Business
Page: 8
Apple Music has named Ole Obermann and Rachel Newman as the company’s new co-heads, Billboard has confirmed. The news was first reported by Music Business Worldwide. Obermann, who left his role as global head of music business development at ByteDance earlier this year, worked at the Chinese company for more than five years, having started […]
South Korea’s HYBE used its artists’ heavy touring schedule and strong merchandise and licensing revenues to overcome a slight drop in recorded music sales in the first quarter of 2025.
In the historically slow first quarter, total revenue rose 38.7% to 500.6 billion KRW ($350 million), the second-lowest quarterly revenue since the first quarter of 2023. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of 47.3 billion KRW ($33 million) was up 19% from the prior-year period.
“Typically, the first quarter is a period when artists take a break after busy year-end activities and prepare for new albums and projects,” CFO Kyungjun Lee said during the earnings call Tuesday (April 29). “Therefore, in Q1, we had relatively fewer album releases and content offerings, thus posting a slightly lower profitability compared to the prior quarter.”
Trending on Billboard
Recorded music revenue fell 5.9% to 136.5 billion KRW ($95 million), with streaming accounting for almost half of recorded music sales, said CEO Jaesang Lee. “While album sales fluctuate quarter over quarter depending on release schedules, steady streaming revenue serves as a stable source of profit. Streaming helps mitigate recorded music sales volatility in quarters like this quarter, when the number of new albums is relatively smaller.”
Concerts revenue jumped 252% to 155.2 billion KRW ($108 million). CEO Lee cited the “huge success” of tours in South Korea, the U.S., Japan and elsewhere in Asia by J-Hope, TOMORROW X TOGETHER, ENHYPEN and BOYNEXTDOOR. Additionally, J-Hope’s solo shows in Mexico “marked the beginning of active expansion to the Latin market,” he added.
Merchandise and licensing improved 75.2% to 106.4 billion KRW ($74 million). Whereas concert-related merchandise was most popular in the past, HYBE has found success with artists’ character-driven merchandise, such as for Seventeen’s MINITEEN, a group of animal representatives for the band. “All the character products have been selling really quickly, and many items are in high demand, resulting in additional rounds of pre-order sales,” said CFO Lee.
Content revenue fell 32.7% to 41.2 billion KRW ($29 million). It included sales of the Seventeen in Carat Land Memory Book and BTS 7 Moments, an archive of group members throughout 2022 and 2023 that includes a 66-minute video and 180-page photo book.
CEO Lee also teased details of Big Hit Music’s upcoming boy band that will debut in the third quarter of 2025. He described the five-member group as “a next generation creator crew that pursues self-expression in completely new styles and senses” and will perform “very original music that has not existed in the past.”
Separately, a seven-member, all-Japanese boy band called aeon will debut in June. Created by YX Labels, HYBE’s Japanese operation, the group formed from a TV show that aired in Japan on Nippon TV from February to April.
The Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif., is undertaking a $1 billion renovation project that will reimagine nearly every aspect of the seasoned venue, it was announced Tuesday (April 29) by OC Sports & Entertainment (OCSE), an affiliate of the operator of the city-owned venue.
Dubbed Honda Center Encore, the privately funded transformation will happen simultaneously to the ongoing development of the arena’s surrounding campus, OC Vibe — a $4 billion, 100-acre entertainment district anchored by the home of the National Hockey League’s Anaheim Ducks. Both Honda Center Encore and OC Vibe are being funded by the Samueli Family, owners of the Anaheim Ducks and longtime stewards of Honda Center.
Honda Center Encore
Courtesy of OCVIBE
“We don’t want to have the experience of our guests coming in here to be fantastic when you’re outside of our four walls of the Honda Center, and then you walk in and you’re taken back to 1993,” says OC Vibe CEO Bill Foltz. “We’ve kept the place up. It’s an amazing venue. It really needs to be updated. That process actually started a couple of years ago, where we started bringing in designers and architects.”
