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Ruth Seymour, the hard-driving broadcast pioneer who transformed KCRW into a public radio powerhouse during her 32-year run at what was a sleepy Santa Monica-based station, died Friday. She was 88.
Seymour died after a long illness at her home in Santa Monica, former KCRW producer/publicity director Sarah Spitz announced.
The Bronx-born Seymour joined the FM station in 1977 as a consultant and became general manager a few months later. Her mission statement for KCRW was “to matter,” and she built it to be “singular, idiosyncratic, daring, independent, smart and compelling” — six words she employed over and over in her fundraising letters and on-air subscription drives.
During her tenure, KCRW became the West Coast flagship station for National Public Radio and launched a mix of news, talk, music, current affairs and cultural programming that included the signature music show Morning Becomes Eclectic; Which Way L.A.?, hosted by Warren Olney in the wake of the 1992 L.A. riots; Le Show, hosted by Harry Shearer; the political roundtable Left, Right and Center; To the Point; and The Politics of Culture.
“I believe we catch a lot of listeners by surprise,” she told the Los Angeles Times in a 1982 interview. “They tune in for one thing, just leave the radio on, and then find themselves wrapped up in something they didn’t expect.”
Through the internet and popular podcasts like The Business, hosted since 2009 by The Hollywood Reporter’s Kim Masters, KCRW gained a strong national profile and reputation before she retired in February 2010 and was succeeded by her onetime assistant, Jennifer Ferro, now station president.
“Ruth was singular in every way. She had a powerful vision that never wavered. There was a spirit in Ruth that no one else has,” Ferro said in a statement. “She didn’t just save NPR or create a new format — Ruth took chances and made decisions because she knew they were right. She trusted her gut. She broke rules and pursued excellence in ways that can’t easily be explained. She was a force of nature.
“Ruth’s legacy lives on at KCRW. She inspires us to be original, to host the smartest people, the most creative artists and to talk to our audience with the utmost respect for their intellect.”
The older of two sisters, Ruth Epstein grew up across the street from the Bronx Zoo. Her father was a furrier and her mother a garment worker, and the family didn’t have a telephone until she was 15.
She attended Sholem Aleichem Folk School in addition to public school and then City College of New York, where she studied one-on-one with the renowned Yiddish linguist Max Weinreich.
Seymour came to Los Angeles in 1961 to accompany her husband, the poet Jack Hirschman, who had landed a teaching job at UCLA after a stint at Dartmouth University, and she was hired as the drama and literary critic at the FM station KPFK. There, she interviewed the likes of Andy Warhol and Anne Sexton.
After freelancing in Europe for station parent Pacifica Radio, she returned to KPFK to serve as program director in 1971, and she produced a celebrity cast reading of selected scenes from the Watergate tapes with Shearer, Rob Reiner and, as President Nixon, Christopher Guest.
However, she was fired in 1976, a couple of years after the FBI had raided the station looking for a cassette from Patty Hearst and the Symbionese Liberation Army that KPFK had put on the air.
When Seymour arrived at KCRW, it was owned by the Santa Monica School District, had just five employees and was operating out of two converted classrooms on a playground at John Adams Junior High School.
Seymour replaced the oldest transmitter west of the Mississippi with a new one in 1979. Also that year, she ran NPR’s new two-hour Morning Edition program three times each weekday starting at 3 a.m. in a bid to outmaneuver L.A.’s then-leading public station, KUSC. “That way nobody was going to have [the programs] when I didn’t have them,” she said.
She let Shearer do pretty much anything he wanted on his weekly one-hour program.
“Ruth was a towering figure in public radio, embracing a breadth of subject matter and styles that, frankly, does not seem possible anymore,” he said in a statement. “She imagined a listener who was endlessly curious, open to a wide range of opinions and music, and worked tirelessly to satisfy that listener. There will not be one like her again.”
Said Seymour in 1987: “Our audience always understood what we were trying to do. From the very beginning, we were regarded as slightly demented. Not exactly irresponsible but adventurous, interesting. And idealistic.”
She would get the station a new home in the basement of the student activities building at Santa Monica College, which licenses KCRW, in 1984. She also advocated for passage of a 2008 municipal bond that built the station’s first stand-alone building, now located on the campus of SMC’s Center for Media and Design.
In 1996, Seymour made KCRW the first station to carry Ira Glass’ This American Life outside of its home base, Chicago’s WBEZ. She also did interviews, including one with poet Allen Ginsberg in 1985.
“My favorite mental image of Ruth was during the first war in Iraq,” NPR special correspondent Susan Stamberg recalled. “She put on a radiothon to raise money to send NPR correspondents to cover it (the great Anne Garrels and others). And to make her on-air pitches, she wore camouflage and combat boots! She knew it would be war to raise the funds, and she dressed for the challenge. I loved and admired her enormously and found her to be a great teacher and inspirer.”
The Times wrote in 1995 that Seymour ruled “with an iron fist … she is renowned for attracting and nurturing brilliant on-air talent and for swiftly cutting them loose if they step out of line or their Arbitron ratings slump.” In 2004, she would fire radio personality Sandra Tsing Loh after she said “fuck” on the air.
