layoffs
In 2024, radio gained a massive star: Shaboozey. Thanks to an ambitious five-format strategy by the EMPIRE label to break “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” to the widest possible audience, the singer-songwriter’s signature track hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in July and remained there for a record-tying 19 weeks, making radio history along […]
CD Baby, one of the biggest do-it-yourself distribution services in the industry, laid off members of its creator services team last week, a source close to the matter tells Billboard. Responsible for providing customer support, this team is now being “consolidat[ed]” in an effort to “re-allocat[e] resources” within the company, says a spokesperson for CD Baby.
News of CD Baby’s employment cuts echo the recent news that Distrokid was placing 37 union employees responsible for quality control and customer service on “administrative leave.” These roles were to be outsourced to contractors, located internationally. Its other competitor, TuneCore, was recently sued by UMG in a landmark $500 million lawsuit for allegedly allowing its users to distribute songs that clearly infringed on UMG’s copyrights to streaming services.
Over the last year or so, a number of music businesses, even beyond the realm of DIY distribution, have restructured their companies, leaving hundreds, if not thousands, of music professionals on the search for new jobs. This year alone, UMG completely restructured its recorded music division, laying off hundreds of employees. WMG followed suit with similar restructuring of Atlantic Music Group and layoffs. WMG also shut down LEVEL, one of its distributors. In late 2023, BMG laid off “dozens” in its film/tv, theatrical and international marketing departments.
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A spokesperson for CD Baby replied to Billboard’s request for comment, saying: “In an effort to support the changing needs of artists and the industry, we are consolidating certain CD Baby functions within Downtown and re-allocating resources towards long-term growth opportunities. Unfortunately, this has resulted in the elimination of certain roles and positions at CD Baby. We want to recognize the achievements of these staff members during their tenure with CD Baby. Their dedication to innovation helped CD Baby to become a globally recognized leader in the distribution space. Going forward, we will stay committed to this music-first and pioneering approach, building the services that benefit artists today and in the future.”
CD Baby has helped independent musicians get their music out since its founding in 1998. In the intervening years, it has become one of the pioneers and leaders of the DIY distributor market, democratizing the music business and opening it up to musicians of all backgrounds. CD Baby, and the other services owned by its parent company AVL Digital Group, sold to Downtown Music Holdings in 2021 for a reported $200 million dollars. At the time, CD Baby’s then-CEO Tracy Maddux said of the deal: “This transaction will allow us to take the services we offer the independent music community to the next level.”
The world’s biggest broadcast company, iHeartMedia, has laid off another round of employees in recent days, as the debt-plagued radio industry continues to contract during the music-streaming era. “Right now, it seems like the business model they’ve had the last few years, of making one person do 40 people’s jobs, is where it’s going,” says Nick Jordan, an assistant program director of Raleigh, N.C., country station WNCB until he lost his iHeart job Monday (Nov. 4). “But we did a good job, for as long as we could, keeping everything local and community-oriented.”
A rep for iHeart, which owns 860 stations in 160 U.S. markets and advertises “there’s a local iHeartRadio station virtually everywhere,” would not specify the number of recent layoffs, which follows a wave of job cuts in March and others since the pandemic. Radio-news outlets such as Radio and Music Pros and Barrett Media have listed more than a dozen laid-off names this week, including morning-show hosts, promotion and programming execs and big-city regional directors. Jordan said he was watching a video Monday morning of Bill Squire, an iHeart colleague who lost his job in Cleveland, when “one of the big bosses” walked into his own station to deliver the news.
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“S— happens,” says Jordan, 31, a nine-year industry veteran. “It’s part of the radio business.”
Although radio listenership has declined, according to some studies, the business remains resilient, drawing 82% of adult Americans as of 2022. And while major labels such as Universal and Atlantic have correspondingly laid off radio-promotion employees over the past year, the medium is still important for breaking hits, especially in country and other genres.
According to Wendy Goldberg, an iHeart spokesperson, “very few jobs” have been affected in the 10,000-employee company. She rebuts data that suggests a decline in audience consumption.
“Our broadcast radio audience has more listeners than it did 10 years ago,” she says, citing a Nielsen study that shows that younger listeners increased slightly in the third quarter of this year. She adds that iHeart remains “the No. 1 podcast publisher, bigger than the next two combined, and we’re five times the size of the next largest digital-radio service.”
