International
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LONDON — The U.K. competition regulator has ruled out making further interventions in the music business and says that low returns from streaming, which songwriters and artists have expressed concerns about, are not being driven by the major labels’ dominance of the market.
In its final 165-page report into the U.K. music business, published Tuesday, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) says, however, that it is a matter for policymakers to determine whether current streaming revenue splits are “appropriate and fair” and if “wider policy interventions are required.” To that end, the regulator says it will share its final findings with the British government.
The CMA’s final 165-page report into the U.K. music business shows that consumers have greatly benefited from streaming, with the monthly price of streaming subscriptions falling by more than 20% in real terms between 2009 and 2021 due to not keeping pace with inflation. The monthly cost of an individual subscription to Spotify has remained £9.99 ($12.00) for the past decade.
At the same time, there’s been a huge rise in the amount of music that is available to consumers, from both paid subscription services and free ad-supported streaming, making it increasingly harder for all but the most popular artists to reach large audiences and earn a decent income.
In 2021, more than 138 billion music tracks were streamed in the U.K., yet less than 1% of all artists achieve more than one million streams per month, according to the CMA’s research. That level of streams would earn an artist around £12,000 ($14,500) per year after record company and streaming service deductions, says the regulator. The CMA found that over 60% of streams were of music recorded by only the top 0.4% of artists.
“We heard from many artists and songwriters across the U.K. about how they struggle to make a decent living from these [streaming] services,” says Sarah Cardell, interim chief executive of the CMA. Despite empathizing with creators’ “understandable concerns,” Cardell says the watchdog’s findings show that low returns for the majority of artists “are not the result of ineffective competition” between the three major record labels — Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group – which make up 75% of the U.K.’s recorded music market (independents account for the remaining 25%).
As a result, further intervention by the CMA “would not release more money into the system that would help artists or songwriters,” says Cardell. Therefore, the watchdog will not carry out a ‘phase 2’ full market investigation of the U.K. streaming business over competition concerns, which could have lasted up two years. Instead, it will share its findings with government policy makers for them to consider whether “additional action is needed to help creators,” says Cardell.
The regulator also warned that it may be forced to intervene in the future if the streaming business changes in a way that harms consumers’ interests. Determining factors identified by the CMA include mergers or acquisitions that could lead to a “substantial lessening of competition,” music companies prohibiting innovations that would benefit music fans and significantly higher streaming subscription prices.
The conclusions released Tuesday were a follow-up to an interim report released in July, in which the CMA said that streaming was working well for consumers. The regulator examined the integral role that services like Spotify and YouTube play in the booming music economy — and how those spoils are shared with creators. Just under 50 parties submitted written evidence to CMA officials as part of the study, including all three major labels, Google and independent music companies Believe, Beggars Group and Merlin.
Responding to artist concerns around how little they earn from music streaming, the CMA says its analysis of the market found that “neither record labels nor streaming services are likely to be making significant excess profits that could be shared with creators.”
According to its most recent earnings report, Universal Music Group’s revenue grew 13.3% to 2.66 billion euros ($2.75 billion) at constant currency in the third quarter of 2022. The world’s largest record label reported growth across all segments, including a 10.1% rise in recorded music revenue. UMG’s total revenues for 2021 were 8.5 billion euros ($10.1 billion) with net income of 1.271 billion euros ($1.51 billion) on an adjusted basis.
Sony Music reported on Nov. 1 that its quarterly revenues had risen 5.9% year-on-year to $2.58 billion (¥359.3 billion), with recorded music revenue up 14.2% to $1.62 billion (¥224 billion) in the same period, driven by growth of its subscription streaming income. Last week, Warner Music Group announced its quarterly revenues rose 16% at constant currency (9% as reported) to $1.5 billion in the fiscal fourth quarter ended Sept. 30.
Despite the concentrated nature of the market, outcomes for artists as a whole seem to be improving, the CMA says. Between 2012 and 2021, the average gross royalty rate increased from 19.7% to 23.3% and artists now have far greater choice over the type of deal available to them, ranging from traditional label deals to DIY distribution or artist and label service type deals. The CMA report also notes that the proportion of record contracts where labels own copyright of recordings in perpetuity fell from 66% to 26.4% in that same nine-year period.
Reaction among U.K. music trade groups to the CMA’s final report was mixed. A spokesperson for labels trade body BPI welcomed the regulator’s decision not to proceed with a full market investigation and said the study reinforces its view that the future health of the music industry is dependent on labels continuing to invest in artists.
Graham Davies, chief executive of songwriters and composers group The Ivors Academy, took an opposing view, saying that the current music streaming business “is concentrating earnings to an unsustainable extent” and “rewards few music creators.” He said government intervention is needed “to fix streaming.”
HONG KONG — Chinese-Canadian pop star Kris Wu was sentenced to 13 years in prison for rape and other sexual offenses, a Chinese court said on its official Weibo account on Friday (Nov. 25).
