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Boosted by double-digit growth in recorded streaming and helped by major releases from Beyoncé and Future & Metro Boomin, Sony Music said on Tuesday that total revenue grew 23% to 442 billion yen ($2.7 billion) during its fiscal first quarter, which ended June 30.
Sony’s operating income improved 17% to 86 billion yen ($534 million) and adjusted operating income before depreciation and amortization (OIBDA) jumped 30% to 108 billion yen ($671 million). Adjusted OIBDA margin improved to 24.4%.
Both of Sony’s music divisions — recorded music and publishing — posted similarly solid year-over-year gains during the period, resulting in the ninth consecutive year of growth on the recording side and 11th straight year of gains for publishing.
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Recorded music revenue increased 26% to 299 billion yen ($1.8 billion), with subscription and ad-supported streaming up 19% to 197 billion yen ($1.2 billion) and accounting for roughly 66% of that recorded segment tally. Physical revenue sunk 5.6% to 24 billion yen ($150 million), year over year, while Sony’s “other” category — lumping merchandise, live performances and licensing revenue from synch, public performance and broadcast — jumped 81% to 73 billion yen ($453 million).
Sony said some of its top sellers for the fiscal quarter were Beyoncé’s COWBOY CARTER, Future and Metro’s WE DON’T TRUST YOU, Travis Scott’s UTOPIA and SZA’s SOS. Some non-all-capped wins included Luke Combs’ Gettin’ Old, 21 Savage’s american dream and Doja Cat’s Scarlet.
Music publishing revenue rose 28.7% to 97 billion yen ($602 million). Streaming revenue climbed 36% to 56.5 billion yen ($351 million), while publishing’s “other” category grew 19.7% to 40.1 billion yen ($249 million) when compared to the year-ago period. The company disclosed that as of March 31, its publishing division either owned or administered approximately 6.24 million songs, an increase of 14% in the last two years.
Sony Music’s visual media and platform revenue declined 7.1% to 39.7 billion yen ($246 million). The segment includes mobile gaming, software for PCs and game consoles, and software development contracts.
Looking ahead, Sony Music Entertainment raised its forecast for full-year revenue by 3% to 1.7 trillion yen (approximately $11.5 billion) with a projected operating income increase of 5% from the previous forecast in May to 20 billion yen.
Warner Music Group reported on Wednesday strong streaming revenue growth and keeping a lid on its costs helped offset declines in merchandise and physical music sales in the company’s third fiscal quarter.
Quarterly net profit rose nearly 14% to $141 million from $124 million in the third quarter last year. Overall revenue fell by 1% to $1.554 billion from $1.564 billion in the year ago quarter due to the roll off of BMG’s distribution deal and a difficult comparison to the year-ago quarter, which included a $7 million benefit from the Copyright Royalty Board in Phonorecords III.
The company’s digital revenue and streaming revenue were up 4.7% and 5.5% respectively, as subscription revenue grew 7%. Recorded Music streaming revenue increased 5.0%, and music publishing streaming revenue increased 7.9%.
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“Our strong subscription streaming growth in [the third quarter] was driven by the performance of our music and healthy industry trends,” Warner Music Group chief executive Robert Kyncl said in a statement. “We’re nurturing the next generation of artists and songwriters, creating fresh impact for our iconic catalog, and working with our partners to increase the value of music. Our commitment to long-term artist development, combined with a flatter structure in recorded music, will enable us to super-serve talent and set WMG up for sustained future growth.”
WMG’s operating income jumped 10% to $207 million in the quarter from $189 million in the third quarter last year. Adjusted operating income before depreciation and amortization (OIBDA), which measures profitability over a specific period of time, rose 6% to $316 million from $297 million in the prior-year quarter.
Revenue from WMG’s recorded music division fell by 2% to $1.251 billion from $1.282 in the year-ago quarter. This was due in part to the exiting of BMG as a client, which resulted in $26 million less revenue, and a “renewal with one of the Company’s digital partners” which created an additional $3 million drage on recorded music streaming revenue, the company said.
BMG began winding down its distribution agreement with WMG’s ADA last September to move control of its 80 billion-stream digital business in-house.
Physical revenue fell by 4.8% because of release timing and a tough year-ago comparison, the company said. Artist services and expanded-rights revenue fell by 27.1% mainly due to lower merchandising revenue.
Revenue from WMG’s music publishing division rose by 8% to $305 million from $283 million in the year-ago quarter.