“We’ve been able to achieve this by modernizing the company and increasing our use of technology,” Goldberg says in a statement. “These changes are another step in that journey.”
Squire, a stand-up comedian who has co-hosted the Alan Cox Show on Cleveland rock station WMMR since 2013, received the news of his layoff by phone Monday a.m. “They assured me it’s not performance-based: ‘There are big cuts across the company and there’s nothing they can do,’” he recalls.
Squire, who plans to return to the road as a touring comic, promoting his album We’re Getting Famous, says the radio business is “cutting costs wherever they can.” While Jordan is hopeful the “pendulum will swing back a little bit,” Squire says of media cuts: “You see it in radio, you see it in TV, a lot of Hollywood is out of business right now. The entertainment field has changed so quickly with the Internet and YouTube and podcasts that legacy media is just trying to catch up and figure out how to adapt to it.”
TIDAL plans to lay off additional employees, its second round of cuts in less than a year. “We have made some internal changes to our TIDAL team to focus on serving artists in the most meaningful way,” a TIDAL spokesperson told Billboard in a statement. “This involved the elimination of some roles across our business […]
DistroKid, the world’s largest independent distributor, has placed 37 union employees on “administrative leave” just an hour before the union was set to meet with company’s lawyers for new contract negotiations, according to an Instagram post by the DistroKid Union on Saturday (Oct. 26). The information provided in this Instagram post was verified by two employees at DistroKid.
The union says that these employees are set to be “replace[d]…with overseas labor” and that this move has impacted about a “fourth” of the company’s staff. Another source close to the situation believes the total is closer to 15% of staff affected. According to an employee at DistroKid, those impacted were part of the company’s Quality Control and Artist Relations (customer service) teams. Another employee claims there were also Quality Assurance Engineers impacted as well. The union adds in the post that DistroKid told them that the reason they want to eliminate these positions is to instead “to spend their salaries on marketing.”
In response to Billboard’s request for comment, a DistroKid spokesperson said: “DistroKid is committed to continuously enhancing support for independent artists around the world by expanding to 24/7 customer service with faster response times. To achieve this, we have identified solutions that allow us to deliver more scalable and exceptional service, ensuring that artists around the globe receive the high-quality support they deserve. This includes considering difficult decisions that may affect valued team members as we continue our focus on providing the best artist experience possible.”
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For the last year or so, DistroKid has contracted a third party customer service team, based in the Phillippines, to help with artists’ needs. This move to place 37 works on administrative leave seeks to eliminate its in-house, U.S.-based Artist Relations team and replace it with more third party and international workers. The company believes this will help them with the influx of international DistroKid users who need round-the-clock services in multiple languages.
The DistroKid Union was formed in February as part of the National Association of Broadcast Engineers and Technicians, a union within the Communication Workers of America (NABET-CWA). According to an announcement from NABET-CWA about the formation of DistroKid’s union, “workers at the company were subjected to a ferocious anti-union campaign that included multiple, one-on-one anti-union meetings and near-constant anti-union propaganda. The company president also sent several anti-union letters to workers.”
“Despite attempts to dissuade workers, they returned a vote 45-28 in favor of joining NABET-CWA. This effort succeeded due to the unified efforts of the organizing committee, which kept the entire campaign hidden from management until it went public, a rare early coup for the team,” the announcement continued. The DistroKid workers all work remotely, but their union joined the NABET-CWA local 51016, based in New York City.
This news comes after a few years of rapid expansion for DistroKid, which now distributes 30-40% of the world’s new music. Two years ago, it introduced DistroVid, which enables artists to upload an unlimited number of music videos to leading digital service providers for a flat fee. Then, last year, the company launched an iPhone app that featured an AI-powered mastering tool, called Mixea, to help artist prep their songs and announced that it had acquired music web platform Bandzoogle, an e-commerce business that helps artists create websites and sell their music and merchandise.
Update: This article was updated at 1:55 PM e.t. to include the claim that there were also Quality Assurance Engineers, a different role from the Quality Control team, that were placed on administrative leave.