“Well, you’re not allowed to do that, especially if you use it as a verb, which she did, and especially if you use it as a verb on Sunday morning in the middle of Weekend Edition,” she recalled a few years later. (The engineer on duty, however, is supposed to replace an expletive with a bleep).
Seymour replaced Claude Brodesser-Akner as host of The Business with Masters, who heard from the exec minutes after she had been laid off by NPR during the 2008 recession. “She called me before I had even gotten into my car,” Masters recalled. “I didn’t know her. She said, ‘Sweetheart, are they meshuga? Their loss will be my gain.’”
During every Hanukkah from 1979-2007, Seymour hosted the three-hour live show Philosophers, Fiddlers and Fools, which featured Yiddish folk music, songs and stories and a memorial to the Holocaust. “I always broadcast the program on Friday evenings so I could bid my listeners a gut yontif,” she said in 2010.
Years after she divorced Hirschman, she changed her surname in 1993 to honor her paternal Polish-born great-grandfather, a rabbi.
Survivors include her daughter, Celia; her sister, Ann, and brother-in-law, Richard; her niece, Jessica; her nephew, Daniel; and cousins Anita and Greg. Her son, David, died at age 25 from lymphoma.
A public memorial service is being planned.
This story was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.
Groundbreaking Los Angeles-based disc jockey Jim Ladd, whom Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers immortalized in their 2002 song “The Last DJ,” died suddenly Sunday of a heart attack. He was 75.
A Los Angeles fixture, Ladd worked up and down the Los Angeles radio dial, including stints at KNAC, KMET and KLOS. He was considered the last freeform DJ in the country, allowed to pick his own song selections.
After leaving KLOS in 2011, he was quickly picked up by SiriusXM’s Deep Tracks channel, where he appeared until his death. Over the decades, he was well known for his interviews with such artists as John Lennon, Pink Floyd, Stevie Nicks and Led Zeppelin.
The Doors drummer John Densmore paid tribute to Ladd on social media, posting on X, “’The Last DJ’ has crossed the tracks. There wasn’t a more soulful spinner of music. The songs he played were running through his blood, he cared so much for rock n’ roll. Irreplaceable… a very sad day, which can only be handled by carrying his spirit forward.”
Densmore’s Doors bandmate Robby Krieger also posted, “Rest in peace, Jim Ladd. He was the best friend in radio The Doors ever had. Even when people forgot about us in the late ‘70s, he kept playing our music.“
Ladd started his career at Long Beach, Calif.’s KNAC in 1969 as FM radio was burgeoning and quickly established himself as one of Southern California’s leading rock voices. In an undated interview with Michael Simone, he said of his mentors and being at the forefront of FM radio, “We were inventing this thing as we were going along, so what I would say in radio [for role models], it is pretty much everybody that I’ve worked with that I’ve learned from or borrowed from. … As far as role models in my life, Martin Luther King would be one, and certainly when I was growing up, John Lennon and Jim Morrison were two others who had a great influence on me, as well as [Roger] Waters.”
Waters and Ladd had a long friendship, with Ladd playing a rebel DJ on Waters’ 1987 Radio K.A.O.S. album and touring with Waters on the Radio K.A.O.S. On the Road outing.
From KNAC, Ladd moved to KLOS in 1971 and then had stops at Los Angeles stations KMET, KMPC and KLSX before returning to KLOS in 1997, where he stayed for 14 years. As Billboard reported in 2011, when he was let go from KLOS after Cumulus bought the station, he signed off with Pink Floyd’s “Shine On Your Crazy Diamond.”
Ladd inspired “The Last DJ” song, which Petty told journalist Jim DeRogatis was “about a DJ who becomes so frustrated with his inability to play what he wants that he moves to Mexico and gets his freedom back.”
Flowers will be placed on Ladd’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 11 a.m. on Tuesday. He received his star in 2005. “His legendary voice and unparalleled contribution to the world of radio have left an indelible mark on the industry,” Ana Martinez, producer of the Hollywood Walk of Fame star ceremonies, stated in a statement. “Jim’s passion for music and his unique ability to connect with his listeners will always be remembered fondly.”
SiriusXM is airing tributes to Ladd, who is survived by wife Helene, on Deep Tracks as well as other classic rock channels.
Starting a nonprofit radio station from scratch is enough of a cliff to scale in the digital era – even more so when you’re doing it in a famed music mecca like Memphis. How do you capture the essence of the city that nurtured Stax Records, Sun Records and influential heavy hitters from Al Green to Elvis Presley to Three 6 Mafia? For the folks behind WYXR, a station at 91.7 FM that’s now in its third year, you keep your ears open – to the city’s musical past, present and to ongoing feedback from the community. “We want give every Memphian, and person who cares about Memphis, an opportunity to say whether they enjoy our programming,” says Jared “Jay B.” Boyd, the station’s program manager.