Topline Results:
Total revenue 1% to $1.554 billion in the third fiscal quarter 2024 from $1.564 billion in the same period last year.
Net income rose 14% to $141 million from $124 million in the third quarter 2023.
Recorded music revenue fell by 2% to $1.251 billion from $1.282 billion in the third quarter 2023.
Music publishing revenue rose 8% to $305 million from $283 million in the third quarter 2023.
SiriusXM Holdings stock fell by more than 6% on Thursday after the satellite radio and streaming content company said it lost 173,000 subscribers in the quarter ending on June 30.
The company said it lost approximately 100,000 SiriusXM self-pay subscribers and 73,000 paid promotional subscribers. While that was an improvement from the same period last year, and churn remained steady at 1.5%, it caused a 5% decline in SiriusXM subscriber revenue and $0.42 year-over-year decrease in average revenue per user (ARPU) to $15.24. That pushed SiriusXM Holdings’ second quarter revenue down 3% to $2.18 billion, below analysts’ expectations.
On a call discussing the quarter’s earnings, executives sought to emphasize Sirius’ improved profit margin and lower operating expenses, despite signing big-ticket deals for podcast powerhouses like SmartLess Media earlier this year.
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“SiriusXM’s financial position remains robust as we steadily enhance our business and establish a sustainable foundation for growth,” Sirius CEO Jennifer Witz said on the call, reiterating the company’s 2024 financial targets. “With these solid margins and declining capital expenditures, we anticipate converting more of this strong EBITDA into growing free cash flow in the coming years.”
Quarterly profit rose 2% to $316 million. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) was flat year over year at $702 million and its adjusted EBITDA margin held steady at 32%.
Sirius reported operating expenses fell 5.5% on lower costs of running SiriusXM and Pandora and off-platform services across the board and lower personnel costs after the companies’ two rounds of layoffs over the last 18 months. Subscriber acquisition costs decreased by 1%. Free cash flow in the quarter rose 6% to $343 million.
“We think the key for the stock is conversion of self-pay trials,” Steven Cahill, equity analyst at Wells Fargo, wrote in a report for investors on Thursday. “Self-pay conversion in new [and] used car is arguably [SiriusXM Holdings’] biggest key performance indicator as it looks to improve capture of younger car buyers versus digital competition. We think Q2 self-pay converstion were down to around 30%-32% from 33% in the prior quarter.”
While SiriusXM saw declines in both subscriber and advertising revenue, Pandora and off-platform segments reported an 8% rise in subscriber revenue to $138 million. The segment’s advertising revenue held flat at $400 million from the same quarter a year ago.
Late last year, Sirius announced plans for a 10-to-1 reverse stock split and merger with Liberty Media’s SiriusXM Group tracking stock, a move aimed at bolstering the company’s faltering stock price. Executives said Thursday that transaction will close on Sept. 9. The Nasdaq-listed SiriusXM Holdings has seen its stock price fall by more than 65% from a 52-week high of $7.95, leading the Nasdaq to drop SiriusXM from its Nasdaq-100 Index last Thursday (June 13).
SiriusXM’s stock price was down 6.25% to $3.22 as of 12.25 p.m. New York time.
Consumers are strained by everything from high food prices to soaring rents and mortgage costs — but aren’t giving up live music.
Two years after the concert industry roared back to life in the wake of the COVID pandemic, Live Nation had another recording-setting second quarter. Revenue grew 7% to more than $6 billion while adjusted operating income (AOI) climbed 21% to $716 million. North America was particularly strong, as fan attendance climbed 17% and amphitheater attendance rose about 40%.
That followed a record first quarter in which Live Nation had revenue of $3.8 billion, up 21%, and AOI of $367 million. A notable hiccup during the second quarter was an antitrust lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice in May, although that hasn’t impacted operations and will take years to move through the courts.
During Tuesday’s earnings call, CEO Michael Rapino and president/CFO Joe Berchtold gave analysts and investors their thoughts on recent tour cancellations, expectations for the second half of 2024 and next year, and Live Nation’s long-term growth rate.
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Cancellations are “in line” with historical trends
Some recent high-profile tour cancellations and weaker-than-expected festival sales have some people wondering if the live music business bit off more than it could chew. Coachella ticket sales were slower than usual, as were those of JazzFest, Beach Life, Welcome to Rockville and Governors Ball. Live Nation had two high-profile tour cancellations in recent months: The Black Keys and Jennifer Lopez.
