State Champ Radio Business
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The return of two highly popular dance artists has created new headaches for promoters dealing with increased public outcry over ticket scalping. Skrillex’s first show in nine years at the iconic Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado, and Pretty Lights’ comeback tour after a five-year absence have created supply and demand issues not often seen in the amphitheater and club space. That’s meant new challenges with how to deal with resellers buying tickets en masse and posting them online for profit.
Earlier this week, AEG Presents announced plans to reclaim tickets purchased by scalpers for a sold-out April 29 show by Skrillex at Red Rocks and resell them to fans through the Fair AXS ticketing platform, AEG’s own fan verification. Fair AXS requires fans to register in advance for high demand tickets, and like Ticketmaster’s Verified Fan platform, is designed to weed out scalpers.
The company is now weighing whether a similar plan to claw back tickets for the upcoming, sold-out Pretty Lights tour that kicks off Aug. 6 at the Mission Ballroom in Denver and sell those to fans through Fair AXS.
With the Skrillex concert, says AEG Presents co-president and senior talent buyer Don Strausberg, when the company scraped the sales data, it found instances of buyers who bought multiple tickets, exceeding the four-ticket limit on purchases and violated the terms of service for AEG-owned ticketing system AXS tickets. Those ticket purchases were then canceled, refunded to the originally buyer and put back on sale through the Fair AXS platform, a registration-based identity-verification system that helps concert promoters determine the likelihood that a ticket purchaser is a legitimate fan and not a ticket broker. (This verification system was recently utilized by Zach Bryan for his 2023 tour and requires fans to register in advance and provide their credit card information.) Strausberg says AEG is now considering whether to do the same for the Peaking Lights tour.
Strausberg didn’t identify how many Skrillex tickets were pulled back and sold through Fair AXS, but noted that demand for the April 29 show far exceeded supply at the world-famous 9,545-capacity venue.
“It’s time consuming,” to comb through all of the sales, and requires additional steps by both AEG and fans to register in advance for Fair AXS and to verify the accounts, Strausberg says, “but lately more people are asking for this.” Trying to identify individuals who violated AXS’s terms or service is “something we do without fail on nearly every large concert” says Strausberg, although the scale of unauthorized activity happening with the Skrillex show was larger than normal.
Scalping exists at every level of the concert business, but it’s much rarer to see high volume ticket scalping at smaller capacity venues like those on the Pretty Lights tour, where the artist is playing 3,500-size rooms. AXS ticketed 18 of the 24 shows on the Pretty Lights tour, totaling about 60,000 tickets total.
Lately, ticketing companies like Ticketmaster and AXS have become more effective at reducing the number of tickets that end up on the secondary market. That’s pushed some brokers into smaller capacity events, says a secondary market analyst who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “There’s much less opportunity at the club and theater level,” they add, where the majority of shows don’t sell completely sell out.
A legal cacophony is brewing in the City of Brotherly Love.
In a lawsuit filed Thursday, the Philly Pops accused the Philadelphia Orchestra of violating federal antitrust laws by abusing its control over local concert venues and ticketing services to try to crush its smaller rival.
“Defendants have engaged … in unlawful, anticompetitive and predatory conduct with respect to the Philly POPS for the purpose and with the intent to force the Philly POPS out of business so that Philadelphia Orchestra could eliminate the Philly Pops as a competitor in and monopolize the market for live symphonic popular concert music concerts in the Greater Philadelphia Metropolitan Area,” lawyers for the Pops wrote.
Philly Pops claims that it has long peacefully co-existed with the Orchestra, one of America’s so-called Big Five symphony orchestras. The Pops has played symphonic versions of Broadway show tunes, movie scores and popular music, while the Orchestra has stuck to classical symphonic – and the two have been “marketed to different potential patrons” and “attended by audiences with little duplication.”
But starting last year, Philly Pops says the Orchestra has been jumping into the pops space and trying to put its smaller rival out of business. The lawsuit claims that the Orchestra has done so mostly by abusing its merger with the Kimmel Center, the primary orchestra venue in the city and the ticketing service Ticket Philadelphia.