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It seems like they’re hitting the right notes. From 2021 to 2022, the station enjoyed 50% audience growth. And on Saturday, Dec. 2, WYXR hosted its second annual Raised by Sound Fest. The 2022 fundraiser boasted an all-star salute to Memphis power pop icons Big Star, led by surviving founding member Jody Stephens. This year, Cat Power – whose Matador debut What Would the Community Think (1996) and breakout LP The Greatest (2006) were recorded in Memphis – headlined Raised by Sound, fighting through a cold to deliver an astonishing recreation of Bob Dylan’s infamous Royal Albert Hall concert from 1966. (Throughout the acoustic-then-electric set, Tennessee State Rep. Justin J. Pearson was grooving in the front row. Cat Power raised her fist in solidarity with the Democrat – who was briefly expelled earlier this year for participating in a gun control rally – more than a few times.)
Like the station itself, Raised by Sound Fest is situated in Crosstown Concourse, an old Sears distribution center that was transformed into a bustling hub of food, music and residential apartments in the late 2010s. The expansive space — which also houses the meticulously vintage Southern Grooves studio and the Memphis Listening Lab, a treasure trove for audiophiles — lends itself well to fortuitous run-ins. Prior to her acoustic solo set at the festival, Seratones singer A.J. Haynes chatted with Ari Morris, a mixer for Lil Durk and Moneybagg Yo. A few hours earlier, a WYXR volunteer ran into a supporter of the station whose son lives in Crosstown Concourse; she revealed she would be doubling her 2022 donation in honor of Shangri-La Records owner (and occasional WYXR host) Jared McStay, who died of cancer just last month.
The station officially launched in late 2020, but began gestating in 2019 when the University of Memphis approached Crosstown Concourse and The Daily Memphian, looking to shake up a university-affiliated jazz station at 91.7 FM. Robby Grant — part of the Memphis rock outfit Big Ass Truck, which formed in the ‘90s — initially got involved as a consultant, but was inspired to join the station as a founding partner; now, he serves as the executive director.
Boyd’s path to WYXR dovetailed with Grant’s. After returning to his hometown following a news reporter gig in Mobile, Ala., Boyd began writing for The Daily Memphian. Around that time, he was also drawing on his encyclopedia knowledge of local music history to create a playlist of Memphis-related songs for Crosstown Concourse. (People working in the building complained about hearing the same four-hour mix on repeat every day. To alleviate the issue, Boyd crafted a 21-hour playlist that’s now well north of 100 hours.) After interviewing Grant for a piece on the nascent WYXR, Boyd – who graduated from the same high school as Grant, just two decades later – began envisioning a more permanent role at the station. Before long, he became a founding partner and continues to operate as the station’s program manager.
Cat Power at Raised by Sound Fest
Andrea Morales
His DJ connections (Boyd spins as DJ Bizzle Bluebland) and Memphis-centric record collection helped inform some of the people he brought in as WYXR hosts. Pastor Juan Shipp, for instance, released gritty gospel records on his D-Vine Spirituals label back in the ‘70s (those 45s now fetch a few hundred dollars on Discogs). But he was essentially a whispered legend in Memphis music lore until WYXR put him back on the air for a lively Saturday gospel program — marking a second coming of sorts for the cult favorite.
Grant tapped his network, too – which included some recognizable names in the indie music world. “We wanted Memphis connections and some bigger names because it draws attention,” Grant tells Billboard. To that end, Wilco’s Pat Sansone — whom Grant played with in the project Mellotron Variations — got involved as a host, as did one half of MGMT. “Andrew VanWyngarden went to the same high school Jay B. and I did,” Grant says with a wistful smirk. “His band — not MGMT — used to open for my band.”
With WYXR broadcasting live from a studio in Crosstown Concourse’s main lobby, some of the bigger names brought out curious onlookers to watch the action (separated by a soundproof window, of course). Olivia Cohen, who used to watch VanWyngarden’s show in the lobby as a high schooler, now works as the station’s membership and community engagement coordinator.
The station also inadvertently facilitated a marriage (between members of the DJ collective bodywerk) and an unlikely friendship between Memphis hip-hop legend DJ Spanish Fly and local EDM-trap DJ Madeleine “mado” Holdford. “She was so nervous [when she met him],” Boyd recalls. “But we put their [Thursday] shows back-to-back and now they’re fast friends. One night they were having a Christmas dad-joke contest. This is a 29-year-old white girl and a 52-year-old Black man who’s known as a godfather of hip-hop. There are grown men who are afraid of Spanish Fly.”
He also points to Khi Da Godd, a young DJ who “a year and a half ago thought no one else liked house music in Memphis.” Fast forward to 2023: He hosts a show on Saturdays and recently met genre pioneer Larry Heard. “He’s bringing out other kids, and now they have a network and they’re getting gigs. They’re self-sufficient in a way they weren’t [before]. They’re finding commonalities with each other. I see those social connections happen all the time.”