But Live Nation, the world’s largest promoter, isn’t seeing anything out of the ordinary, said Berchtold. Cancellation rates “historically run kind of 4%-5% of shows [and] about a percent and a half of fans,” he said, and this year’s cancellations are “[a]bsolutely in line with historical trends. I think most of the reports that we’ve seen have been efforts to take one or two data points out of a very large number of tours and shows, and we’re just not seeing anything unusual there.”
“Continued growth” in the second half of the 2024 and into 2025
Berchtold said Live Nation expects to see “continued growth” in fan attendance in the second half of the year. Year-to-date ticket sales to 2024 concerts are 118 million, according to Tuesday’s earnings release, higher than 2023. Sales for arenas, amphitheaters, theater and club shows are up double digits.
As for 2025, Live Nation expects more stadium shows than it had two years ago. This year, a slowdown in stadium shows was partly caused by the Paris Olympics causing “most of France to shut down” for a month, said Rapino. Amphitheater shows provide better margins and high per-fan spending, but more stadium shows means a surge in ticket sales in late 2024 from tour on-sales, and higher gross transaction values. “One stadium show is triple the band count and triple the average ticket price of an amphitheater show,” said Berchtold.
Pushing 10% growth over the long term
After surging in 2022 and 2023 from post-pandemic pent-up demand, Live Nation is settling into a steady, long-term growth rate of 9%-10% annually. The necessary trends are in place, said Rapino: the globalization of the market, the supply of artists, consumer demand, the fan experience and favorable economic factors. Just don’t expect the post-pandemic growth to continue. “We never predicted that the industry was going to grow at 30% a year going forward,” said Rapino.
Spotify’s stock surged 12% on Tuesday after Spotify reported quarterly earnings that beat subscriber growth and profit margin expectations.
In a wide-ranging discussion of the company’s earnings that touched on the controversy sparked by Spotify’s audiobook bundling, its plans for a premium music tier and missing its target for monthly active user growth, Spotify chief Daniel Ek said the company he helped found 18 years ago is reaching a turning point.
“While many believe that Spotify has a great product, we needed to prove that we could also be a great business,” Ek said. “I think we’re really starting to show this now.”
Here’s what else you should know about the global streaming giant’s most recent quarterly earnings and what was said on the call.
“It was a very strong quarter across most of our key metrics”
Ek said at the top of the webcast. The streaming giant, which has for most of its 18-year history failed to be profitable, reported its third-straight profitable quarter spurred on by the addition of seven million net new subscribers, an expanded gross profit margin of 29.2% and 490 million euros ($533 million) in free cash flow, the most in the company’s history. However, the company missed its internal target for total monthly active users (MAUs), reporting a total of 626 million MAUs compared with a goal of 631 million.
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Ek said they are tackling this by enhancing free products to boost engagement and retention in developing markets.
The bundle controversy
When Spotify announced plans to raise subscription prices in the U.S. and the addition of 15 hours of audiobooks per month in May, it also asserted it could pay a discounted “bundle” rate to songwriters for premium streams that Billboard estimates could cut songwriters’ and music publishers’ royalty payments by $150 million. The Mechanical Licensing Collective sued Spotify, claiming it “improperly” classified its premium tiers as bundles. Ek declined to comment on the lawsuit, but defended Spotify saying that it paid out a record-high amount to music labels and publishers in 2023 and will “beat those numbers” in 2024.
“A lot of people want to make this a zero sum game where we have to win in order for them to lose or they have to win and we sort of lose,” Ek said. “It’s not as much a zero sum game as people make it out to be. That’s not to say we don’t quibble around various things at various points. That’s the nature of all supplier and distributor relationships. Overall we have had healthy relationships with the music industry for the better part of now 18 years. … Overall the music industry is growing. We are spending a lot of time and effort making sure it keeps growing.”
Spotify’s interim CFO Ben Kung declined to share details of Spotify’s royalty payout agreements but said the company is confident in its position.
New ultra-premium tier on the horizon
Asked about Spotify’s plans to launch a long-delayed high definition audio offering, Ek described the company’s effort to bring something like a “deluxe version” of Spotify to life for “a large subset” of Spotify’s now 246 million subscribers.
“The plan here is to offer a much better version of Spotify. So, think something like $5 above the current premium tier, so probably around $17-$18 price point, but sort of a deluxe version of Spotify that has all the benefits that the normal Spotify version has plus more control and quality across the board,” Ek said.