According to the lawsuit, the Orchestra “substantially and unreasonably” increased fees for the Pops to perform at the Kimmel Center and slowed down the sale of tickets to previously scheduled shows. It then hired a PR firm to “create media messaging” that the Pops would be absorbed by the Orchestra after the 2023 season.
When the Pops said it would not go along with such a plan, the Orchestra “summarily evicted the POPS from the Kimmel Center forcing the POPS to cancel and postpone its concerts [there] and scramble for different but substantially less viable indoor venues.”
In addition to naming the Philadelphia Orchestra-Kimmel Center, Inc. as a defendant, the lawsuit also named Matias Tarnopolsky, the company’s president and CEO.
In a statement to Billboard, a spokesperson for the Orchestra said: “We have just received the lawsuit, which was brought to our attention by the media. As the complaint has yet to be formally served, we will reserve comment until then and once it has been reviewed with counsel.”
Read the entire lawsuit against the Philadelphia Orchestra here:
Sony Music Entertainment and its Certified unit have partnered with Mass Appeal to unveil 50 product releases to commemorate HipHop50 through Legacy Recordings, Record Store Day, Vinyl Me, Please, Get On Down, Mobile Fidelity and Urban Outfitters.
By way of Legacy Recordings, fans will be able to enjoy “new physical configurations, first-time digital releases, and limited-edition vinyl from the genre’s most influential and indelible icons, including Big Pun, Cypress Hill, Nas, OutKast, Q-Tip, RUN D.M.C., Three 6 Mafia, Wu-Tang Clan and more.”
To kick off the celebratory rollout, Nas’ Made You Look: God’s Son Live 2002 will drop on April 22. The exclusive Record Store Day vinyl will highlight Nas’ historic performance at Webster Hall in New York. It’ll also be available to stream the day before. Following that release, on May 12, Run D.M.C.’s 1988 classic Tougher Than Leather will be released on black vinyl on Legacy Recordings to celebrate its 35th anniversary. Then, Nas will have another reason to celebrate as his lauded 2003 effort, The Lost Tapes, will receive a vinyl update on May 26. According to a press release, “Get On Down is releasing Nas’ The Lost Tapes on limited edition double colored-vinyl in a gatefold jacket with numbered OBI limited to 2000 units.”
Last January, SME and Mass Appeal announced their initial partnership. “Sony Music and Mass Appeal will work together to showcase the creative excellence of SME’s dynamic talent and their contributions to music history through original content, experiences, merch and product collaborations in connection with Mass Appeal’s campaign leading up to this key milestone in Hip Hop culture,” said the release.
Position Music has sold a significant minority equity stake in itself to Vesper Company, a private investment firm founded in 2021 by executives formerly involved with a company that invested in Kobalt Music. In addition, Position Music has a new revolver credit facility from Pinnacle Bank. Terms were not disclosed for either deal.
Founded in 1999 by CEO Tyler Bacon, Position Music has a 40-person staff and occupies a 15,000-square-foot facility with office space and two recording studios, with four more studios currently being built. The company, which started as a synch music house, now consists of music publishing, a record label and a small artist management operation.
“I am excited to be partnering with the Vesper team as we enter this next phase of growth,” Bacon said in a statement. “With Vesper’s investment and strategic experience paired with our new credit facility from Pinnacle Bank, we are well-positioned to substantially build on the foundation we have built for 24 years.”
According to the company, Position Music’s publishing roster includes RIAA platinum-certified songs including Em Beihold’s “Numb Little Bug,” grandson’s “Blood // Water” (double platinum) and Judah & the Lion’s “Take It All Back,” along with gold-certified songs including Rotimi‘s “In My Bed” and Sueco’s “Paralyzed.” Its roster includes songwriters and/or artists such as Kid Bloom, Welshly Arms, Fantastic Negrito, Layto, Ryan Oakes, Blackway, 2WEI, TeaMarr and Judah & The Lion.
Position Music says the songwriters and producers it represents have written or produced songs for such artists as Avril Lavigne, Dua Lipa, Blink-182, Travis Barker, iann dior, Pop Smoke, Machine Gun Kelly and Avicii. Moreover, the company says it has recently completed joint ventures with Big Noise Music and Champagne Therapy Music Group. Position Music provides its own administration in the United States, while Kobalt serves as its international administrator.