It’s easy to see how the station’s vibe – passionate but informal, anchored by hosts who are authoritative yet loose – fosters relationships. When Grant swung by a late-night underground rock show helmed by author/journalist Andrew Earles, the Hüsker Dü biographer grilled his boss on whether the Cat Power/Dylan concert featured an audience plant shouting “Judas!” at the appropriate moment (it did not). And late on Friday nights, hip-hop DJ Nicole Covington sometimes veers off into detailed detours on wrestling.
“Robert Gordon, who is a documentarian and rock writer from here — his whole thing is, ‘I’m messing up the whole time,’” says Grant of Gordon’s anything-goes Tuesday show. “It’s a little bit of a bit, but it’s also true. Especially late at night.”
“My show [can go] off the rails,” Boyd laughs. “We don’t micromanage whether [the music is] old, new or otherwise – it’s really about curating the people. There are plenty of DJs who play way more cutting-edge music than I do, and it’s all about their tastes, their intuition.”
As the station approaches its fourth year, the WYXR team is hoping to raise even greater awareness of the station within the demographically diverse metropolitan area. “I want more buy-in from the community,” Boyd says, adding that “some of our hosts had no idea that this format of radio and opportunity existed” before he reached out to them. In addition to hitting pockets of Memphis that don’t normally tune into community radio, an ongoing challenge is keeping existing listeners and donors invested in the station’s success. “We’re more than a radio station – we’re an arts and culture organization,” Grant says. “We are a nonprofit. We’re not commercial radio. We have about a thousand donors who give on a yearly basis and a couple hundred monthly donors. [Our job is] keeping them engaged and letting them know what’s going on at the station – because there’s so much going on.”
Raised by Sound Fest, of course, is a big part of that. “From a fundraising point of view, we try to line up sponsors a few months before. For the fundraising concert, we price the VIP tickets in such a way where we can make money – and it was a huge success,” Grant shares of the 2023 edition, which raised 60% more than the inaugural 2022 festival.
“This year felt like we settled into the groove,” Boyd agrees. “People are assured that we have their best interests in mind when it comes to demonstrating how music can move this community.”
“It’s figuring out how to scale smartly,” says Grant, who is realistic about the fact that the station is unlikely to boast another 50% listener growth rate as it moves into 2024. “We have a podcast network we’re working on expanding. We’re archiving shows, working on the website and apps. Not everyone listens to radio the way they used to, so we’re trying to meet people where they are.”
“Music is at the center of our culture,” says Boyd of Memphis. “Tulsa, Oklahoma might be a nice place to live — there are business magnates there, you can see music there — but the feeling that you own music and are part of a music culture? It’s an asset of [this] community. People feel like they have collective ownership of the sound and what it means to us. The way some families connect over food, we connect over music.”
WYXR covered Billboard’s accommodations during the weekend of the Raised by Sound Fest.
Last week, during Spanish Broadcasting System’s third quarter earnings call, Albert Rodriguez, the company’s president and COO, announced that he was leaving his post. While the announcement came as a surprise, Rodríguez says that, after 25 years at SBS, he is leaving in good terms.
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“I’m going to stay on as a consultant during the transitioning period,” he told Billboard in his only interview following his announcement. “We’re leaving in excellent terms and I’m very appreciative to Raul [Alarcón],” he added, referring to the chairman and CEO of the company, to whom Rodríguez directly reported to.
Rodriguez is still evaluating his future plans, but will likely launch his own consulting company.
SBS is the formidable Latin media company whose suite of radio stations in the top markets in the U.S. include La Mega in New York, the most-listened to Spanish language radio station in the country, according to Nielsen. SBS also operates the AIRE Radio Networks, a national radio platform of over 300 affiliated stations.
Rodríguez joined the company 25 years ago, initially as a general salesperson, and climbed the ranks. In June, 2021, he was named president, making it the first time in 36 years that the company named a new president, and first time it was led by a non-family member.
Working with Raúl Alarcón, who he calls a “beacon” of the Hispanic community, was a major highlight during his long tenure at SBS.
“The team we built is like family [to me]. We have performed better than all our industry peers,” says Rodríguez. A point of major pride, he says, was the launch of the Aire network, “which has grown immensely in terms of revenue and content and distribution.”
“We served very passionately the Hispanic voice in America,” adds Rodríguez of SBS, noting that despite Hispanics making up 20% of the total U.S. population, they represent only 6% of the U.S. market’s total advertising budget for 2022, according to the Hispanic Marketing Council. Moving forward, he says, “I want to be a leader in developing and increasing share to the multicultural space.”
Taylor Swift comes out on top once again, this time taking honors as iHeartRadio’s most popular artist of the year.
Swift leads the iHeartRewind year-end artist chart by raking in more than 2.8 billion plays on iHeartRadio stations nationwide and the branded app.
The pop superstar’s margin of victory is a sizable one; she collected 500,000 more spins than second-place SZA (2.3 billion-plus), while Morgan Wallen completes the podium at No. 3 (2.1 billion-plus).
Miley Cyrus comes in at No. 5 on the Top Overall Artists 2023 Nationwide tally with 1.87 billion-plus plays, though she can boast iHeartRadio’s biggest hit of the year with “Flowers.”