Spotify added 7 million subscribers in the second quarter, roughly 1 million more than it forecasted, which bolstered revenue and profit margins, the streaming giant said on Tuesday.
Spotify reported 3.8 billion euros ($4.15 billion) in total revenue, a 20% increase from the year-ago quarter, with a record high gross margin of 29.2% that beat guidance. Its operating income was up for the second straight quarter to 266 million euros ($289.6 million), which the company said was thanks to a stronger 7% gross margin and lower marketing, personnel and other costs.
While Spotify’s 626 million total monthly active users (MAUs) came in lower than the 631 million MAUs the company expected in the second quarter this year, it grew premium subscribers by 1 million more than forecast, and as Spotify raises prices in the U.S. again, that helps the company keep its growth goals on track.
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“Overall, we are encouraged by the traction we are seeing from our monetization initiatives and remain focused on delivering the goals out lined at our 2022 investor day,” the company said in a statement.
Revenue from premium subscribers grew 21% year over year thanks to those subscriber gains and premium average revenue per user (ARPU) gains of 10% compared to last year. Revenue from ad-supported users rose 13%.
The price of Spotify’s premium individual plan in the U.S. rose $1 to $11.99 a month and the duo plan jumped a buck to $16.99 a month in July.
Spotify has been under pressure from major music companies and organizations to reverse changes it made in May to its bundled subscription services that added audiobooks to its premium tier. Spotify wants to pay songwriters a discounted bundle rate for premium streams, but groups like the MLC are suing Spotify claiming the streamer “improperly” classified its premium tiers as bundles.
Billboard estimates the move, which reclassified premium, duo and family subscription services as “bundled subscription services,” could cut songwriters’ and music publishers’ royalty payments by $150 million in the first year.
The lower personnel costs that helped boost operating income are in part due to staff cuts the company made last December.
Spotify chief executive officer Daniel Ek is expected to discuss the company’s strategy on bundling and provide greater details about his company’s quarterly earnings on a call Tuesday morning.
Topline Results for Q2:
Total revenue of 3.8 billion euros reflected revenue from premium subscribers growing by 21% and ad-supported revenue growing 13%.
Gross margin of 29.2% beat the company’s growth forecast due to improved music and podcast profitability, the company said.
Operating income also beat guidance at 266 million euros due to lower personnel and marketing costs.
Total monthly active users (MAUs) were 626 million in the second quarter, up 14% from a year ago.
Premium subscribers totaled 246 million and ad-supported MAUs totaled 393 million, up 12% and 15% from a year ago respectively.
Premium average revenue per user (ARPU) rose 10% from last year.
Subscription gains and a string of acquisitions helped Reservoir Media’s fiscal year revenue grow 18% to $144.9 million, beating the company’s guidance from February of $140 million to $142 million, the company announced Thursday (May 30). Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) in the period ended March 31 climbed 20% to $55.6 million, topping guidance of $53 million to $55 million.
Organic growth, which strips out the impact of acquisitions made during the year, was 14% for the full year. Among the company’s catalog purchases during the fiscal year were four members of R&B group The Spinners, Latin music artist Rudy Perez, hip-hop producer Mannie Fresh and 2Pac collaborator Big D Evans. Reservoir also invested in Egyptian company RE Media and Saudi Arabian hip-hop label Mashrex.
Among Reservoir Media’s signings during the year were songwriter Steph Carter, who shares a co-writing credit on Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso,” and Rob Ragosta, co-writer of “Need a Favor” by Jelly Roll. The company also landed publishing deals with rock band Kings of Leon and rock legend Joe Walsh.
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The company said it expects fiscal 2025 revenue to be between $148 million and $152 million, which would reflect 3.5% growth at the midpoint. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be $58 million to $61 million, which implies 7.0% growth at the midpoint.
“Our financial guidance reflects our confidence in growth driving organic growth with our value enhancement efforts and capitalizing on the projected growth of the music industry,” CEO Golnar Khosrowshahi said during Thursday’s earnings call. Some of that organic growth will come from additional price increases at music subscription services, she added: “Looking forward, we are poised to benefit from what we believe will become a regular cadence of price increases across streaming platforms.”
Shares of Reservoir Media jumped 15.5% to $9.00 Thursday morning before falling to $8.26, up 6.1%, by late afternoon.