Despite the music business nearing a decade of consistent annual growth, thousands of people have exited music companies in the last two years in the biggest wave of layoffs the industry has seen since the early 2000s. Spotify, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and BMG, to name just the biggest examples, have undergone organizational changes that restructured the companies and will collectively save them billions of dollars annually.
But the wave of layoffs of the ‘20s are vastly different than the cuts music companies made two decades earlier. The most obvious difference between then and now is the direction the industry was headed in the early ‘00s. From 1999, the year Napster introduced the world to peer-to-peer file-sharing, to 2003, the year Apple debuted the iTunes Music Store, U.S. recorded music revenues fell 18.5% from $14.6 billion to $11.9 billion, according to the RIAA. That’s a stark difference to the health of today’s business. In the last four years, the U.S. market has increased an astounding 54%.
The post-Napster years were “a matter of survival,” says Matt Pincus, co-founder/former CEO of music publisher SONGS, who at the time worked in EMI Music’s corporate development division. “That was a one-time elevator drop in the economics of the business caused by a technological innovation that fundamentally disrupted the way that people used our product.”
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The sudden arrival of both file-sharing applications and widespread internet access caused CD sales to plummet, creating a vicious cycle of layoffs, consolidation and more layoffs. Take EMI, which laid off 1,800 of its 8,000 staffers in 2002. Still reeling five years later, EMI was acquired by private equity firm Terra Firma in 2007. Terra Firma’s restructuring of EMI resulted in another 2,000 layoffs in 2008. As industry revenues continued to decline, Terra Firma was unable to keep up with its obligations to lenders. Citigroup ended up taking EMI and selling its parts to Universal Music Group and a Sony Corp.-led consortium, resulting in even more layoffs.
Continuously falling revenues created a need to cut expenses through consolidation. When labels acquired competitors or merged companies to help stop the financial bleeding, the elimination of redundant jobs created the desired cost savings. BMG laid off hundreds of staffers in 2003 when it acquired Zomba Music Group, for example, and another 50 people when it integrated J Records and RCA. The same year, UMG laid off 75 MCA employees as part of the label’s merger with Geffen Records.
Retail was being purged, too. In 2003 alone, at least 600 chain stores and 300 K-Mart stores — accounting for 5% of the prior year’s album sales — closed their doors, and Best Buy sold the 1,100-store Musicland chain to a leveraged buyout firm. Retail’s problems sent shockwaves through already struggling record labels. When Tower Records went out of business in 2006, Universal Music Group Distribution (UMGD) had to immediately lay off a dozen people, says Jim Urie, former president/CEO of UMGD.
It seemed like the job cuts would never end. When Universal Music Group cut 1,350 jobs — 11% of its workforce — in 2003, CEO Doug Morris was open to cutting more if necessary. “It depends on how fast the [digital] market gains traction and how fast the CD market continues to erode,” Morris told Billboard at the time. “If [one] doesn’t gain traction and the other erodes faster, we’ll keep trimming, because you have to run a company that way.”
Two decades later, the music industry is in a vastly better position. Many companies with solid revenue growth were still forced to reduce their staff, though, after over-hiring during the pandemic as digital platforms exploded in popularity. “People got drunk during COVID,” says one former major label executive. Digital businesses “started to have this burst,” he adds, “and we kind of caught a hangover across the business.”
Public companies — in music but also technology leaders such as Meta and Google — facing investor expectations opted to thin down. UMG, which went from an average of 8,800 full-time employees in 2020 to just under 10,000 in 2023, began laying off staff in March as part of a restructuring that will save an estimated $270 million annually. Likewise, Spotify ballooned from about 5,600 in 2020 to 8,360 in 2022 before laying off about 25% of its workforce in 2023.
Aside from the need to reduce bloat, recent layoffs reflect the normal course of business that sees companies constantly expanding, shrinking and re-tooling, says Pincus. “The music business goes through consolidation cycles where it becomes more fragmented, and then it consolidates, and then becomes more fragmented, and then it consolidates. We happen to be in a consolidation cycle at the moment. That’s the normal cyclical behavior of the industry. What was going on in the Napster time was not cyclical.”