After dominating the Billboard Hot 100 in 2023 with an eight-week stretch at No. 1, “Flowers” leads iHeartRewind’s Overall Songs 2023 Nationwide list, ahead of “Creepin’” by Metro Boomin featuring The Weeknd & 21 Savage (1.3 billion-plus) and “Calm Down” by Rema and Selena Gomez (1.2 billion-plus), respectively.
A closer look at both charts shows a strong correlation, with Swift, Cyrus, The Weeknd, Ed Sheeran, SZA, Wallen and Metro Boomin doubling up.
The iHeartRewind crown is just one in a growing collection for Swift. On Nov. 29, she was named Spotify’s most streamed artist of 2023, pulling more than 26.1 billion streams on the platform worldwide.
And earlier in November, Swift reigned over Billboard’s 2023 year-end Top Artists chart, following her supremacy across both the Billboard 200 albums and Hot 100 songs chart.
The iHeartRewind charts are compiled using total audience spins (TAS), and its top artists and songs tallies are broken down into categories (overall, pop, country, hip-hop, alternative and R&B), and along lines of top songs/stations/podcasts by generation, season and state.
The TAS calculation is based on certified Mediabase airplay and multiplied by the number of radio listeners at the time of those plays, for a total audience impression which is the broadcast equivalent of the number of streams from a DSP.
iHeartRadio’s Top Artists & Songs 2023
Top Overall Artists 2023 Nationwide
Taylor Swift (2.8+ billion)
Sza (2.3+ billion)
Morgan Wallen (2.1+ billion)
The Weeknd (1.89+ billion)
Miley Cyrus (1.87+ billion)
Luke Combs (1.85+ billion)
Metro Boomin (1.4+ billion)
Rema & Selena Gomez (1.2+ billion)
Ed Sheeran (1.1+ million)
Post Malone (1+ billion)
Top Overall Songs 2023 Nationwide
“Flowers” Miley Cyrus (1.4+ billion)
“Creepin’” Metro Boomin featuring The Weeknd & 21 Savage (1.3+ billion)
“Calm Down” Rema & Selena Gomez (1.2+ billion)
“Die For You” The Weeknd (1.11+ billion)
“Kill Bill” Sza (1.1+ billion)
“Sure Thing” Miguel (850.6+ million)
“Last Night” Morgan Wallen (778.8+ million)
“Anti-Hero” Taylor Swift (771.5+ million)
“I’m Good (Blue)” David Guetta & Bebe Rexha (745.9+ million)
“Snooze” Sza (692.7+ million)
Top Pop Artists 2023
Taylor Swift
Sza
Miley Cyrus
The Weeknd
Metro Boomin
Top Pop Songs 2023
“Creepin’” Metro Boomin featuring The Weeknd & 21 Savage
“Flowers” Miley Cyrus
“Calm Down” Rema * Selena Gomez
“Kill Bill” Sza
“Die For You” The Weeknd
Top Country Artists 2023
Morgan Wallen
Luke Combs
Jason Aldean
Luke Bryan
Jordan David
Top Country Songs 2023
“Rock And A Hard Place” Bailey Zimmerman
“Thought You Should Know” Morgan Wallen
“Last Night” Morgan Wallen
“Dancin’ In The Country” Tyler Hubbard
“Thank God” Kane Brown & Katelyn Brown
Top Hip-Hop Artists 2023
Sza
Future
Drake
21 Savage
Lil Baby
Top Hip-Hop Songs 2023
“Wait For U” Future featuring Drake
“Love You Better” Future
“Just Wanna Rock” Lil Uzi Vert
“Creepin’” Metro Boomin featuring The Weeknd & 21 Savage
“All My Life” Lil Durk featuring J. Cole
Top Alternative Artists 2023
Linkin Park
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Green Day
Fall Out Boy
Foo Fighters
Top Alternative Songs 2023
“Lost” Linkin Park
“Love From The Other Side” Fall Out Boy
“Sex, Drugs, Etc.” Beach Weather
“Sail Away” lovelytheband
“Rescued” Foo Fighters
Top R&B Artists 2023
Bruno Mars, Anderson .Paak, Silk Sonic
Wizkid
H.E.R.
Mary J. Blige
Ronald Isley
Top R&B Songs 2023
“Essence” Wizkid featuring Tems
“Damage” H.E.R.
“Love’s Train” Bruno Mars, Anderson .Paak, Silk Sonic
“Make Me Say It Again Girl” Ronald Isley, The Isley Brothers, and Beyoncé
“Free Mind” Tems
A coalition of artist and label groups is calling on legislators to urgently address a 2020 court ruling that risks seeing European musicians lose out on millions of euros in royalties each year to U.S. acts.
For decades, American musicians have been denied royalties for the use of their music on broadcast radio or when it’s played in cafes, shops and bars in many overseas countries due to the lack of equivalent terrestrial radio performance and public performance rights in the United States. This practice is based on a principle known as material reciprocity, which means that broadcast and performance revenues are only paid out to countries that apply the same rights.