Elsewhere, full-year publishing revenue at the company rose 15% to $96.2 million. Digital revenue grew 17% to $51.6 million and performance royalties jumped 36% to $22.8 million. CFO Jim Heindlmeyer said the “improvement is largely derived from higher royalty rates and price increases at multiple music streaming services, as well as the expansion of our catalog through M&A.”
Recorded music revenue grew 22% to $42.4 million in the full fiscal year largely due to price increases at subscription services and the timing of Reservoir Media’s release schedule, Heindlmeyer said. While physical revenue climbed 49% to $8.9 million, digital revenue rose 17% to $26.9 million and accounted for the majority of recorded music’s $7.6 million in revenue growth.
Fiscal fourth-quarter revenue grew 12% to $39.1 million. Operating income grew just 2%, however, to $8.8 million, while adjusted EBITDA improved 6% to $16.0 million.
Reservoir’s pipeline of potential acquisitions dropped by 50% to $1 billion, down from $2 billion at the end of December. Khosrowshahi downplayed the change, however, noting the company is seeing “ample deal flow” despite “a couple of larger deals” having moved. Liquidity at the end of the year of $132.3 million from $18.1 million of cash and $114.2 million available in a revolving credit facility “gives us the capital to fund our strategic objectives,” said Heindlmeyer. Added Khosrowshahi, “I’m generally quite optimistic about what that pipeline looks like.”
Led by SZA’s SOS, Travis Scott’s UTOPIA and growth in paid subscription streaming services, Sony Music revenue grew 16.9% to 1.59 trillion yen ($11.05 billion) in its fiscal year ended March 31, its parent company, Sony Corp., reported Tuesday, May 14.
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Sony Music’s revenue topped guidance of 1.56-1.57 trillion yen given in Sony Corp’s previous quarterly earnings in February. Its adjusted operating income before depreciation and amortization (AOIBDA) of 368.7 billion yen ($2.55 billion) also topped guidance of 350-360 billion yen.
The yen-denominated revenue figures were boosted by foreign exchange rates. Of Sony Music’s revenue gain, about 32%, or 76.5 billion yen ($529 million), came from foreign exchange. Both recorded music and music publishing divisions enjoyed higher revenue from streaming services and paid subscriptions — Spotify’s price increase in July 2023, and continued subscriber growth at all platforms, also provided a boost to recent earnings by Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group.
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Recorded music revenue of 1.07 trillion yen ($7.39 billion) was up 20.4% from the prior year. While physical revenue dropped 7.4% to 101.3 billion yen ($701.7 million), streaming jumped 18.5% to 709.5 billion yen ($4.91 billion) and accounted for 66.5% of recorded music revenue, down from 67.7% in fiscal 2022. The “other” category, which includes merchandise, rose 59.8% to 221.4 billion yen ($1.53 billion).
Other top releases for the fiscal year were Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti, Harry Styles’ Harry’s House, Miley Cyrus’s Endless Summer Vacation, Luke Combs’ Gettin’ Old, Peso Pluma’s Genesis, Doja Cat’s Scarlet, Rod Wave’s Nostalgia and Beyoncé’s Renaissance.
Music publishing full-year revenue rose 18.1% to 326.7 billion yen ($2.26 billion). Streaming revenue improved 21.1% to 185 billion yen ($1.28 billion) and accounted for 56.6% of publishing revenue, up from 55.2% in fiscal 2022.
Visual media and platform revenue declined 0.4% to 202.1 billion yen ($1.4 billion). Within the segment, gaming revenue fell 9.5% to 98.2 billion yen ($680 million).
Stray Kids’ “Social Path (feat. LiSA)” was the top music release for Sony Music Entertainment Japan for the full fiscal year. Other top releases in Japan were King Gnu’s The Greatest Unknown, SixTONES’ The Vibes and two releases by Nogizaka46: Monopoly and Ohitorisama Tengoku.
For the second straight quarter, Sony Music’s operating income of 301.7 billion yen was the largest of any Sony Corp. business and accounted for about a quarter of the parent company’s total operating income. Although Games & Network Services’ revenue of 4.26 trillion yen ($29.55 billion) was more than 2.5 times Sony Music’s revenue, it had operating income of 290.2 billion yen ($2 billion) – about 4% lower than Sony Music’s operating income.
Even though Sony Corp.’s full-year revenue grew about 13% on a constant currency basis, the company is wary of uncertain business conditions and volatility. As such, Sony Music’s parent company is putting a greater focus on earnings, efficiency and business profitability.