The Chaoyang District People’s Court in Beijing said that from November to December 2020, Wu, also known as Wu Yifan, raped three women at his home when they were under the effect of alcohol.
Wu was sentenced to 11.5 years for rape and 22 months for “assembling a crowd to engage in promiscuous activities” in July 2018, according to the Weibo post. Wu, who is a Canadian citizen, will serve a 13-year term in China before being deported.
“Justice was delayed, but now it’s here,” Du Meizhu, the Chinese influencer who blew the whistle on Wu, wrote on Weibo after the announcement.
Born in China and raised in Canada, Wu was a former member of the popular K-pop group EXO before returning to China to pursue his solo career in 2014.
Wu was detained in Beijing in July last year and was formally arrested on suspicion of rape in August, after the then-18-year-old Du accused him of luring her and other underaged girls into having sex under the pretense that they would be promised an acting career. The closed-door trial began in Beijing in June.
The sexual assault allegations against Wu prompted widespread criticism and became one of the most high-profile #MeToo cases in China.
Wu was also ordered to pay a 600 million yuan ($83.5 million) fine for hiding personal income through domestic and foreign affiliated enterprises, local taxation authorities said on their website.
Wu’s scandal came at a time when Chinese internet and media regulators have pledged to silence “unhealthy” online fan groups and crack down on “tainted artists” who have used drugs, visited prostitutes or broken the law, from all forms of broadcast.
Artists in China have been under great pressure to refrain from “immoral conduct,” which includes acts as minor as smoking or having tattoos.
Under public pressure from the sex-crimes allegations, some 20 brands — including Lancôme, Louis Vuitton, Bulgari and Porsche — cut ties with Wu last year. Chinese music streaming platforms, including Tencent’s QQ Music and NetEase Cloud Music, pulled his songs, and his Weibo social media account, where he had over 51 million followers, was taken down shortly after his detention.
Wu’s former group, EXO, became one of the most successful boy bands of South Korea, selling over 1.4 million albums in their first year, according to its label, SM Entertainment, and performed sold-out gigs around the world.
He has also starred in films and appeared as a judge on The Rap of China, a popular reality television program. By 2017, Wu was named Forbes’ 10th most influential Chinese celebrity of the year, with an annual income of 150 million yuan ($23 million).
In 2018, Wu signed with Universal Music to distribute his music in global territories besides Japan and South Korea. His debut studio album, Antares (2018), knocked Ariana Grande off the U.S. iTunes music charts and was platinum-certified in China. It peaked at No. 100 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, while the single “Like That” rose to No. 73 on the Billboard Hot 100. (Each lasted one week on the charts.)
Wu’s contract with Universal expired in March 2021 and the label has not renewed it.
Looking to grow its share of the fast-developing Middle East music market, Warner Music Group has signed Saudi singer Dalia Mubarak, one of the country’s biggest female stars and a leading voice among a new generation of progressive Arabic artists.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The signing — Warner Music’s first Saudi artist signing since it began investing in the Middle East region about four years ago — caps a breakthrough year for 31-year-old Mubarak, who earlier this month won Best Saudi Arabian Artist at the Distinctive International Arab Festivals Awards (DIAFA) in Dubai and was featured this summer on the cover of Vogue Arabia.
Since releasing her debut single, “Turn The Table,” in 2014, the singer’s career has flourished in line with the gradual opening up of Saudi society following the appointment of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in 2017, making him the de facto ruler of the oil-rich Gulf state. His reforms have helped modernize the country of 35 million people, where, up until a few years ago, concerts were banned and ultraconservative norms prevailed, including the segregation of unmarried men and women in public spaces.
Historically rife with piracy, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) market nearly doubled between 2019 and 2021, and it was the fastest-growing region in the world last year, with recorded music revenues up 35% to $89.5 million, according to IFPI. More than 95% of MENA revenues came from streaming, helping draw the interest of major record companies, which are increasingly looking to emerging markets to find new talent and, in turn, extend their labels’ global reach. MENA’s potential is vast, with a total population of about 430 million people, of which 55% are under the age of 30, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
The Mubarak signing follows a series of investments and acquisitions Warner Music has made recently in the Gulf region. Last year, the company acquired a minority stake — reportedly worth around $200 million — in Rotana Music, the Arab world’s leading independent record label, which is part of Rotana Group, owned by Saudi billionaire Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal.
In March, Warner completed the acquisition of Qanawat Music, a leading distributor across the Middle East and North Africa. WMG put roots down in the region in 2018 when it created Warner Music Middle East and opened an office in Beirut, Lebanon.
Mubarak, who mostly sings in Arabic and has previously released music on Rotana, says she fulfilled a childhood dream by signing with Warner Music because of the opportunities and exposure it provides not just in her home country, but internationally as well.