Recent layoffs are also about positioning labels “to move forward,” says Urie, “and there are new skill sets involved.” Bob Morelli, former president of RED Distribution, agrees. “As technology has changed, [the business is more about] social media and targeted advertising,” he says. “And now with AI coming in, and it’s harder to get bigger tours, these companies are going to make staffing adjustments.” When Warner Music Group announced in 2023 it would cut 4% of its workforce, new CEO Robert Kyncl described the layoffs as necessary “in order to evolve” and position the company for “long-term success” by hiring for tech initiatives and “new skills for artist and songwriter development.”
Labels have also revamped how they discover new artists. The stereotypical A&R rep that scours clubs looking for the next big thing has been replaced — or at least augmented — by data experts. “Most of the A&R departments are more like a data analytics thing,” says David Macias, president of Thirty Tigers, an early adopter of the distribution and label services model. “They’re scrubbing data to find spikes that they can justify chasing.” The way labels and distributors pitch music to streaming services has also changed, Macias notes, from a people-focused process to one driven by automation. “How people find the music is going to have to do less and less with people with special relationships.”
The Atlantic Music Group restructuring may reside in a different category. “That seems like a house cleaning,” says Urie, “because they blew out a lot of people that are perfectly capable.” That’s a sign of a youth movement happening at the label, says another former executive, rather than a reaction to over-hiring or a natural business cycle. Elliot Grainge, the 30-year-old founder of the label 10K Projects, took the CEO role on Oct. 1. Longtime label leader Julie Greenwald announced her resignation five days after Grainge was named CEO. Atlantic ended up cutting roughly 150 jobs — many of them experienced executives with long tenures at the company.
Regardless of the era or business cycle, music executives — and the CFO making the strategic decisions — must answer the same questions, says Morelli. “What is my company going to look like? Are we going to go after developing artists? Are we going to go after legacy artists? Are we going to do a small amount? Are we going to win with volume? And how do you accommodate getting this message out to potential fans and consumers?”
The thousands of people laid off by music companies in recent years face better prospects than music professionals faced two decades ago. Back then, many executives and artists were still viable but needed the proper infrastructure around them, says Macias, who co-founded Thirty Tigers in 2002 after being laid off from Arista Nashville. Digital startups and the burgeoning digital distribution business gave some people a way to remain in music. But the post-Napster years were followed by another decade of industry contraction as downloads replaced CD sales.
If the majors aren’t hiring in 2024, the growing independent sector could provide a refuge for the recently unemployed. In recent years, investment in independent music companies has exploded as entrepreneurs in streaming, digital distribution and social media loosened the major labels’ grip on the industry. The current No. 1 song in America, Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy),” comes from an independent, EMPIRE.
“It’s going to be independent labels, like it always has been, that figure out the new way to get new records in the hands of an audience that doesn’t know they like it yet,” says Pincus.
A number of staffers at CMT, the Nashville-based country music and lifestyle programming network, have been let go as part of a broad swath of staff cuts taking place at Paramount Global.
Billboard has learned that among the music and talent team leaving are Stacey Cato (director of music and talent), Quinn Brown (vp of production), Ray Sells (senior director of production), Jennifer DeVault (senior producer), Jordan Walker (senior manager of music and talent), Abbi Roth (senior manager of music and talent) and Bryana Cielo (executive assistant), as well as Heather Graffagnino, vp of production management.
Among those remaining are Margaret Comeaux (senior vp of music and events production), Donna Duncan (vp of music and talent), Melissa Goldberg (vp of digital and social), Yasmin Mohammed (producer) and David Bennett (creative director).
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Sources say that Paramount will continue to support CMT and is positioning the outlet for the future, but what that looks like is unclear.
This week, Paramount Global began a second round of staff cuts, as it continues its aim of reducing its U.S. workforce by 15%, seemingly in preparation for the company’s planned merger with Skydance Media. In a memo to staffers on Monday (Sept. 24), Paramount’s co-CEOs George Cheeks, Chris McCarthy and Brian Robbins stated, “Like the entire media industry, we are working to accelerate streaming profitability while at the same time adjusting to the evolving landscape in our traditional businesses. In order to set Paramount up for continued success, we are taking these actions. Days like today are never easy. It is difficult to say goodbye to valued colleagues, and to those departing, we are incredibly grateful for your countless contributions.”