Trending on Billboard
The Honda Center Encore transformation will include a new five-story south entrance with a grand arrival experience along with a high-impact digital display to host outdoor viewing parties and community events. Foltz tells Billboard that the display will be used to showcase events occurring at the Honda Center in addition to viewing parties for Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), as the arena has signed an agreement to be the designated watch party site for the league. The new south entrance will replace the arena’s current facade.
Honda Center Encore
Courtesy of OCVIBE
Once completed — the transformation is due to be finished by 2027 — the arena will have entirely refreshed its food and beverage spaces, including ten brand-new concepts and the introduction of self-service technology to elevate speed and convenience. The transformation will also include a new all-inclusive club on the club level, offering an upscale, hospitality-focused experience for premium guests, with curated food and beverage offerings and unmatched views of the action. The venue will also debut new opera box suites on the main concourse and a full renovation of all 68 existing luxury suites.
Honda Center will additionally install new escalators to improve vertical circulation and introduce four new entry plazas, each with its own distinct social aesthetic. The construction of three new parking structures that will add 6,000 new stalls to the campus is already underway; the new parking options are expected to be complete by October and will increase parking availability by 60%. To keep the parking experience as friction-free as possible, the arena is also eliminating the need for arena guests to purchase parking passes in addition to their ticket.
Honda Center Encore
Courtesy of OCVIBE
“When you buy your ticket, it’s an all-inclusive price, meaning all-inclusive of your parking and access when you get here. So, when you pull in our parking garages, you won’t be stopping to check a QR code or to pay somebody,” says Foltz. “You’ll come straight into the parking garages, which are built for speed of access and exit. We think that step alone will get our fans into the excitement 20 to 30 minutes faster than they’re getting in today.”
One of the few aspects of the building that will remain unchanged is the arena’s iconic floors. The more than 30-year-old building will keep its white and burnt orange Italian marble flooring that “look[s] just the same as it did 30 years ago,” Foltz says, adding that the arena will match the color scheme throughout the renovations.
While the renovations will create more points of sale for attendees (especially those in the upper tiers of the arena), Foltz says the majority of the $1 billion renovation will be dedicated to guest experience over direct revenue enhancement. “The bulk [of the renovation] is making this building brand new so it will last another 50 years,” he says, adding, “We have a contract to run Honda Center through the 2060s.”
Honda Center Encore
Courtesy of OCVIBE
Honda Center Encore
Courtesy of OCVIBE
Deezer’s total quarterly revenue edged 1.1% higher in the first quarter of 2025, the French streaming company reported on Tuesday (April 29), as its top executive reiterated the company’s target to achieve profitability this year.
Deezer reported revenue of 134 million euros ($145.08 million) in the first quarter, driven primarily by 6.3% growth in its direct subscriber base in France, bringing the total number of subscribers there to 3.5 million.
Deezer achieved positive free cash flow and its first break-even year in fiscal 2024, and CEO Alexis Lanternier said the company will achieve positive adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBIDTA) in 2025. Deezer expects total revenue for 2025 to be flat or slightly decline from fiscal year 2024, as it forecast no meaningful increase in average revenue per user (ARPU). However, the company maintained it will “generate positive free cash flow for the second consecutive year,” according to a press release.
Trending on Billboard
“We started the year with positive momentum, delivering revenue growth in line with our expectations and further increasing our direct subscriber base in France,” Lanternier said in a statement. “With confidence, we confirm our 2025 guidance and our objective of reaching profitability this year.”
Founded in August 2007, Deezer has embarked on a range of initiatives aimed at achieving profitability, including raising prices on its direct subscribers in France; doubling-down on its strategy to gain subscribers through partnerships with companies like the German broadcaster RTL, American speaker company Sonos and Latin America’s Mercado Libre; and through the introduction of new customization features for users and opportunities to directly interact with artists.