Vesper was founded in 2021 by David Caro, Shamit Grover and Raj Gopal, formerly with MSD Partners. They were involved in that firm’s purchase of a minority stake in Kobalt Music Group, first made in 2014.
“For over twenty years, Tyler and his team have shown a strong commitment to serving artists and songwriters and helping them reach the next level of their careers,” added Gopal in a statement. “We’re excited to support the continued growth and evolution of Position Music.”
According to SEC filings, Vesper has raised at least $36.5 million in selling securities since its founding, although that appears to be related to another Vesper investment: its acquisition of New England Marine Monitoring. That investment, like its stake in Position Music, is apparently part of its investment strategy of partnering with companies that the firm can help scale through providing “strategically aligned capital and active support,” according to its website.
“Few independent music companies today can match Position Music’s scale, track record, and depth of synch and creative services,” Vesper’s Caro said in a statement. After his involvement with MSD Partners — but before the formation of Vesper — Caro served as head of corporate development at Kobalt, according to his LinkedIn profile.
With its new investment partners, Bacon tells Billboard that Position Music will organically expand by signing another 15 artists to its label roster in the near future and another 20 or so songwriters and/or producers in the next few years. Moreover, it will continue to selectively acquire current music assets, mainly in the pop and hip-hop genres; it recently completed two such buys in deals that included going-forward songwriting contracts. Bacon says the company is also open to doing more joint ventures.
As for investing in legacy music — a preferred asset class for most institutional investors — Bacon says the company’s financing is currently not set up to accommodate that type of investment strategy, though he doesn’t rule out making such investments somewhere down the line.
Position Music was represented by Shot Tower Capital and Reed Smith. Vesper Company was represented by Drummond Woodsum and Greenberg Traurig.
In other Position Music news, Bacon announced that vp/head of A&R Mark Chipello, vp/head of synch Emily Weber and vp of A&R and gaming Jake Versiuis have been made partners at the company.
Tyler Bacon (second from left) with his newly announced partners at Position Music: Jake Versluis, Emily Weber and Mark Chipello. / Mallory Turner
Lloyd Starr has been appointed COO at Discogs, the recorded music database, marketplace and community, effective May 1. He joins the company from vinyl subscription service Vinyl Me, Please; prior to that, he served as president/COO at digital electronic music marketplace Beatport.
In his new role, Starr will oversee Discogs’ day-to-day operations, with a focus on driving growth and innovation. He will work closely with CEO Kevin Lewandowski and the rest of the executive team to develop and implement Discogs’ strategic direction.
“We’re thrilled to welcome Lloyd Starr to the Discogs team as our new COO,” said Lewandowski. “Lloyd’s extensive experience in the music industry and his track record of success in building and scaling companies make him an ideal addition to our leadership team. We’re confident that his expertise will help us continue to grow and innovate as we serve our community of music fans, record collectors, and sellers around the world.”
Starr added, “I’ve long admired the Discogs mission and its passionate community. I am thrilled to join such a talented and creative team to help realize our vision and continue to add value for vinyl and music lovers worldwide.”
Jon Kurland was named executive vp of business affairs and chief entertainment counsel at iHeartMedia. In his new role, Kurland will lead the company’s business affairs team and focus on deals and relationships with iHeart’s podcast, music, entertainment and new media partners. He will additionally oversee the company’s entertainment legal functions across podcasts, live events and new media initiatives as well as its music licensing strategy. Based in New York City, he will report to executive vp and general counsel Jordan Fasbender. Kurland joins iHeartMedia from Amazon, where he was senior corporate counsel in the global media and entertainment group.
Jen Ashworth was promoted to senior vp of commercial marketing & streaming at Capitol Music Group (CMG), up from her previous role as vp of global commercial marketing. In her new role, Ashworth will oversee the company’s streaming strategies across its portfolio of labels, with a focus on editorial and partner activations with Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, YouTube and Pandora. She will continue managing CMG’s relationship with Spotify as the company’s account lead. Based in Hollywood, she reports to CMG executive vp of global commercial marketing strategy Mike Sherwood.