The longstanding practice of reciprocal treatment was, however, suspended in the European Union (EU) by a 2020 ruling from the European Court of Justice (ECJ). In that decision, the ECJ decreed that all recording artists are entitled to an equal share of the royalties generated when their music is played on radio or in public premises in the EU, regardless of their nationality — or the absence of radio and performance rights in an artist’s home country.
Brussels-based independent labels trade body IMPALA says the ECJ ruling will result in European artists and labels losing out on around 125 million euros ($137 million) in royalty income each year, with the equivalent sum instead going to U.S. musicians. Previously, these broadcast and performance royalties were mostly divided up between local labels according to their market share.
European countries that currently withhold public performance and broadcast royalty payments to U.S. artists and labels include the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Denmark and Ireland. (Outside of Europe, three countries —Japan, Argentina and Australia — also deny royalties to U.S. musicians because of a lack of reciprocal rights).
In 2019, prior to the court ruling, SoundExchange, which issues licenses to online and satellite radio services, estimated that recording artists and rights holders in the United States lost out on an estimated $350 million in royalty payments due to what it called the “unfair treatment of music creators.”
So far, the Netherlands is the only EU country to change its legislation in line with the ECJ ruling, which has become widely known as the “RAAP” case in reference to Irish collection society Recorded Artists Actors Performers (RAAP), which initiated the reforms by taking legal action against Phonographic Performance Ireland (PPI) in 2020. In that case, RAAP challenged PPI in the Irish High Court after it reduced royalty payments to performers from a 50-50 split with labels to around 20%. The case was then referred up to the ECJ, which made the now-controversial ruling in September of that year.
U.S. repertoire represents around 40% of all public performance and broadcast income collected annually in the Netherlands, according to Dutch collecting society SENA. Until recently, this income was neither collected nor distributed. Since the change in practice, SENA has increased its tariffs on public performance royalties from 12.5% to 26%.
Will Maas, chair of the Netherlands’ musicians’ union, said in a statement that the rise in rates is not enough to make up for the additional U.S. repertoire now being collected, resulting in a “clear and substantial drop” in revenue going to Dutch and European performers. “This is what awaits other countries if nothing is done to address this,” he added.
In response, IMPALA executive chair Helen Smith wants the European courts to reverse its 2020 ruling and restore the principle of material reciprocity.
“It is the EU’s responsibility to prevent European artists and producers losing millions every year to the USA, which has chosen not to protect these rights,” said Smith in a statement. She added that the lack of terrestrial radio performance rights and public performance rights in the United States costs the world music economy “hundreds of millions, if not billions a year.”
IMPALA also supports a flexible solution that would enable EU countries to pay U.S. artists if they already did so before the ECJ judgment.
Other music groups and CMOs backing IMPALA’s call for action include Adami in France, the Swedish Musicians’ Union, Belgium’s PlayRight and the German Federation of Musicians. They argue that reciprocal treatment forces countries to raise their own levels of protection for musicians by not allowing nations to benefit from other countries’ rules unless they follow the same standards.
Not everyone in the music business is against the ECJ ruling and the push for so-called national treatment — whereby foreign recording artists and labels receive the same types of royalties as the nationals of a given country — to be standardized across the global music business. Executives who back national treatment say that any fall in label income would likely be offset by the increased set of rights and royalty collections elsewhere in Europe resulting from the ECJ decision.
That, however, is not a view shared by IMPALA or its members.
“Hundreds of thousands of artists count on the EU to do the right thing,” said Dutch musician Matthijs van Duijvenbode in a statement, “and to do it fast.”
SiriusXM hosted an event in New York City on Wednesday (Nov. 8) in which the company unveiled a new-look version of its app, set to debut Dec. 14, while announcing a rebrand and a slew of new programming initiatives, including new channels run by John Mayer and Kelly Clarkson, among others.
In conjunction with the app, Sirius will also offer a streaming-only subscription tier for $9.99 per month, aimed at younger listeners who are interested in the service’s 400-plus channels of content and podcasts but don’t generally listen in the car, where Sirius has become dominant in recent years. The new-look app will include increased customization, a new playback experience, an audio library, a new home for its podcast content and improvements in search and discovery, executives stressed at the two-hour event.
The new channels will begin rolling out in the next few months, starting with Clarkson’s channel, called the Kelly Clarkson Connection, which will be available starting today. Clarkson appeared on stage at the event with her band and introduced her channel — which she said will be on Channel 12, as she isn’t a fan of odd numbers — that will include her music and a variety of other music she enjoys and is inspired by. To kick that off, she and her band performed a cover of Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers” — which she said they just learned hours before — and her own “Since U Been Gone.”
New channels from Shaggy (Shaggy’s Boombastic Radio), who also appeared on stage, and Smokey Robinson (Smokey’s Soul Town) are also available beginning today. A limited-edition channel from Dolly Parton, Dolly Parton’s Rockstar Radio, will go online Nov. 15, while Mayer’s show, which will be available year-round and is called Life With John Mayer, is set to debut Nov. 22. A weekly show by James Corden and a new true-crime channel from Crime Junkies podcast host Ashley Flowers will also soon come online.