Deezer’s total subscriber base now stands at 9.4 million, down from what it said was 10 million subscribers on a like-for-like basis in the first quarter of 2024. Of those 9.4 million subscribers, 5.3 million are direct subscribers, mostly in France, while 4.1 million subscribers come from partnerships. Revenue from Deezer’s direct subscriber base contributed 86.6 million euros ($93.8 million), up from 86 million euros ($92.8 million) a year ago. Partnership subscribers contributed 39.2 million euros ($42.4 million), down from 43.3 million euros ($46.7 million) a year ago.
The decline in partnership subscriptions, which drove an overall 3.4% drop in the revenue Deezer receives from countries outside of France, was primarily due to the conversion of users who came to Deezer through its partnership with Mercado Libre called MeLi+. Some promo users converted to premium users “with higher [average revenue per user] & margins,” the company said. The decline in partnership subscriptions and revenue was partly offset by a ramp up in Deezer’s partnership with RTL+, the company said. Deezer renewed long-term partnerships with Bouygues and Orange in the first quarter.
Strong subscription revenue helped Universal Music Group’s first quarter revenue rise 11.8% year over year (or 9.5% in constant currency) to 2.9 billion euros ($3.05 billion at the average exchange rate in the first quarter), the company announced Tuesday (April 29). Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) also rose 11.8%, to 661 […]
Hugh Forrest is out at South By Southwest, four months after assuming leadership of the music, tech and film conference, following a decision by the SXSW board to select Penske Media Corporation executive Jenny Connelly to lead the festival, Billboard has learned.
Connelly, a longtime executive vp of product and technology at PMC and a SXSW board member, has been appointed director in charge of the annual event in Austin. Consequently, Forrest was offered the opportunity to retain his titles as president and chief programming officer, reporting to Connelly in her new role, according to PMC. “When Hugh was told he wasn’t going to get the CEO role at SXSW, and would be reporting to her, Hugh made the decision to leave SXSW,” said the spokesperson for PMC, which has had control of SXSW for two years and is also Billboard‘s parent company.
Since joining PMC in late 2017, Connelly has overseen multiple teams responsible for engineering, data, IT, product and SEO, and also leads the subscriptions and email teams. Pre-PMC, Connelly was senior vp of product at Dreamworks NOVA, tasked with bringing that company’s 3D imaging technology to other industries. Earlier, she spent seven-plus years at Live Nation Entertainment, rising to senior vp of digital at Live Nation Studios.
Trending on Billboard
Connelly is based in Los Angeles but has begun traveling to Austin on a weekly basis, the company said.
“I’m happy to announce that after 3+ years on the SXSW board of directors, I’m now working as Director in Charge of SXSW,” she said in a social post on Tuesday (April 29), adding she’s “working with a killer group of dedicated, creative & skilled people who throw the world’s most influential festival. We are dreaming up the evolution of this event, so that SXSW never stops helping creative people achieve their goals.”
Several other key moves were announced Friday (April 25) during a company town hall as part of ongoing succession planning at the festival, the PMC rep said, along with additional promotions for festival veterans Peter Lewis, Greg Rosenbaum and Brian Hobbs. The organization said it has several open jobs to fill at SXSW.
Forrest declined to comment on last week’s chain of events when reached by Billboard but remarked in a statement over the weekend that “leaving South by Southwest was definitely not my decision,” adding, “I put my heart and soul into this event for more than 35 years, and I was looking forward to leading several more editions.”
Hugh Forrest speaks onstage during the 2023 SXSW Conference at Austin Convention Center on March 10, 2023.
Diego Donamaria/Getty Images
Forrest joined SXSW in 1989, when it was in its nascent stage, and spent the bulk of his tenure as chief programming officer. In 2022, he was promoted to co-president alongside then-chief brand officer Jann Baskett, succeeding the retiring CEO Roland Swenson. Forrest became the sole president late last year following Baskett’s departure to start her own consultancy.
As president, Forrest had been tasked with driving business growth and collaborating closely with the event’s board of directors, which includes co-founder Swenson, Jay Penske (CEO of Penske Media and SXSW’s largest shareholder) and Amy Webb (CEO of the Future Today Institute), among others.