Manager Jared Rosenberg joined Red Light Management, bringing clients Aly & AJ and Disney star Kylie Cantrall to the firm. Rosenberg has been in management for over 20 years, working with artists including Backstreet Boys, Janet Jackson and Thirty Seconds to Mars.
Mateo Dorado joined Atlantic Records as senior director of A&R. The New York-based executive will work closely with emerging artists including Luh Tyler and Alicia Creti while reporting to Atlantic co-president of Black music Lanre Gaba. He arrives at Atlantic from Alamo Records, where he signed Rod Wave.
Jonathan McHugh joined independent music publishing, rights management and catalog marketing company AMR Songs as senior advisor of creative and synch. McHugh will also sit on the company’s board. Over a decades-long career, the industry veteran has served in roles at New Line Cinema (as vp of soundtrack music), Jive/BMG and Island Def Jam/Def Jam Films; he has produced 40 music-focused films and TV series and music-supervised 85 feature films and TV shows. In addition to his new role at AMR Songs, he will continue working as an independent producer/director and music supervisor while teaching a music industry studies class at Loyola University in New Orleans.
Amanda Tumulty was named vp of global marketing at Cinq Music Group. She joins the company from Universal Music Group, where she spent over five years on the global consumer marketing team, specializing in marketing strategy and operations. At Cinq, she will oversee all marketing strategies for the label/distributor’s roster and the Cinq Music brand. Tumulty can be reached at atumulty@cinqmusic.com.
Nashville-based record label Melody Place restructured and rebranded while elevating Sanborn McGraw to president/general manager and Tony Gottlieb to COO. Under the new leadership, the company will refocus its efforts on artist development, original material and international promotion. The first signing following the restructure is Nashville singer-songwriter Makena Hartlin, who signed a recording and publishing deal with Melody Place and its affiliate, Melody Place Publications. She will release her single, “LA,” on the label April 21. Melody Place is also working on a new project from singer Jackie Evancho. McGraw can be reached at sandy@melodyplace.com and Gottlieb can be reached at tony@melodyplace.com.
Global creative audio network Squeak E. Clean Studios hired music producer Jennie Armon as executive creative producer out of New York. She joins the company following seven years at Brooklyn-based music and sound company Found Objects, where she served as executive producer and music supervisor. Armon can be reached at jennie@squeakeclean.com.
Does Beatport know something the rest of the music business doesn’t? Look at some of the dance music platform’s recent numbers across paid downloads and streaming, and it feels that way.
While digital downloads have fallen to near all-time lows across the music business, with global revenue down 43.75% in the past five years, according to IFPI, for Beatport they’ve increased 35% in that same period. In 2022, the digital service claims to have sold 25,519,770 song downloads — making up nearly 12% of all tracks downloaded globally, based on Luminate data.
A key to Beatport’s growth is its focus specifically on DJs. By offering high-quality downloads for use in live sets, that functionality is still driving sales in a music market dominated by streaming. (The cost of a digital track at Beatport averages $1.29). Other platforms are, meanwhile, following broader industry trends and have started burying downloads; on the desktop version of iTunes, for example, options to purchase tracks notably appear halfway down the homepage.
Beatport is working in a smaller market than Spotify or Apple Music, of course, and most casual streamers won’t go on to become practicing DJs, but Beatport CEO Robb McDaniels expects that the fraction that do will contribute to Beatport’s continued growth. “Our hope is that 1% or 2% of Spotify’s paying subscribers decide that their music experience isn’t a lean back one — it’s an active and immersive one where they’ll spend their time listening to their music in the DJ booth or while they’re DJing at home,” he says. “As a result, you’ll see the shift from the really low payouts at Spotify and Apple to the much higher ones at Beatport, and the copyright holders are the ones who benefit.”
Over the past two years, meanwhile, streaming has grown by 60% at Beatport — a jump supported by the platform’s push to appeal to the next generation of DJs, who are expected to gravitate to streaming-based workflows due to their greater familiarity with streaming models versus download models, according to McDaniels. The company is driving this push with its browser-based DJ web application, Beatport DJ, which allows users to access and DJ from its library of music (which includes all major labels as well as leading and boutique dance imprints) without any additional hardware or software.
