State Champ Radio Downtown Music Holdings
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Downtown Music Holdings announced layoffs across the company’s CD Baby, Downtown Music Publishing, Songtrust, and Downtown Music Holdings (DMH) divisions on Wednesday (March 22).
Downtown Music Holdings chief executive Andrew Bergman emailed staff early Wednesday to share the news. Notably, many of the lay offs affect those working in publishing roles. Neither the email, which was obtained by Billboard, nor a company representative would confirm how many jobs were affected.
Bergman also noted in the email that there are also “a number of cost-saving measures… underway” already at Downtown apart from the reduction in team size. The Downtown rep also declined to explain what these measures were.
The email labels this downsizing as “reorganization” that “harmonizes the past several years of strategic investments and divestitures.” As detailed in a recent Billboard profile of the firm, Downtown pivoted from a traditional publishing firm with 145,000 songs in its catalog to selling off all intellectual property in favor of repositioning as a service-focused company instead.
To further bolster their service offerings, in the last few years Downtown acquired CD Baby, FUGA, AdRev, Soundrop and DashGo, and then last September announced the combination many of its B2B services under the name “Downtown Music.” Downtown Music now includes staff from FUGA, Downtown Neighbouring Rights, AdRev and Downtown Music Services artist, label services and publishing administration units.
In October, Billboard reported that Downtown’s CD Baby and Soundrop had laid off 28 employees, citing “economic conditions” and “uncertain times” in a company-wide email from chief people officer Love Whelchel.
“This reorganization harmonizes the past several years of strategic investments and divestitures, better positioning us for the future by aligning our talent, resources, technology and services to meet the evolving needs of the music community while at the same time taking into account this period of economic uncertainty,” said a Downtown rep in a statement.
Read the full email to Downtown Music Holdings’ staff below:
Team,
Today we’re sharing some difficult news with all of you. Downtown’s management team has made the decision to reduce the size of our team in certain areas of the organization, specifically CD Baby, Publishing, Songtrust and DMH. Later this morning, we will be meeting with those employees and informing them that their roles will be impacted.
Along with reducing our team size overall and a number of cost-saving measures we have underway, we hope to be able to offer and place some impacted members of our team in other positions within Downtown that will give them a chance to apply their skills and expertise in new ways.
This reorganization harmonizes the past several years of strategic investments and divestitures, better positioning us for the future by aligning our talent, resources, technology and services to meet the evolving needs of the music community while at the same time taking into account this period of economic uncertainty.
We are committed to continuing to communicate about our plans, our business performance, and the results of these changes and remain accountable to all of you for the improvements and the long-term health and strength of our work at Downtown.
Our management, people, operations, legal and communications teams have made every effort to manage this process with as much thoughtfulness, consideration and empathy as possible. We will be meeting with all of you in the coming days to share more directly, plans for each division and will be ready to answer any questions you may have.
Sincerely,
AB
Additional Reporting by Dan Rys
Downtown Music Holdings has acquired Curve Royalty Systems, a company that specializes in royalty processing for digital income, it was announced Thursday (Jan. 5). Curve will now be a part of Downtown Music, a division that focuses on servicing the professional music industry.
In recent years, Downtown has pivoted away from its previous role as a traditional publisher and rights holder by selling off its 145,000-song catalog and putting its efforts into building a service-focused music company to tap into the growing cohort of DIY artists and professionals. The company has quickly amassed a suite of service tools via acquisitions including Curve, FUGA, CD Baby, Soundrop, AdRev and more. Downtown is also an active investor in companies like Beatbread and Vampr.
Though Downtown is integrating Curve into its suite of offerings for distribution and monetization, the royalty processing firm — which can distill multiple royalty statements into one cohesive report — will continue to serve its existing client base of over 1,000 labels and publishers worldwide. This includes Warp Records, Ingrooves, Mad Decent, MRC, Royalty Solutions Corp, Domino Recording Company, Hospital Records/Songs in the Key of Knife, Cal Financial and Alta Financial. Since its inception in January 2019 by co-founders Tom Allen, Richard Leach and Ray Bush, the company says it has processed nearly $4 billion in revenue.
Downtown Music president Pieter van Rijn said of the deal, “In Downtown Music, we’ve combined innovative technology and industry-leading services to create an offering that empowers music businesses and their creators. Curve perfectly complements our mission to be the leading music industry platform and their past work speaks to their high standards and pioneering technology.”
Downtown CEO Andrew Bergman added, “For some time, we have been admirers of the technology and service quality that Tom and Richard have been building at Curve. As we got to know them and their team, it became ever more obvious that their dedication and forward-thinking vision were a great fit for Downtown. Accuracy, precision, timeliness, and innovation in royalty services are core to Downtown’s mission of supporting creators and the businesses that serve them. Welcoming the Curve team to Downtown is another important step in furtherance of our mission.”