The cuts come as the company, like many legacy media companies, is seeing a decline in linear television viewership and advertising, and consumers continue to move toward streaming video and digital.
In June, Paramount cut nearly all the content roles across its CMT, MTV, Comedy Central and TV Land websites, while storied news site MTVnews.com was taken down. During a town hall on June 25, McCarthy noted that Paramount’s revenue had grown by 13% between 2018 and 2023, while the company’s operating income before depreciation and amortization (OIBDA) has fallen 61% during that same time frame. Thus, they are aiming at cutting $500 million in costs.
Country radio trade publication Country Aircheck first reported a number of the layoffs.
Reps for Paramount Global had not responded to Billboard‘s request for confirmation by press time.
Warner Music Group is going through a transformational year by cutting costs, reducing its headcount and restructuring some label groups to save an estimated $260 million on an annualized basis, the company disclosed Thursday (Sept. 19).
According to a Warner Music Group SEC filing that details the reduction in headcount and financial impact of the company’s ongoing restructuring plan, the total head count reduction increased from 600 after February’s announcement to 750 people with Thursday’s update. The filing did not specify that all 150 additional job losses could be attributed to the Atlantic Music Group layoffs announced Thursday. Billboard’sinitial report on the layoffs stated that between 150 and 175 people would be affected.
WMG also updated the pre-tax cost savings, on an annualized basis, from “about $200 million” to “about $260 million,” meaning the company expects to save an additional $60 million annually. The restructuring plan’s severance costs increased $70 million to $210 million. The “significant majority” of severance payments and other termination costs from this year’s restructuring are expected to be paid by the end of fiscal 2026, according to the filing. WMG will pay approximately $30 million in the current fiscal year (ending Sept. 30) and about $85 million in fiscal 2025.
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“WMG is transforming swiftly this year, in a fast-paced, fiercely competitive industry,” CEO Robert Kyncl wrote Thursday in an internal memo to staff. “As always, delivering outstanding results for artists and songwriters is our highest priority in all our choices.”
WMG began its restructuring plan in February by announcing it would sell its owned and operated media properties and eliminate some corporate and support roles. As Billboard reported at the time, WMG reduced its headcount by 10% of the company’s workforce, or 600 people. Not all of that reduction in staff was the result of layoffs, however. Uproxx, HipHopDX and Dime Magazine were sold to a duo of media veterans: Uproxx founder and CEO Jarret Myer and Complex founder and CEO Rich Antoniello, in consortium with musician will.i.am.
This latest round of layoffs came two weeks before 10K Projects founder and CEO Elliot Grainge assumes the position of Atlantic Music Group CEO on Oct. 1 (the first day of WMG’s new fiscal year). Atlantic chairman/CEO Julie Greenwald announced her departure just five days after WMG announced Grainge would take the helm. Separately, Max Lousada, the London-based CEO of recorded music for WMG, stepped down and his role was eliminated. Kevin Liles, current chairman and CEO of 300 Elektra Entertainment, is also exiting the company without replacement.
Atlantic’s ranks were further thinned on Thursday with the departures of high-level executives at both Atlantic Records and Elektra Records, including Atlantic executive vp/GM Paul Sinclair and co-president of Black music Michael Kyser, as well as head of marketing Grace James, head of press and media Sheila Richman and head of touring Harlan Frey. At Elektra, head of business and legal affairs Margo Scott, head of marketing Katie Robinson, head of sales and streaming Adam Abramson, head of promotion and streaming Aimee Vaughan-Fruehe and co-head of Roadrunner Records Chris Brown were all also let go.
Atlantic Records announced more staff layoffs on Thursday (Sept. 19) as the process of remaking the company continues.
“I want to acknowledge the hard work, passion, and creativity of everyone across Atlantic, 300, and Elektra,” CEO Robert Kyncl said in a staff memo obtained by Billboard. “In particular, I want to thank the people who will be leaving us. You’ve made an indelible mark on this company and the careers of the extraordinary artists you’ve championed. Words never cut it in these situations but we’re forever grateful for all your contributions and achievements over the years.”