The company told Billboard that the 2025 edition achieved the highest sponsorship revenue in the event’s history, while the SXSW EDU conference had its best turnout since its 2011 founding.
The Austin Chronicle hinted at a wider staffing shakeup at SXSW, reporting on Saturday (April 26) that “another 10 or more staff members … have left the company, either through previously planned departures or unexpectedly.” One departure, James Minor, the vp and head of music at the conference, was one of those planned exits. Minor told the Austin American-Statesman on Sunday he “already had plans to leave SXSW in motion for the fall.”
Founded in 1987 by Swenson, Nick Barbaro, Louis Black and Louis Jay Meyers, SXSW has grown into a globally influential event in Austin, which also now includes satellite events like the two-year-old SXSW Sydney and the upcoming debut of SXSW London, which launches in June. Swenson, who led SXSW for 36 years, transitioned to executive chairman in 2022.
The leadership change follows a recent announcement that next year’s conference will be on the shorter side, running from March 12-18, with interactive, film/TV and music programs happening concurrently. The reduction in days — and by extension, the number of showcasing music artists and shows — is due to the $1.6 billion redevelopment of the Austin Convention Center, which is underway. The new center, expected to open in 2029, will nearly double its size and focus on accessibility and sustainability. “A shorter SX gives attendees more of a chance to be here for the entire run,” a spokesperson told Billboard at the time.
Note: Billboard’s parent company PMC is the largest shareholder of SXSW and its brands are official media partners of SXSW.
Udio, a generative AI music company backed by will.i.am, Common and a16z, has partnered with Audible Magic to fingerprint all tracks made using the platform at the moment they are created and to check the generated works, using Audible Magic’s “content control pipeline,” for any infringing copyrighted material.
By doing this, Udio and Audible Magic have created a way for streaming services and distributors to trace which songs submitted to their platforms are made with Udio’s AI. The company also aims to proactively detect and block use of copyrighted material that users don’t own or control.
“Working with Audible Magic allows us to create a transparent signal in the music supply chain. By fingerprinting at the point of generation, we’re helping establish a new benchmark for accountability and clarity in the age of generative music,” says Andrew Sanchez, co-founder of Udio. “We believe that this partnership will open the door for new licensing structures and monetization pathways that will benefit stakeholders across the industry from artists to rights holders to technology platforms.”
Trending on Billboard
Last summer, Udio, and its top competitor Suno, were both sued by the three major record companies for training their AI music models on the companies’ copyrighted master recordings. In the lawsuits, the majors argued this constituted copyright infringement “at an almost unimaginable scale.” Additionally, the lawsuits pointed out that the resulting AI-generated songs from Udio and Suno could “saturate the market with machine-generated content that will directly compete with, cheapen and ultimately drown out the genuine sound recordings on which [the services were] built.”
Udio’s new partnership with Audible Magic stops short of promising to eliminate copyright material from its training process, as the majors want, but it shows that Udio is trying out alternative solutions to appease the music establishment. Suno also has a partnership with Audible Magic, announced in October 2024, but the two partnerships believes these deals hold key differences. Suno’s integration focus more specifically on its “audio inputs” and “covers” features, which allow users to generate songs based on an audio file they upload. With Audible Magic’s technology, Suno prevents users from unauthorized uploads of copyrighted material.
“This partnership demonstrates Udio’s substantial commitment to rights holder transparency and content provenance,” says Kuni Takahashi, CEO of Audible Magic. “Registering files directly from the first-party source is a clean and robust way to identify the use of AI-generated music in the supply chain.”
BeatStars has partnered with Sureel, an AI music detection and attribution company, to provide its creators with the ability to express their desire to “opt out” of their works being used in AI training.
To date, AI music companies in the United States are not required to honor opt-outs, but through this partnership, Sureel and Beatstars, the world’s largest music marketplace, hope to create clarity for AI music companies that are wishing to avoid legal and reputational risks and create a digital ledger to keep track of beatmakers’ wishes regarding AI training.