New Beatport data also paints the platform as a leader in pay-per-stream rates, with Beatport paying 50 to 60 times more per stream than other DSPs. At a time when subscription services including Apple Music and Amazon music have raised their monthly prices, and Spotify is expected to eventually do the same, Beatport’s royalty payouts are boosted by drastically higher subscription rates. While the service offers a baseline, standard $9.99 subscription offer, it also has tiers at $14.99 and $29.99 that allow for integrations with other platforms like Serato and Traktor, and being able to play songs while offline — important functions for DJs.
In 2022, Beatport paid an average of $0.10808333 per stream, while its service aimed at open-format DJs, Beatsource, averaged $ 0.17773333 per stream — more than 30 times the industry-wide blended average streaming rates across platforms in the United States was $.0053 per stream. After launching in mid-2019, Beatport’s music subscription products now make up 20% of its revenue.
Below, McDaniels details the mechanisms of Beatport’s growth, its capacity to pay streaming rates that far exceed the industry standard, and why the DJ booth is “the most valuable real estate in the music industry.”
Billboard: Are there any demographic shifts among Beatport’s active users that could have contributed to the increase in downloads?
Robb McDaniels: We’ve been trying to answer this for ourselves so we can figure out the right levers to pull and buttons to push as we try to spread the brand around the world. Right before the pandemic year, [active use] was heavily skewed towards the Western world [the top five countries for paid downloads at Beatport are the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Australia and Canada] , but dance music and DJ culture is global; we have these communities all over the world.
We just weren’t doing an effective job of engaging with them or keeping them engaged, so we started making an effort to do that in ways that were inspired or triggered by the pandemic. We wanted to speak to everybody and let them know that we were still going to be supporting the community in any way that we could. We had to broaden our perspective, and I think by doing that, we activated customers that had visited Beatport and been customers in the early years, or the people who’d put away their controllers and had maybe given up on DJing. Obviously, being stuck at home, it was the perfect time for them to wipe off the dust and start DJing again.
How so?
Going into the pandemic, we thought that our business would decline, because all the clubs were shut down, but it actually increased because of customers like these who realized how important music and DJ culture was to their happiness.
The other thing we did was fortuitous: We dropped our download prices the month before the pandemic. This reduced the sticker shock of high download prices when people came to the store. All of these things led to an increase in accessibility for anybody who wants to try DJing.
Were there other reasons why Beatport wasn’t reaching some of the global DJ communities as effectively as possible?
Historically, there have been a number of mitigating factors for Beatport. First, we’re a small company. When I joined in 2017, [after Beatport downsized in 2016 following its parent company, SFX, filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy] there were about 40 people. We’re now a lot bigger; we’ve grown tremendously through acquisition and organic growth over the last few years, but the brand is still a lot bigger than the company itself. You’ve got folks all over the world that know about Beatport, but they’re typically buying in dollars or euros. We weren’t a big enough company to accept all currencies [all over the world], so we didn’t directly market in those areas. We also didn’t have the marketing budget to spend $20,000 a month on ads in India.
There are other issues with places like the emerging markets where the price that customers could support is just not something that fits our business model, but we’re beginning to address that. Now, as we look into these emerging markets, they’re really not emerging anymore; India’s massive, and the Middle East and Latin America have a lot of opportunities. We are now beginning to make the investments that are necessary to really serve and activate those markets, so I think we’ll see that benefit in the next few years.”
Beyond broadening Beatport’s reach and re-engaging with existing users, what else has driven Beatport’s paid downloads?
I think the goodwill that Beatport generated during the pandemic by putting on livestreams to raise money for various charitable organizations, along with the focus on communicating and connecting with people around the world, are the primary reasons downloads increased in the last couple of years. Other business decisions like reducing the price of downloads and improving system performance, infrastructure, uptime — all of the stuff that we’ve been investing in — has helped to buck the global trend in the download market.
Robb McDaniels
Courtesy of Beatport
Can you tell me more about why the livestreams were so impactful?
Just before the pandemic, we had signed a deal with Twitch to broadcast live DJ gigs at the big festivals on our Twitch channel. We did the first one at CRSSD Festival in San Diego with Carl Cox and Charlotte de Witte; I think that was the last festival before everything shut down. Our media group team then moved it online, and we started doing all of these massive 24-hour livestreams with DJs all around the world. The team went on to do a number of other [livestreams]. While livestreams have generally decreased in popularity, we acquired a lot of customers, as well as followers, that way. Our social media outlets just went through the roof.