“Everyone is now looking to what’s going on in Saudi Arabia, how it’s changed, and I want to be part of that change and show the world that we have good artists,” Mubarak tells Billboard. “I want to be the bridge [between Saudi Arabia] and the international world.”
Mubarak’s music mixes contemporary R&B and Western-style pop with traditional Khaleeji music, incorporating Arabic instruments like duff drums and mirwas. She says the music, which promotes positive messages of female empowerment, reflects the progressive changes that have occurred in her home country.
The singer has built a large following in Saudi Arabia and the wider Arab diaspora with total YouTube views surpassing 350 million, according to Billboard’s calculations (subscribers to her official YouTube channel stand at just over 600,000). Her most popular song is 2020’s “Elly Yemshy 3ady,” which was the artist’s first single sung in the Egyptian dialect; it has generated more than 66 million views on YouTube.
The singer has just under 700,000 followers on Anghami, the most popular music streaming service in the Middle East with around 20 million active users, according to company filings. (Warner was unable to provide comprehensive streaming numbers for Mubarak.)
Mubarak has also performed at many of Saudi Arabia’s biggest music festivals, including 2019’s Jeddah World Fest, where she joined DJ Steve Aoki onstage at the event’s close. (The festival also featured performances from Janet Jackson, 50 Cent and Chris Brown, and saw Nicki Minaj make international headlines when she pulled out of a scheduled appearance in protest against the Kingdom’s treatment of women.)
Dalia Mubarak with Max Lousada and Simon Robson, Warner Music UK, Nov 2022.
Warner Music
Max Lousada, CEO of Warner Recorded Music, calls Mubarak a “trailblazer for change,” saying in a press release that she symbolizes “a new generation of female artists from the country who are rewriting the rules and winning fans across the region and beyond.”
The singer, who has an American husband, divides her time between the Saudi capital city Riyadh and Dubai. “Other singers in the past were not as lucky to have this freedom and these opportunities that I’m now grateful for,” she says.
Alfonso Perez-Soto, Warner Recorded Music’s president of emerging markets, tells Billboard that the label intends for Mubarak to be the first of many artists Warner signs from the MENA region as part of its overall long-term strategy. Previously, WMG’s focus has been on establishing itself in the region, “building the access to catalogs and distribution and gaining resources” so it is fully equipped to provide “the best tools” to help break and build lasting careers for Arabic artists like Mubarak.
Perez-Soto says the best of Warner Music’s worldwide resources are being made available to help Mubarak establish an international career. That includes teaming the artist up with English producers and songwriters for a short run of demo recording sessions in London earlier this month.
The plan, says Perez-Soto, is that they will “create product and songs that will be appealing to the Western market,” as well as cater to Mubarak’s existing local fanbase by drawing on the Middle East’s rich cultural heritage. Going forward, releases will vary between English-language songs and Arabic-focused repertoire.
Perez-Soto says he hopes giving Saudi artists like Mubarak a global platform will help bring about further change in a country that, while rapidly developing, still draws widespread condemnation for human rights abuses, including a ban on political protest and discrimination against women and marginalized groups.
“The situation is nowhere near close to perfect, but the country is making a very sincere effort [to change] in the right direction and we have to be part of enabling that effort and help that to happen,” says the Miami-based executive.
“There is no hate in music,” says Mubarak. “Music is something beautiful and it creates peace and hopefully we’re going to be part of that.” She wants to inspire other females in the Arab States, including her two young daughters, to follow in her footsteps. “I hope to be their voice,” she says, “to motivate them and make their dreams happen.”
Bose Ogulu received the award for manager of the year from her son and star client, Burna Boy, at the 2022 Artist & Manager Awards, which were presented at London’s Bloomsbury Big Top on Thursday (Nov. 17). The event, presented in association with beatBread, is organized by the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC) and Music Managers Forum (MMF) and celebrates creative and commercial successes across the artist and management community.
With deep roots in the Lagos music scene, Ogulu has overseen Burna Boy’s rise to global stardom. Co-founding the pioneering Spaceship Collective in 2020, Ogulu has become a leading light in advocating for African artists to maintain greater control and ownership of their repertoire. Sheniece Charway, artist relations manager at YouTube Music, joined Burna Boy in presenting the award.
Becky Hill was named artist of the year. Hill had a top five hit on the Official U.K. Singles Chart in 2022 – “Crazy What Love Can Do,” a collab with David Guetta and Ella Henderson. She won a BRIT Award for best dance act in February. Her award was presented by her manager Alex Martin and tour manager Amanda Barker, alongside music legend Nile Rodgers and Hipgnosis founder Merck Mercuriadis.
Awards for Breakthrough Artist and Breakthrough Manager were also presented, with the former going to Beabadoobee and the latter to Callum Reece at One House for his success with the likes of Eliza Rose, Sherelle, cktrl and Mwanjé.
