said over the weekend he is “hanging out at Twitter a bit and simply trying to be as helpful as possible during the transition.”
Calacanis said the team already “has a very comprehensive plan to reduce the number of (and visibility of) bots, spammers, & bad actors on the platform.” And in the Twitter poll, he asked if users would pay between $5 and $15 monthly to “be verified & get a blue check mark” on Twitter. Twitter is currently free for most users because it depends on advertising for its revenue.
Musk agreed to buy Twitter for $44 billion in April but it wasn’t until Thursday evening that he finally closed the deal, after his attempts to back out of it led to a protracted legal fight with the company. Musk’s lawyers are now asking the Delaware Chancery Court to throw out the case, according to a court filing made public Monday. The two sides were supposed to go to trial in November if they didn’t close the deal by the end of last week.
Musk has made a number of pronouncements since early this year about how to fix Twitter, and it remains unclear which proposals he will prioritize.
He has promised to cut back some of Twitter’s content restrictions to promote free speech, but said Friday that no major decisions on content or reinstating of banned accounts will be made until a “content moderation council” with diverse viewpoints is put in place. He later qualified that remark, tweeting “anyone suspended for minor & dubious reasons will be freed from Twitter jail.”
The head of a cryptocurrency exchange that invested $500 million in Musk’s Twitter takeover said he had a number of reasons for supporting the deal, including the possibility Musk would transition Twitter into a company supporting cryptocurrency and the concept known as Web3, which many cryptocurrency enthusiasts envision as the next generation of the internet.
“We want to make sure that crypto has a seat at the table when it comes to free speech,” Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao told CNBC on Monday. “And there are more tactical things, like we want to help bring Twitter into Web3 when they’re ready.”
He said cryptocurrency could be useful for solving some of Musk’s immediate challenges, such as the plan to charge a premium membership fee for more users.
“That can be done very easily, globally, by using cryptocurrency as a means of payment,” he said.
From deconstructing Rosalía’s success to announcing a novel partnership between See Tickets and Spain’s powerful media conglomerate Grupo Prisa, networking, technology and live events were at the forefront of the tenth annual edition of BIME, the international music industry gathering that took place in Bilbao, Spain, Oct.26-29.
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Created by entertainment company Last Tour, best known for its live events, BIME remains focused on bridging the Latin American and European markets, with a focus on live events.
This year’s anniversary event highlighted a recovered, post-COVID scene, with some 2,500 in-person attendees for both the “Pro” side of the event (made up of panels, speed dating and networking) and over 60 live shows through out Bilbao. Here are some stand out moments:
1. Rebeca León on her gut instinct and Rosalía’s au natural posts: “The pendulum has swung to the less pretentious,” said super manager León when asked about Rosalía’s frequent clean-faced, home-made posts. “It’s more about hand-held videos as opposed to showing things like a private plane.” And while León’s instinct may have served her well when she signed a still-unknown Rosalía several years ago, León admits she sometimes has to quiet her gut to take stock of opportunity. “Even when my intuition says run, run, run, I stop and listen. It’s important to consider all offers.”
2. De La Ghetto gets pragmatic: The Puerto Rican reggaetonero with multi-genre sensibility displayed sophisticated business savvy and was generous in his advice to up and coming artists. He is involved “in every single aspect of my business,” he said bluntly. In his early days, he recounted, he was relentless in giving away his music–CDs were still around—so fans would get to know him. Now, he uses social media relentlessly for the same objective. “Believe in yourself,” he said. “No one thought someone who looks like me, and who sang with an R&B sensibility would do well.” More important, he stressed, never sign anything that your lawyer doesn’t look at. “I have my lawyer, my manager has his lawyer,” he said. “Having a lawyer is the best investment.”
3. Ady Harley and Nerea Igualador on digital marketing strategies: Harley, Meta’s head of music label partnerships for Latam and U.S. Latin, and Igualador, VP of digital business for Sony Music Entertainment, provided a roadmap for effective social media marketing and promotion. “Today, you can create a marketing plan on social media that leads to consumption,” said Harley.
It starts with generation an audience, says Igualador, and that requires three steps: “Discovery; I need my audience to discover me. It’s one of the biggest challenges. There are 60,000 songs released per day, and you have to define their place and audience.” The second step, she says, is taking that audience to consume the music. “All our actions have consumption as a final objective.” And finally, there’s engagement. “Once my audience discovers me, how do I keep them engaged.”
4. James Cruz gets emotional: In a conversation with BBC London’s Beatriz de La Pava, the rap and hip-hop producer lamented the loss of community in rap music. “I come from hip-hop where we really tried to help each other,” he said. “I don’t see a unified front anymore.” Cruz also recalled growing up Latin at a time when being Latin was far from appreciated. “When I see the growth of Latin music, I get tears in my eyes. It’s incredible. We had to take the jobs no one wanted to do […] We had to create our on status and our own algorithm.”
5. See Tickets and Grupo Prisa Announce partnership: The global ticketing platform, which operates in 10 countries, and the Spanish media conglomerate announce an exclusive alliance. Not only will See Tickets sell Prisa’s many festivals and concerts, it will also receive promotion and placement on Prisa’s multiple media platforms, including leading Spanish daily El País, leading radio network 40 Principales and its social media.
6. Billboard announces the launch of Billboard Español: Billboard officially launched Billboardespañol Sept. 15. A little after the one month mark, visits to the all-Spanish site are growing 24% week by week. The site was officially presented to the Spanish industry during BIME.