“The introduction of the new SiriusXM streaming experience marks a pivotal moment in our history, one that kicks off a new era of innovation at our Company,” SiriusXM CEO Jennifer Witz said in a statement following the event. “And this launch is just the beginning; we will continue to iterate and develop our product offerings throughout the next year and beyond as we strive to deliver our subscribers the best listening experience on the go, in the car, and wherever they choose to tune in. From can’t-miss live moments to the perfect soundtrack for any occasion, with the new SiriusXM, we are putting our differentiators at the forefront and welcoming in a new generation of listeners, bringing them closer to what they love.”
The event opened with Witz introducing the new app, before turning the stage over to Sirius’ biggest and longest-tenured star, Howard Stern, who spoke about his frustrations during his time on terrestrial radio that led to him taking a chance on the then-nascent Sirius 17 years ago. “Everyone said it’s gonna fail, you’re stupid, you’re ugly — and those were my parents,” he joked. “To me, SiriusXM was an oasis in a desert of censorship. … My mission is to convince audiences that radio is worth paying for, and I think that mission continues to grow. I think there’s a bright future for Sirius. I banked my career on it.”
In addition to Clarkson and Shaggy, the event saw cameos from Conan O’Brien, Andy Cohen, Maren Morris, Flowers and Kevin Hart, while Corden and Mayer appeared in short video segments. And it ended with a performance from Def Jam rapper Armani White, who performed his hit song “Billie Eilish.”
As part of the rebrand — which includes a new logo — executives also re-introduced Sirius’ dog mascot, named Stella, after the Dog Star constellation from which Sirius took its name. The company also announced a new partnership with Audible to share content beginning next year, as well as renewed partnerships with car manufacturers and hotel chains. Next year will also see the company bringing on 160 new artist DJs, including Olivia Rodrigo and Morris, among many others.
While radio may no longer be the only game in town when it comes to promoting and playing music, its importance is still outsized, according to Nielsen’s newly released Audio Today 2023 report focused on Hispanic consumers.
According to the report, which took into consideration listening by adults (18 plus) in more than 250 U.S. markets, radio reaches 94% of Latins every month, more than any other linear or digital media platform. That includes live and time-shifted TV (85%), smartphones (89%) and PCs (67%).
In terms of audio services only, the difference is stark. While radio reaches 94% of Hispanic adults 18 plus, its closest competitor, YouTube Music, reaches 44%, followed by Spotify (31%), Pandora (23%), Amazon Music (15%), Apple Music (14%) and satellite radio (11%).
And while listening numbers for radio’s competitors vary between age segments, radio consistently reaches 90% or more of listeners across demographics. Among the 18-34 demo, for example, it reaches 91% of listeners, followed by YouTube Music at 44% and Spotify at 41%.
That dominance also holds true among non-Hispanic listeners, though it’s a little less pronounced. Radio reaches 90% of all non-Hispanic listeners 18 plus (compared to 94% for Hispanics) and 82% of non-Hispanics 18-34 (compared to 92% for Hispanics).
Radio additionally leads in terms of listening time. The “share of ear time” for radio among adults 18 plus is 30%, followed by streaming audio at 21%.
Radio’s massive consumption comes down to accessibility and culture, says Stacie de Armas, Nielsen’s senior vp of diverse intelligence & initiatives.
“Radios’ reach is exceptional and always has been,” notes de Armas, who says the numbers weren’t surprising for her. “In fact in the past 10 years, it’s only dropped three percentage points. And that means that radio is a deeply embedded part of Hispanic life. It’s accessible everywhere, and a very important part of the Latino experience in a way I don’t see replicated in other groups. Radio serves a unique role in the lives of Hispanics. Radio is local. It gives people touchpoints into what’s happening.”
Accessibility has also given radio staying power among Hispanics, and it has a major bearing on the strength of YouTube Music, one of the first platforms to offer a multiplicity of content in Spanish.
Historically, says de Armas, Spanish language television has long been a part of the Hispanic experience in the United States with Univision and Telemundo. But cable was inaccessible for many people because the consumer had to pay, and there was an additional cost for Spanish programming. YouTube, on the other hand, was free, as long as you had Internet access.
“So, a lot of shifting went to YouTube. It was very easy to introduce YouTube Music,” says de Armas, noting that Hispanics spend 51% of their TV viewing on streaming, and 16% of that streaming comes from YouTube (although Netflix is a close second at 13.1%).
By the same token, Pandora is the third most listened-to option (after radio and YouTube) among the 35-49 and 50 and over segment of the Hispanic population because it was the first audio streaming service to focus on Spanish. But it doesn’t have the same accessibility as radio or YouTube.
Despite the numbers demonstrating radio’s continued reach, the format has been all but dismissed by some in recent times — in part because it wasn’t as measurable as other platforms. But, says de Armas, when advertisers make the effort to measure radio’s audience, they see results. “There’s engagement potential there that’s being lost on brands that are under-utilizing radio,” she says.