ABBA Voyage received the Innovation award. The album at the center of the project topped the Official U.K. Albums Chart and reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200. It received a Grammy nomination for album of the year on Tuesday Nov. 15. ABBA co-founder Björn Ulvaeus sent a video message to Svana Gisla, Ludvig Andersson and Baillie Walsh, the producers and director behind ABBA Voyage. They were presented with the award by Imogen Heap and Utopia Music’s Roberto Neri.
Lifetime achievement awards, dubbed Artists’ Artist and Managers’ Manager, went to songwriter and performer Tim Burgess and manager Martin Hall, respectively. Hall has managed Manic Street Preachers, The Script and Wet Leg, among others.
Burgess received his award from Brix Smith and PPL Chief Executive Peter Leathem. Hall’s award was preceded by video messages from Manic Street Preachers, The Script’s Danny O’Donoghue, Wet Leg and Sony Music CEO Rob Stringer, who said: “How many managers can say that 25 years ago they were taking a new band to No. 1 in the album charts, and here they are again, in 2022, managing a new band to No. 1 in the album chart. That longevity speaks volumes for you, Martin.”
Indeed, Manic Street Preachers’ This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours topped the Official U.K. Albums Chart in 1998. Wet Leg’s Wet Leg topped that same chart this year. Moreover, Wet Leg was nominated for four Grammy Awards, including best new artist, on Tuesday.
The ongoing challenges surrounding live music were raised in a joint opening address by the FAC’s CEO, David Martin, and Annabella Coldrick, chief executive of the MMF.
“There’s no point pulling any punches,” Martin said. “For the majority of artists, the past few years have been pretty hard. We’ve had Brexit, a pandemic, and now a cost-of-living crisis. It’s been tough to make a living from music, and it remains tough.”
“Without addressing these issues, the next generation will really struggle to break through – and that will have ramifications for every promoter, record label, music publisher and tech company here tonight,” Coldrick added.
The show also recognized the work of Music Declares Emergency as 2022’s Industry Champions for driving momentum towards more environmentally sustainable practices – particularly in live touring. Presented by Sam Lee, the award was accepted by co-founder Lewis Jamieson and director of creative strategy and artist spokesperson Fay Milton.
The ceremony was hosted by Doc Brown (aka Ben Bailey Smith) and featured live performances by London-based pop-punk artist GIRLI and rapper FelixThe1st.
Here’s the full list of winners at the 2022 Artist & Manager Awards in association with beatBread:
Artist of the Year: Becky Hill
Manager of the Year: Bose Ogulu
Artists’ Artist: Tim Burgess
Managers’ Manager: Martin Hall
Breakthrough Artist: Beabadoobee
Breakthrough Manager: Callum Reece
Team Achievement: Groundworks
Entrepreneur: Krept & Konan
Innovation: ABBA Voyage
Pioneer: Carl Cox
Writer/Producer Manager: Red Light Management
Industry Champion: Music Declares Emergency
Unsigned and emerging artists in Africa will soon be able to compete for global distribution deals and record contracts with Sony Music Africa through a new collaboration between the major label and the companies behind the Afrochella Festival in Ghana.
Afrochella’s parent company, Culture Management Group, and media streaming service Audiomack, are teaming up with Sony Music Africa to expand the “Rising Star Stage” competition, which previously entitled winners to a chance to perform onstage at the festival.
With Sony’s involvement, up to 10 prize winners chosen from a short list of 25 will be signed to distribution deals with Sony Music Africa, which will take their music out to the world, Sony says in a press release.
The Grand Prize winner will secure an exclusive recording agreement with Sony Music Africa for the release of a single; marketing support (including a music video); free access to Afrochella’s recording studio as well as mentoring and training from industry executives and “leading musicians and producers,” Sony says. The top winner will also have the opportunity to perform live at Afrochella.
Five winners, including the Grand Prize winner, will also be able to perform on Afrochella’s Rising Star Stage alongside headliners on the festival’s second day, Dec. 29.
To enter the competition, artists need to upload an original song to Audiomack and create an Instagram Reel that includes an introduction about the artist, their approach to music and music-making process, and “what they want their potential audience to know about their style of music,” Sony says.
“With the strong backing of Sony Music, we now have the exciting opportunity to make an artist’s dreams come to life by providing them with a distribution deal and sustainable resources to help jumpstart their musical career,” Abdul Karim Abdullah, CEO and co-founder of Afrochella, says in a statement.
The “Rising Star Challenge” is now underway, and winners will be chosen during the two-day festival. The sixth edition of Afrochella, scheduled for Dec. 28 and 29 in Ghana’s capital Accra, features headliners Burna Boy, StoneBwoy and Fireboy DML.