These cuts follow the announcement in August of a significant executive restructuring: 10K Projects founder Elliot Grainge will take over as CEO of Atlantic Music Group, starting October 1. As part of his promotion, 10K will move under the Atlantic Music Group umbrella — joining Atlantic Records, Elektra and 300 — while veteran executive and longtime Atlantic leader Julie Greenwald will be heading for the exit. Kyncl’s memo promised that the company will “be unveiling a new dynamic structure for the label group” next week.
The memo did not say how many Atlantic employees were being let go. Sources expect the layoffs to be significant and to affect multiple departments.
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Kyncl has been busy retooling WMG since he took over at the start of 2023. That metamorphosis has come hand in hand with layoffs; Atlantic’s latest cuts are the fourth round in the extended Warner Music Group family in roughly 18 months.
The company laid off 4% of staff, or about 270 people, including several at Atlantic, in March 2023. “To take advantage of the opportunities ahead of us, we need to make some hard choices in order to evolve,” Kyncl wrote in a memo to staff at the time. In February of this year, WMG laid out plans to cut another 10% of staff, primarily from the company’s media properties — like Uproxx and HipHopDX, which it acquired in August 2018 — as well some in corporate and support roles.
The same month, Atlantic initiated an additional round of layoffs, albeit much smaller in scope, cutting roughly two dozen employees in the radio and video departments. “As hard as it is to say goodbye to our friends and valued colleagues, it is critical that we keep retooling the company and add new resources and skill sets to our business units,” Greenwald wrote in an email at the time.
Greenwald is now on her way out. So is WMG CEO of Recorded Music Max Lousada; his role is not being replaced. Similarly, 300 Entertainment co-founder and current chairman/CEO of 300 Elektra Entertainment Kevin Liles is also exiting the company without replacement. Other executives are also expected to depart as part of this restructuring, sources say.
This is just part of the change sweeping the company as Kyncl seeks a “flatter structure.” Warner Records will now also oversee Warner Music Nashville moving forward, and the heads of global catalog, marketing, ADA (distribution) and WMX (the fan and merch division) will all report directly to Kyncl.
All three major label groups have gone through changes this year. In February, the Universal Music Group reorganized its label divisions into a loose East Coast-West Coast structure, aligning Republic, Island, Def Jam and Mercury under Republic Recording Company chairman/CEO Monte Lipman and Interscope, Geffen and Capitol under Interscope Capitol Labels Group chairman/CEO John Janick, moves that came with some significant layoffs. Sony Music also underwent layoffs this year, though not to the same extent as the other two companies, sources have said.
Read Kyncl’s full memo below:
Hi everyone,
Since we announced Julie would be stepping down, we’ve been thoughtfully working on how to evolve Atlantic Music Group for the future. Next week, we will be unveiling a new dynamic structure for the label group. Elliot begins as CEO of AMG on October 1.
As part of this reorganization, we will unfortunately be saying goodbye to talented people. I know you have been waiting to hear the plan, and rather than carry out changes piecemeal, we decided to make these difficult choices in one go.
Today will be a tough day, and by 9pm ET you will have heard if your job is affected. Your leaders and the People team will provide you with all the important details. We are committed to helping those impacted through this with the utmost respect, and supporting them with a runway during the transition.
I want to acknowledge the hard work, passion, and creativity of everyone across Atlantic, 300, and Elektra. In particular, I want to thank the people who will be leaving us. You’ve made an indelible mark on this company and the careers of the extraordinary artists you’ve championed. Words never cut it in these situations but we’re forever grateful for all your contributions and achievements over the years. We wish you the very best and know that you will continue to do great things in your next chapters.
WMG is transforming swiftly this year, in a fast-paced, fiercely competitive industry. As always, delivering outstanding results for artists and songwriters is our highest priority in all our choices.
As I mentioned, you will hear more about our plan for AMG next week, with Elliot making an announcement about the leadership team. In the meantime, we have so much incredible music in the market, and some outstanding projects on the way. Your continued support of teammates is amazing, and your run-through-walls focus on the music is extraordinary.
Thank you and take care,
Robert
Sonos is letting go of 6% of its workforce — more than 100 people — after a disastrous redesign of their app and mounting customer complaints forced the company to lower its projected sales and delay product launches. The layoffs, first reported by The Verge, were announced in a company filing on Wednesday (Aug. 14). […]