[Our media team] continues to produce and create really engaging content that keeps this global community revolving around Beatport and interested in what we’re doing. I think that inevitably brings a lot of the customers in, and you don’t really see any other traditional music store doing that kind of thing for and with the community. In that way, Beatport is pretty unique compared to the Amazons and iTunes and Deezers of the world.
Turning to streaming, how is Beatport able to pay so much more per stream than other DSPs?
There are a few things. Number one is — and this is the most important thing — our customers are different. The regular music experience has been a passive one where you throw on your Spotify in the background for six hours a day and just forget about it. Our customers are DJs; it’s a much more active and immersive music experience. We believe the industry is now shifting to this more active and immersive music experience, because the music experience changes every generation. Inevitably, it happens: vinyl to tapes, tapes to CDs, CDs to streaming, streaming to…it’s going to be something, right? We’re already about 15 years into the streaming experience, so this is when the next music experience is typically taking hold.
We’re also charging more because our services integrate with DJ software and hardware, and we also have offline mode. There’s a premium paid for these integrations. So, our average monthly revenue from our customers is probably almost double what it is from the Spotifys of the world. These two contributing factors result in a much higher payout rate per stream to our rights holders.
What can sectors outside of dance learn from Beatport’s approach, and how can the larger industry profit from Beatport’s success?
I’ve been asking everybody to change their definition of “dance music” to any music that makes people dance, because that’s 75% of the music industry. If you can dance to the music, then you can DJ with it. This is why we launched Beatsource for the open-format DJ community. I haven’t been to a wedding where I haven’t heard the DJ play “Come On Eileen”; the wedding DJ is our customer just as much as David Guetta and Tiësto.
Overall, we think other genres and their artists can benefit tremendously from the exposure that these DJs get them. If you DJ at a club in Vegas and play a new song, half the audience is examining the song and adding it to their Spotify or Apple playlist. Your revenue is amplified just because that DJ played your song.
What should the industry at large take away from the DJ’s role and how it relates to exposure?
It’s really important to realize the value that these DJs play in the overall music ecosystem and not treat them the same as any other customer. These are the most important customers in the music industry, in my opinion, and the DJ booth is the most valuable real estate in the music industry. The DJ booth is for profits, amplification and promotion. We need to make sure that as an industry, we’re serving this constituency correctly and delivering the types of products they need.
[At Beatport,] we’re constantly working with labels and publishers to clear derivative works, remixes, stems. We try to point out how important it is to the health of the overall music industry, and that this benefits them in a myriad of ways beyond just the download fee or the stream fee. There are a lot of positive benefits.
Rich Paul, founder and CEO of Klutch Sports Group and United Talent Agency board member and head of sports, has joined the board of directors at Live Nation. Paul, who is longtime partner of pop superstar Adele, boasts a client list that includes LeBron James, John Wall, Anthony Davis and Draymond Green and “brings a valuable perspective from sports, business, entertainment and more,” said Greg Maffei, chairman of the Live Nation board of directors. “We’re fortunate to welcome him as a new addition to our board.”
Live Nation President and CEO Michael Rapino noted that “Rich understands what it takes to help talent develop a long and successful career. His input will be a great addition as we continue driving more value for artists and their fans through live shows.”
Paul, who has regularly been named one of the most powerful agents in sports by Forbes, ESPN and Sports Illustrated — which crowned him “The King Maker” on a 2019 cover — got his start working with James in 2003. He later joined CAA and went on to launch his sports agency Klutch in 2012. In 2020, he became the first African American to sit on the board of UTA, which made a significant investment in his company Klutch the year prior. Last year, he inked a deal with New Balance for the launch of the Klutch Athletics clothing line.
“Live Nation’s artist-centric approach to business makes this a really natural fit for me,” said Paul in a statment. “Going to an event live is one of the most powerful ways to experience sports and music, and I look forward to contributing to the company and the industry in this new way.”