Last month Coachella Music Festival sued the organizers of Afrochella, saying they infringed on Coachella’s trademarks and had allegedly tried to register the Coachella name in Ghana through the country’s intellectual property office, which was denied. Goldenvoice owns the trademark for both Coachella and the word Chella, preventing it from being added to other event titles in a way that could confuse fans.
TOKYO — This summer, the Japanese entertainment company Avex launched the seven-member girl group XG on a weekly music TV show — in South Korea, instead of Japan. The move was strategic. Rather than promote the group, which was five years in the making, at home, Avex leveraged Korea’s K-pop-rich media market to make an international splash.
It’s a prime example of the newest chapter in K-pop’s globalization: non-Korean acts tapping into the training, promotion, styles and strategies that made the genre an international success.
Korean networks’ many music programs showcase dozens of bands and live performances, which are readily available on YouTube — a key factor in K-pop’s international expansion, according to industry experts. In stark contrast, Japanese TV networks have been slow to embrace YouTube because sharing original content there often leads to unauthorized reuse. “Japanese TV shows are really inside — we can’t really reach to the global fans,” says Reina Aiguchi, a manager in Avex’s digital marketing group who works with XG. “In order to gain the global fans, we had to go on Korean TV shows.”
XG — like JO1 from Japan and boy band SB19 from the Philippines — followed the K-pop star incubation model, drawing their members from thousands of auditioning hopefuls and undergoing yearslong training regimens. Thanks to instruction from K-pop vocal coaches and choreographers, they appear to be gaining traction, accumulating millions of audio streams and YouTube views. What remains unclear, though, is whether they will lure non-Korean listeners away from Korean bands or grow the genre’s fan base by having lesser-known artists attract more listeners.
Either way, experts say the development could help boost K-pop’s long-term viability worldwide. Non-Korean K-pop bands may displease some existing fans, but this expansion evolves the genre beyond Korean pop. “If globalizing Korean acts was the model in the past, now the mindset is to create global-level groups around the world,” says Kim Young-dae, a Seoul-based music critic. “It didn’t happen overnight. This has been the goal that [the industry] has been working on for the last two decades.”
K-pop acts with members from outside Korea aren’t a new phenomenon. Starting in the 1990s, agencies recruited from the Korean diaspora and later expanded the talent pool to such key target markets as Japan and China. From Super Junior to TWICE to Aespa, bands have benefited from members who communicate with fans and media in relevant markets in their own languages.
But this latest wave of K-pop groups has no Korean members. Instead, they are working within Korea to take advantage of the know-how, distribution channels and global attention K-pop has established. They were often exposed to K-pop from childhood and see Korea as a platform for international stardom.
XG
Courtesy of XGALX
XG, for example, is produced by an agency led by Simon Jakops, a former K-pop idol who was born in the United States to Korean and Japanese parents. Avex selected XG’s members from a pool of 15,000 Japanese girls in 2017 and put them through five years of training — starting when they were ages 10 to 15 — to master hip-hop and R&B music, as well as English and Korean. They lived together in a dormitory in Tokyo and moved to Seoul during the pandemic. Singing and rapping in English — with the occasional Japanese word thrown in — the group made 14 appearances on six different Korean TV shows in June and July to promote its first two singles, “Tippy Toes” and “Mascara,” Aiguchi says. The group is marketed by XGALX, an agency overseen in Tokyo by Avex, which, in recent years, has struggled to repeat its J-pop idol successes from the 1990s and 2000s.
“We wanted to refer to K-pop and have those methods for XG,” says Yudai Hasegawa, manager for XGALX, speaking through Aiguchi’s translation. “Second is, we wanted to shoot those music videos in Korea, where they have good music video directors.” Such strategies appear to be making a difference: XG has about 700,000 subscribers on YouTube and around 600,000 on TikTok, while “Mascara” reached No. 14 on the Billboard Japan Hot 100, spending 11 weeks on the chart. In addition, the group won the Rising Star award at the MTV Video Music Awards Japan in November. Comments below the group’s videoclips contain English, Bahasa (Indonesia) and Spanish, alongside Japanese.
JO1, a Japanese boy band formed from the 11 winners of the 2019 reality TV contest Produce 101 Japan, also received training in South Korea. Their music, often a collaboration between Japanese and Korean producers, is sung in Japanese with English words peppered into the mix, a K-pop formula for upping the songs’ global appeal. The members have appeared on Korean variety shows and K-pop-focused YouTube channels. (Their latest single, “SuperCali,” borrows the famous compound word from Mary Poppins.) JO1 has racked up several No. 1s on the Billboard Japan Hot 100, including “Bokura no Kisetsu” (“Our Season”), which topped the chart last December and has nearly 420 million combined views on YouTube.
Korean agencies in recent years have also launched non-Korean bands that perform K-pop-like music — notably SM Entertainment’s China-geared boy band WayV, as well as NiziU, an all-Japanese girl group from JYP Entertainment and Sony Music Entertainment Japan.