During the earnings call, Sony Corp.’s management discussed the company’s “mid-range plan” that includes a partial spin-off off its financial services division in Oct. 2025 and increasing focus on growth in its three entertainment segments — music, film and games and network services — and its imaging and sensing solutions business. The parent company aims to achieve an annual growth rate of 10% or more in these business segments.
“In the music segment, we continue to aim to grow faster than the market by strengthening our efforts in emerging markets, increasing monetization opportunities for our music catalog, and incorporating adjacent businesses such as merchandising,” said Hiroki Totoki, president, COO and CFO.
Looking ahead to the current fiscal year ending March 31, 2025, Sony Music expects 4% increases in both revenue and operating income.
Sony Music’s fiscal fourth quarter revenue climbed 23.5% to 422.2 billion yen ($2.85 billion). Recorded music revenue in the quarter rose 29.4% to 288 billion yen ($1.94 billion) due to 23.9% growth in streaming revenue and a 91.9% improvement in the “other” category. Music publishing revenue grew 25.5% to 82.9 billion yen ($558.6 billion). Visual media and platform revenue dropped 3.8% to 51.4 billion yen ($346.6 million) due to a 22.2% decline in gaming revenue.
Both SOS and UTOPIA were also Sony Music’s top two albums in the fiscal fourth quarter as well as the full year. Other top albums in the quarter were 21 Savage’s American Dream, Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter, Bad Bunny’s nadie sabe lo que va a pasar mañana, Peso Pluma’s Genesis, Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti, Tate McRae’s Think Later, Justin Timberlake’s Everything I Thought It Was and Harry Styles’ Harry’s House.
Executives of Tencent Music Entertainment Group said on Monday that higher than expected subscriber growth pushed its first quarter profits up 28% to RMB1.53 billion ($212 million). Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Through marketing promotions timed around the Chinese New Year holiday, TME was able to […]
Building a state-of-the-art Sphere venue is “not like building a McDonalds,” Sphere Entertainment Co. chairman and CEO James Dolan said during the company’s earnings call on Friday. “It’s complicated. It’s a very expensive project.”
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The lone Sphere venue in Las Vegas, which cost $2.3 billion to build through delays and cost overruns during the COVID-19 pandemic, generated revenue of $170.4 million in its fiscal third quarter ended March 31, the parent company, Sphere Entertainment Co, reported Friday. Revenue was slightly better than the $167.8 million in the prior quarter. Adjusted operating income was $12.9 million, slightly down from the prior quarter’s AOI of $14.1 million.
Dolan wants to build more Spheres and insists a second venue will materialize. The company is “in discussions with several markets” and has encountered “plenty of interest all around the world,” he said, “but not until we launched the product in September did people really get to see what it was and began to see how it could perform.”
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Sphere will reach an agreement with “at least one of those markets soon,” Dolan added. “How soon I’m not going to predict.”
Sphere, which wowed music fans through residencies by U2 and Phish, attracted nearly one million guests to more than 270 events in the quarter, said Dolan. In addition to concerts, Sphere offers a motion picture, Postcards from Earth, that CFO David Byrnes said generated $100 million in revenue in the quarter. In June, Sphere will host its first corporate event, a keynote address by Hewlett Packard Enterprise president and CEO Antonio Neri, and its first televised event, the NHL draft.
Demand from artists to perform at Sphere is “stronger than we can even accommodate at this point,” Dolan claimed. The company wants to have “a varied number of kinds of acts, not just legacy rock acts,” and “acts that have the biggest draws,” he added.
Dead & Co. begins its 24-date residency on May 16. A residency by the Eagles has not been officially announced but Dolan suggested during the earnings call the band will indeed perform at Sphere.
“Even if you’re not a Deadhead, you’re gonna love that show,” said Dolan when discussing the need to create “compelling” visuals to complement bands’ musical performances. “And I think the same will be true for The Eagles and for the next acts that we bring up.”
Sphere Entertainment Co. had an operating loss of $40.4 million on revenue of $321.3 million. The company’s other segment, MSG Networks, had AOI of $48.6 million, down 17%, on revenue of $151 million, down 6% from the prior-year quarter. The company explained that those figures decreased from the prior-year quarter “primarily due to a 12.5% decrease in subscribers inclusive of the impact of MSG+,” the network’s streaming platform.