Megan Thee Stallion is hurling new accusations at her record label 1501 Certified Entertainment, including that the company is trying to make itself “judgment-proof” by draining its bank accounts.
In an updated version of her long-running lawsuit, the “Savage” rapper’s lawyers claimed Wednesday that they had unearthed evidence that 1501 founder Carl Crawford had “dissipated millions of dollars held in 1501’s primary bank account,” including funds that will potentially be owed to Stallion.
“Instead of following its financial manager’s advice and holding the contested funds in reserve, 1501 has chosen to enrich itself and its consultants, leaving less than ten thousand dollars in the account,” Megan Thee Stallion’s lawyers wrote. “Based on 1501’s undercapitalization, it is highly probable that 1501 will be judgment-proof by the time Pete is able to obtain a final judgment on the merits of her claims.”
As a result of this “fraudulent transfer of assets,” Megan Thee Stallion’s lawyers demanded that the judge overseeing the case impose extraordinary restrictions while the case continues to play out.
“Pete seeks the appointment of a receiver to take possession of 1501 until this dispute is resolved, or in the alternative, the appointment of a receiver to take possession of all of 1501’s bank accounts and any other bank accounts controlled or owned by Carl Crawford, including the bank accounts to which the money siphoned out of the bank account was transferred into.”
In a statement to Billboard, 1501’s attorneys sharply disputed the new claims from Megan Thee Stallion (real name Megan Pete).
“1501 strongly disagrees with the substance of Ms. Pete’s recent filings,” said Kenneth D. Freundlich of Freundlich Law and LeElle B. Slifer of Winston & Strawn LLP. “The allegations are without merit and we are confident that 1501 will prevail on these motions and ultimately recover the substantial money that Ms. Pete owes 1501.”
A rep for Megan Thee Stallion did not return a request for comment on the new filing.
The star rapper has been fighting with 1501 for more than two years, claiming the company duped a young artist into signing an “unconscionable” record deal in 2018 that was well-below industry standards. Megan Thee Stallion says that when she signed a new management deal with Jay-Z’s Roc Nation in 2019, she got “real lawyers” who helped her see that the deal was “crazy.”
She filed the current case in February 2022, claiming 1501 had wrongly classified her Something For Thee Hotties as something less than an “album” — a key distinction, since she owes a set number of albums under her record deal. 1501 then quickly countersued, arguing that Thee Hotties contained just 29 minutes of original material and obviously did not meet the definition of an “album.”
The two sides then escalated the case last summer. Megan Thee Stallion filed a new complaint seeking more than $1 million in damages over claims that 1501 had “systematically failed” to pay enough royalties. 1501 then fired back with new accusations of its own, claiming it’s actually Megan Thee Stallion who owes “millions of dollars.”
Until Wednesday’s bold new accusations, it had appeared that tempers might actually be cooling. In an interview with TMZ in February, Crawford expressed some regret over his public feuding with Megan Thee Stallion and said he would be “taking a different approach” in the future: “I never had problems with Megan Thee Stallion, but this social media stuff turned it really sour.”
But in addition to Wednesday’s new allegations about 1501’s bank accounts, Megan Thee Stallion’s lawyers also filed a separate motion asking the judge to summarily rule that 1501 had breached its contracts with Megan Thee Stallion. The reason? They say 1501 has chosen to categorically deny all requests to license Megan’s music until the case is resolved — representing a “flagrant breach” of the deal.
“In furtherance of its relentless efforts to sabotage Pete and her career, 1501 has taken the unlawful and unjustifiable position that it will continue to deny every single licensing request until its publishing claim in this litigation is resolved,” Megan Thee Stallion’s lawyers wrote. “1501 has taken this draconian position out of spite, a fact that 1501’s representatives have admitted under oath.”
The judge overseeing the case ruled in December that the battle will ultimately need to be decided by a jury. A trial is currently set for August, but after Wednesday’s new filings it’s unclear if the case will be able to stick to that schedule.
Singer-songwriter-actor Tim McGraw is expanding his business ventures with a new entertainment, media and marketing company called Down Home. The Nashville-based firm is a collaborative effort between McGraw, his management company EM.Co and social content studio Shareability.