After an open call for auditions beginning in 2014 involving hundreds of Filipino boys, SB19 was formed by ShowBT Philippines, a subsidiary of Korean agency ShowBT Group. The five-member boy band, which sings in English and Tagalog, trained in South Korea for three years before signing with Sony Music Philippines in December of 2019. They recently have begun cracking the Billboard charts and touring overseas, including a show at Los Angeles’ Avalon nightclub this past Saturday (Nov. 12). “They’ve really raised the bar, the Koreans,” Roslyn Pineda, general manager, Sony Music Entertainment Philippines, said in September. “Number one is the discipline” SB19 members learned in Korea, which led to a “sharpness of [dance] movements…that doesn’t lie,” she says.
“We can’t deny the K-pop influence [on JO1],” says Choi Shin-hwa, CEO of Lapone Entertainment, a joint venture between entertainment conglomerates CJ ENM of South Korea and Yoshimoto Kogyo of Japan that produces JO1. He doesn’t describe Lapone artists as K-pop, but rather envisions “a new genre that is a hybrid of K-pop and Japanese culture.”
In an interview in Tokyo, some members of JO1 told Billboard they grew up listening to K-pop CDs from boy band TVXQ and pop rock band CNBLUE, which their respective mothers, as fans, had played around the house. The members nervously denied they were already stars. “We keep on working with the hopes of catching up with all the awesome K-pop artists who are active today,” says member Issei Mamehara.
Additional reporting by Alexei Barrionuevo
LONDON — More people around the globe are listening to licensed music services than ever before, but piracy continues to have a harmful impact on creators’ careers, according to a new report from international trade body IFPI measuring global consumption and listening habits.
IFPI’s “Engaging with Music 2022” study reveals that music consumers are spending on average 20.1 hours listening to music weekly, a 9% increase from 18.4 hours in 2021.
The London-based organization found that 46% of the 44,000-plus music fans it surveyed for the report listen to their favorite artists through a premium subscription streaming service such as Spotify, Apple Music or Amazon Music, either using their personal subscription or via a shared account. That number rises to 74% when ad-supported music streaming is factored in alongside paid subscriptions.
Those streaming service numbers are slightly down from IFPI’s 2021 figures — when about 47% of respondents used a paid subscription service and 78% of people said they used either ad-supported or paid streaming – but IFPI says any decreases are the result of a change in accounting methodology, rather than a drop in real terms.
In this year’s report, the adoption of subscription streaming services is highest among younger listeners, with 54% of 16–24-year-olds and 56% of 25-34-year-olds surveyed saying they use subscription music platforms. Usage drops to 26% in the 55-64-year-old age bracket.
The top five countries where people spent the most time listening to music through a subscription streaming service were Sweden (56% of people surveyed), the United Kingdom (52%), the U.S. (51%), Germany (51%) and Mexico (50%). (Overall, IFPI reports a 10% rise in time spent listening to music on paid streaming services compared to the prior year.)
The IFPI report was compiled by surveying internet users aged 16-64 between June and September across 22 countries, including the United States, Japan, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Australia, Brazil, Canada and Mexico. Collectively, these markets accounted for more than 89% of global recorded music revenues in 2021, according to this year’s IFPI Global Music Report.
Writing in the study’s foreword, IFPI chief executive Frances Moore says the report’s findings show “how music engagement is thriving, driven by new genres [and] new formats,” as well as the global value of music, “and the need to protect and support it.”
Video-Based Music Consumption Dominates
Of those surveyed in the “Engaging with Music 2022” report, more than three-quarters say they consume music in multiple formats. On average, people use more than six different methods to engage with music, the most popular being video streaming, says IFPI.
Of the people surveyed, 82% said they regularly consume music through video streaming services like YouTube. Audio streaming was the second most popular listening format, followed by radio listening, and then short-form video formats such as TikTok. Meanwhile, 32% of respondents said they had watched a music concert livestream in the last month with more than half (58%) having recently watched a music-focused TV show or film.
Driven by the huge global popularity of TikTok, which says it has over one billion monthly active users, half of those surveyed said they use short-form video apps with 63% of respondents saying music is a key factor in choosing what content they consume on the platforms. South Africa and Mexico were the countries with the highest percentage of short-form video app users (both 78%), followed by Brazil (71%) and Argentina (66%), reports IFPI.
Pop was named as the most popular music genre globally, followed by rock, hip-hop/rap, dance/electronic, and Latin. When it comes to physical music, 12% of the people surveyed had bought a CD within a month of submitting their responses and 8% had purchased a vinyl record.
Survey data from China and India is not included in the main report’s global figures because IFPI says the size of the countries would have a “considerable impact on the weighted average figures used.” The listening study contains separate reports looking at music consumption in China, India, Indonesia and Nigeria. Results from Indonesia and Nigeria were also not included in the global round up as they were included in the survey for the first time this year.