It’s not lost on the user, however.
“Community engagement is key,” de Armas says. “The cultural connection with radio hosts, for example, which fosters a sense of community. There’s a trust factor we’re underestimating, and I don’t think it exists in the same way with streaming platforms. And there’s also nostalgia and habit.”
Satellite radio giant SiriusXM reported quarterly net profits rose nearly 50% compared to a year ago, but that it also lost 96,000 self-pay subscribers in recent months.
The company reported on Tuesday (Oct. 31) that net income was $363 million, up from $247 million in the third quarter of last year, while revenues held roughly flat from a year ago at $2.27 billion for the quarter ended Sept. 30.
Chief executive Jennifer Witz said in a statement that the company’s investments in new product and technology upgrades — expected to be unveiled next week — will help grow Sirius’ subscriber base and business by helping customers find exclusive event content from top programs and artists, including Ed Sheeran and Wu-Tang Clan.
“Our content portfolio continues to differentiate us in the audio marketplace with exclusive access to live sports, talk, music, and one-of-a- kind content,” Witz said in a statement, calling the next-gen platform “a key component of our long- term vision for the company’s consumer offerings.”
“The ongoing enhancements to our user experience will ensure that our unique suite of content resonates with our audience in increasingly personalized ways,” she said. “This leading content and upcoming product upgrade will be paired with our unmatched business model, which we expect to continue delivering significant and growing free cash flow in the years ahead.”
The looming tech releases are geared toward improving “discoverability, personalization, and ease of use to both streaming and in-car subscribers,” according to a statement, and they will kick off with the unveiling of a new app, followed by in-car updates.
Investment in the app and updates was costly. In March, SiriusXM announced it was cutting 8% of its workforce to accomodate continued investment while ad sales slumped and subscriber growth was sluggish.
While SiriusXM reported a decline in self-pay subscribers and paid promotional subscribers, the total number of subscribers and the total revenue from SiriusXM held flat from a year ago at 34 million and $1.6 billion respectively. Average revenue per user was also flat at $15.69, despite getting a boost from certain full-price subscription rate hikes.
Advertising revenue for the company’s Pandora and off-platform business edged 3% higher to $418 million from a year ago, due to increases ad sales in programs and podcasts.
The number of monthly active users on Pandora fell to 46.5 million from 48.8 million a year ago. Subscriber revenue held flat at $132 million from a year ago.
Here’s a snapshot of the company’s quarterly earnings:
Third Quarter 2023 Revenue of $2.27 Billion
Net Income of $363 Million, Up 47% Year-Over-Year; Diluted EPS of $0.09
Adjusted EBITDA of $747 Million, up 4% compared to $720 million in the third quarter of 2022
Free cash flow of $291 million, down from $329 million in the prior year period
Dusty Street, a pioneering DJ who is best known for her time working at Los Angeles-based alternative rock station KROQ-FM and later at SiriuxXM, died Saturday in Eugene, Ore. She was 77.
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Her friend Geno Michellini, who worked for many years at L.A.-based station KLOS-FM, shared the news on Facebook.
“I have been in Eugene the last two days at Dusty Street’s bedside,” Michellini posted Saturday. “The numerous afflictions that she has been so indomitably fighting these last years finally caught up to her. I am writing with a broken heart to say that Dusty left us tonight. She died peacefully, quietly and surrounded by love in a beautifully serene location overlooking the most beautiful lake you could ever want. As befitting the queen that she was. Tonight I lost one of the best friends I ever had and the world lost a radio and music legend … . She was all that and so much more. There will never be another Dusty Street. The queen is gone, but she’ll never be forgotten.”
Street most recently worked at SiriusXM for more than 20 years as host of the shows Deep Tracks and Classic Vinyl.
“We have lost one of our own,” SiriuxXM posted on Facebook. “Dusty Street has passed away after 77 joyous trips around the sun. And yes, Dusty Street was her real name. Dusty was one of the first female rock jocks on the west coast working at KMPX and KSAN in San Francisco from 1967 through 1978 before heading to Los Angeles where she held court in the evenings from 1979 through 1996 on KROQ. … We are heartbroken.”
Street was known for being outspoken, opposing the Parents Music Resource Center for attempting to apply a ratings system to rock music. She once said she was let go from KROQ for being a “renegade” as the station was implementing “tighter and tighter” control over the programming.
In 2015, she was inducted into the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame. Earlier this year, she took part in the Epix documentary San Francisco Sounds: A Place In Time, which spotlighted recording artists from the Bay Area that were popular between 1966 and 1976, including Santana, Sly and the Family Stone, Tower of Power, and the Doobie Brothers, Jefferson Airplane and Janis Joplin.
Street once commented that people often asked her if her name was real, and that people were surprised to hear it wasn’t a stage name.. “My father’s name was Emerson Street. We used to live on Emerson Street on Palo Alto, which was pretty funny. Emerson Street on Emerson Street,” she said.
This article originally appeared in THR.com.