Here’s how it works: Beatstars will send formal opt-out notices for every music asset and artist on its platform, and all of the creators’ choices will be documented on a portal that any AI company can access. By default, all tracks will be marked as shielded from AI training unless permission is granted. Companies can also access creators’ wishes using Sureel’s API. It will also automatically communicate the creators’ desires via a robots.txt file, which is a way to block AI companies that are crawling the web for new training data.
Trending on Billboard
As the U.S. — and countries around the world — continue to debate how to properly regulate issues related to AI, start-ups in the private sector, like Sureel, are trying to find faster solutions, including tools for opting in and out of AI training, detection technology to flag and verify AI generated works, and more.
“This partnership is an extension of our longstanding commitment to put creators first,” said Abe Batshon, CEO of BeatStars, in a statement. “We recognize that some AI companies might not respect intellectual property, so we are taking definitive action to ensure our community’s work remains protected and valued. Ethical AI is the future, and we’re leading the charge in making sure creators are not left behind.”
“BeatStars isn’t just a marketplace — it’s one of the most important creator communities in the world,” added Dr. Tamay Aykut, founder/CEO of Sureel. “They’ve built their platform around trust, transparency, and putting artists in control. That’s exactly the type of environment where our technology belongs. This partnership proves you can scale innovation and ethics together — and shows the rest of the industry what responsible AI collaboration looks like.”
Spotify’s first quarter revenue rose 15% as its subscriber base increased 12%, the company’s highest first quarter subscriber gains since early in the COVID-19 pandemic, the company reported on Tuesday. The music and podcast streaming giant reported total revenue of 4.2 billion euros ($4.54 billion) in the quarter ending March 31, and total paying subscribers […]
LONDON — The U.K.’s LIVE industry group (Live music Industry Venues & Entertainment) has announced that contributions to its music fund has crossed the £500,000 ($668,007) milestone. The fund supports the grassroots music scene, and has been backed by stars such as Diana Ross, Pulp, Mumford & Sons and Hans Zimmer, all of whom have pledged to donate £1 ($1.30) from every ticket sale for upcoming arena shows.
LIVE campaigns and raises awareness for issues facing the U.K.’s live music scene, with a particular focus on the grassroots music scene and its workers. It represents 15 live music organizations, including the Music Venue Trust, the Music Managers Forum, Featured Artists Coalition among others.
Trending on Billboard
The LIVE Trust, established in January 2025, receives funding from a voluntary contribution of £1 per ticket from arena and stadium shows with a capacity of over 5000. A funding strategy is then implemented alongside a panel of industry experts, ensuring the funds reach venues, promoters, festivals and artists.
A proposed ticket levy has long been discussed in the U.K. to help stem the tide of grassroots music venues closures. The MVT reports that over 150 venues have closed across the U.K. since 2023, citing a number of financial challenges following the COVID-19 pandemic and the cost of living crisis.
The current Labour government has supported the idea of the levy. Speaking in a parliamentary debate in January, Chris Bryant (creative industries minister) backed the idea of a levy in either format: “If the scheme does not happen voluntarily, will we make it statutory? Yes,” he said.
A number of big name acts have already committed portions from ticket sales in recent years, including Sam Fender, Katy Perry, Enter Shikari and more. Coldplay will donate 10% of the revenue from their upcoming Wembley Stadium residency to the Music Venue Trust, one of LIVE’s members. The group will play a record 10 nights at the venue in August and September.
Last week LIVE shared their Music Fans’ Voice report, which surveyed 8000 concert goers about the state of the live music industry, with 93% of respondents backing the £1 per ticket contribution.
Jon Collins, CEO of LIVE said, “This is a welcome milestone for The LIVE Trust and marks a very significant contribution to the grassroots live music sector. What this demonstrates is that there is a real appetite from performers and their teams to support the wider live ecosystem and we applaud and thank those that have already taken this initiative. Whilst this is an excellent start there is still much work to do if we are to convince government that a voluntary rather than statutory levy is both workable and sustainable.”