In China, 96% of people surveyed use licensed music streaming services with 94% using short form video platforms. In India, 88% of respondents use music streaming services with 65% consuming short-form video.
Despite the growth in global music listening, the availability of unlicensed repertoire continues to pose a serious threat to the future health of the record industry, says IFPI. It found that almost one in three respondents (30%) admitted to using unauthorized or unlicensed methods to listen to or download music.
Stream-ripping sites remain the most popular way for consumers to access copyright-infringing music, IFPI found, with 40% of 16-24-year-olds confessing to using them. Almost one in five people (17%) said they had used an unlicensed mobile app to illegally download music.
Responding to its findings, Moore said IFPI will continue to fight against all forms of music piracy “to ensure that those seeking to profit from unlicensed and unauthorized music cannot threaten the vibrancy of a music ecosystem that is essential to artists and fans.”
Nickelback will be inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame as part of the 2023 Juno Awards. The show, which is Canada’s equivalent of the Grammys, will be held at Rogers Place in Edmonton, Alberta, on March 13. The band was formed in the town of Hanna, Alberta.
“Returning home to Alberta, where everything started for us, is truly a full circle, milestone moment for the band,” Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger said in a statement. “We take so much pride in our Canadian roots and are extremely humbled by this honour.”
Nickelback will perform on the show as part of the tribute. It will be their sixth performance on the Junos.
Since winning their first Juno in 2001 for best new group, Nickelback has amassed a total of 12 awards at the show. They won group of the year four times between 2002 and 2009; single of the year for “How You Remind Me” in 2002; album of the year for Dark Horse in 2009; and the Fan Choice award in both 2004 and 2009, among other awards.
Nickelback has a mixed track record at awards shows outside of their native Canada. They have yet to win a Grammy (despite six nods over the years, including record of the year for “How You Remind Me”). They have, however, won seven Billboard Music Awards, two American Music Awards, two MTV Video Music Awards and one People’s Choice Award, among others.
Nickelback will debut their tenth studio album, Get Rollin’ on Nov. 18. The group’s last seven studio albums made the top 10 on the Billboard 200. They topped that chart with All the Right Reasons in 2005.
The Canadian Music Hall of Fame was established by CARAS in 1978 to acknowledge artists who have made an outstanding contribution to Canadian music.
Previous Hall of Fame inductees include both solo artists (such as 2022 recipient Deborah Cox) and groups. Other pop and rock bands that have receive the honor include The Guess Who, The Band, Rush, Triumph, Loverboy, April Wine, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Barenaked Ladies and Cowboy Junkies.
Calgary, Alberta native and four-time Juno nominee Tate McRae will also perform at the show. McRae, 19, made the top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 with “You Broke Me First
Manager and promoter Ron Sakamoto will be the recipient of the Walt Grealis Special Achievement Award. A longtime collaborator of Canadian superstar Shania Twain, Sakamoto has represented some of the biggest names in music, including The Guess Who, Bryan Adams, Bee Gees, KISS, and Keith Urban. Sakamoto will receive the honor at the 2023 Juno Opening Night Awards on March 11.
This will be the Juno Awards’ first time in Edmonton in 19 years. The show, produced by Insight Productions, will broadcast and stream live across Canada at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on CBC TV, CBC Gem, CBC Radio One, CBC Music, CBC Listen, and globally at CBCMusic.ca/junos and on CBC Music’s Facebook, YouTube and Twitter pages.
A tourism minister for the Bahamas is throwing cold water on Billy McFarland‘s comeback plans. In a statement Monday (Nov. 14), Chester Cooper, the country’s Deputy Prime Minister for Tourism, said that the creator of the disastrous Fyre Festival is still considered a “fugitive” in the country and that anyone knowing his whereabouts should contact the Royal Bahamian Police Force. In response, McFarland issued a letter to the Bahamian government later that day apologizing for Fyre Fest and promising, “I will spend the rest of my life working to right my wrongs.”
The news — first reported by local newspaper The Tribune — comes after McFarland was earlier this year released from prison and later home confinement for crimes he committed while raising money for the 2017 festival. Last month, McFarland released a video on TikTok teasing out a new Bahamas-based project that would be promoted through a treasure hunt set to begin this week on the Caribbean island nation.
“The public is advised that no application has been made to the Government for consideration of any event promoted by Billy McFarland or any entity or parties known to be associated with him,” said Cooper in a statement. “McFarland was the organizer of the Fyre Festival several years ago, a notorious charade for which McFarland was convicted and sent to prison in the USA. “The Government of The Bahamas will not endorse or approve any event in The Bahamas associated with him. “He is considered to be a fugitive, with several pending complaints made against him with the Royal Bahamas Police Force (RBPF).”