EM.Co’s Brian Kaplan, also a co-founder of Down Home, will serve as chief strategy officer, while Shareability founder and Down Home co-founder Tim Staples will serve as CEO. The venture is aimed at connecting McGraw’s country music audience with Hollywood and brands by producing film, TV and digital media “that focuses on relatable stories that capture the essence and spirit of everyday Americans,” according to a press release.
Down Home has secured a private investment deal with Nashville-based TriScore Entertainment and The Laurel Group, a boutique merchant bank that continues to advise the company.
At launch, Down Home has an investment and first-look deal in place with Skydance Media. Under the agreement, Skydance will develop film and television projects with Down Home, in addition to channeling IP and other material to the company. Down Home currently has two scripted series in development with Skydance, with plans for additional features and animation. Skydance founder/CEO David Ellison will serve on the Down Home board.
Down Home additionally plans to establish a social content studio to nurture Nashville’s emerging talent, fostering connections across music, sports, entertainment and brands.
“Country music has always been about storytelling,” McGraw said in a statement. “Our stories are honest vignettes of life and family and community. I think there’s a longing for that. For me, that’s Down Home. That’s how I grew up, those are the stories I like to tell, and that’s what I want our company to be about.”
Ellison added, “Tim McGraw is an outstanding artist and entertainer. He is truly gifted at telling stories across mediums that deeply connect with the audience and has built an unmatched community of fans around the world. We are thrilled to partner with him, Tim Staples, Brian Kaplan, and everyone at Down Home as they have created a dedicated infrastructure to tell stories across film, TV, and music, to fulfill a massive demand for authentic, inspiring stories.”
“From 1883 to Friday Night Lights, or songs like ‘Humble and Kind’, Tim McGraw knows how to connect with this audience in a way that can be really powerful for both Hollywood and brands,” said Staples.
“We’re thrilled to be a part of the next chapter in Nashville’s evolution in empowering artists and visionaries to create a new hub for storytelling that combines talent, passion, and innovation,” Kaplan added.
McGraw was represented in the transaction by EM.Co’s Scott Siman and Kelly Clague. He continues his long-time affiliation with CAA.
Spotify is targeting radio broadcasters with its latest product update that will make it easier to convert radio shows into on-demand podcasts and offer a new source of ad revenue on existing content.
Beginning Thursday, Spotify’s “broadcast-to-podcast” technology will be fully integrated into Megaphone, the podcast ad tech and hosting platform that Spotify acquired in late 2020. The radio-to-podcast conversion technology itself comes from the Australian podcasting platform Whooshkaa, which was purchased by Spotify in 2021.
Using Megaphone, publishers will be able to input the URL to a live stream of their broadcasted content and automatically have a podcast created from that programming, according to Emma Vaughn, Spotify’s global head of advertising business development and partnerships. The “broadcast-to-podcast” tech will identify ad marker locations, giving publishers the opportunity to remove the ads that were originally aired on the live version of the program and dynamically insert new ad spots in their place, resulting in more revenue.
Companies using “broadcast to podcast” can continue to sell their own ad inventory or, in the near future, do so through the Spotify Audience Network, the audio giant’s ad marketplace.
“These publishers obviously have a ton of content that they create. The libraries are massive, [but] they don’t always have a full podcast operation that’s set up, [so] creating podcast-only content might not make sense for them,” Vaughn told The Hollywood Reporter. “That’s where ‘broadcast to podcast’ comes in because it’s seamless and allows them to join the ecosystem.”
As part of the initial rollout, publishers like Fox Corp. — which has an existing advertising and distribution deal with Megaphone for its Fox Audio Network — will use the conversion technology to create on-demand podcast versions of the broadcaster’s radio programming, though Vaughn said the goal is to attract publishers and broadcasters around the globe that “previously weren’t able to access Megaphone and access the podcast ecosystem.”
The executive also noted that converting radio programming into podcasts could give radio broadcasters a better chance at expanding their reach to Gen-Z listeners.
“More and more people are listening to content via these digital channels,” Vaughn said, “so it’s going to be able to bring some of this broadcast content that was maybe more isolated to a certain type of demographic to the Spotify demographic and to these young audiences that they haven’t been able to capture before.”
This story was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