McFarland first announced his plans for PYRT on Oct. 24 after serving four years in prison, noting he’s “working on something new” that’s “a little crazier but a whole lot bigger than anything I’ve ever tried before.” In the video announcement, he then flipped a whiteboard to reveal a treasure map taped to the other side and a phone number to call for more information.
In addition to his prison sentence, McFarland was ordered to pay roughly $26 million in restitution for his crimes. In May, his attorney Jason Russo told Billboard that McFarland was focused on finding “the best way to generate income to pay this restitution back and make amends,” adding, “Any new projects that he does become involved in will be done solely for the purpose of generating the restitution for paying back his victims.”
Later Monday, a representative for McFarland provided Billboard with a copy of a letter McFarland says was sent to the Bahamian government in response to Cooper’s statement. In it, he says he has been working to “make amends” with the Bahamian people and pledges to “make these families whole as soon I am allowed.” He goes on to “ask for guidance on whom to speak with to begin my journey to do right by the incredible people of the Bahamas and Family Islands.”
Read it in full here:
Dear Government of The Bahamas,
I am writing to you to profusely apologize for my actions 5 years ago. I was completely wrong and I wholly regret my actions.
I’ve now served my punishment in prison and now that I am out, my main focus is how I can right my wrongs and how I can make the Bahamas and Family Islands, a region I care so deeply about, whole again.
Over the years, and particularly since my release on August 30, I have been in constant touch with the people throughout the Islands. Their generosity and kind hearts have been a constant guide and motivation for me. I have been re-engaging with the families of the islands to see what I can do to begin making amends.
I don’t have much right now, but I am committed to make these families whole as soon I am allowed. I ask for guidance on whom to speak with to begin my journey to do right by the incredible people of the Bahamas and Family Islands.
I truly acknowledge the hurt I caused to the people, and region, and I will spend the rest of my life working to right my wrongs.
Sincerely,Billy McFarland
SM Entertainment, home of such K-pop groups as NCT 127, SuperM and Girls’ Generation, had revenue of 238.1 billion KRW ($165 million at the Sept. 30 exchange rate) from July 1 to Sept. 30 — up 65.4% year-over-year and a 29.1% improvement from the previous quarter, the company announced Monday (Nov. 14).
Operating margin — operating profit as a percentage of revenue — improved to 12.5% in the third quarter of 2022, up from 6.9% in the prior-year period. Net income was 29.2 billion KRW ($20.2 million), up 129.5% year-over-year and 15% higher than the second quarter.
The company’s multi-pronged business, which generates revenue across all facets of its artists’ careers, improved across the board: Recorded music revenues grew 46.6% to 135.1 billion won ($93.6 million). SM Entertainment’s album sales improved from 3.25 million units in the prior-year period to 4.7 million units. It had two standout releases in the quarter: NCT 127’s 2 Baddies peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 albums chart and Aespa’s Girls: The 2nd Mini Album topped Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart.
Concert revenues climbed to 10.9 billion won from virtually nothing a year ago. In the quarter, Revenue from appearances — including television, advertising and events — grew 96.4% to 24.3 billion KRW ($16.8 million). Licensing revenue improved 76.1% to 26.4 billion KRW ($18.3 million).
Revenue at SM Entertainment’s subsidiaries grew 119.5% to 136.9 billion KRW ($94.9 million). These companies include Dream Maker, a Hong Kong-based concert booking agency; SM Culture & Contents, a content production and advertising business; and Keyeast, a Korea-based merchandising and licensing business. According to the release, these subsidiaries benefitted from the reopening of domestic and international touring and increased demand for advertising promotion and business-to-business travel.
Several SM Entertainment artists are on tour in the fourth quarter: NCT 127 has nine dates in Korea, U.S., Thailand and Indonesia; Super Junior has six concerts in Indonesia, Hong Kong and Taiwan; and Ryeowook and NCT Dream have six and five concerts in Japan, respectively.
The company’s fourth-quarter release schedule includes new mini albums by Chen, BoA and Red Velvet and Red Velvet member Seulgi. Red Velvet’s Feel My Rhythm album peaked at No. 20 on the Billboard Global Excl. US chart in April; it also landed on the Indonesia Songs (No. 3), Malaysia Songs (No. 5), Phillippines Songs (No. 15) and Taiwan Songs (No. 16) charts. The group’s The ReVe Festival: Finale EP reached No. 40 on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart in January 2020.
SM Entertainment’s shares rose 0.5% on Monday to 65,800 KRW. Down just 11.3% in 2022, SM Entertainment’s share price has fared better than Korean music companies HYBE (down 61.2%) and YG Entertainment ( down 26.4%) but lags behind JYP Entertainment (up 12.0%), home of Twice, Stray Kids and iTZY.
SM Entertainment’s shares rose 19% on Sept. 16 after the company announced would prematurely end a contract with a production company owned by the company’s founder and largest shareholder, Lee Soo-man. Its share price, however, has fallen 14% since then.