Radio
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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.
Five months after an Instagram account first accused New York City radio host DJ Envy of being complicit in a multi-million dollar real estate investment scam in New Jersey, the situation has turned into a sprawling web of lawsuits, countersuits, bankruptcies and media coverage.
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In at least 20 civil cases filed in recent months, dozens of investors claim that Cesar Pina and wife Jennifer Pina, New Jersey developers with famous friends, ripped them off — either through failed house flipping, a stalled apartment development project, or a startup they said would empower small investments in real estate.
Many of those lawsuits, including one filed by music industry veteran Anthony Martini, name DJ Envy (RaaShaun Casey) as a co-defendant, citing close ties to Pina. They claim Envy helped to promote the alleged schemers, including through appearances on The Breakfast Club, his nationally-syndicated hip hop radio show. One case says Envy “aided and abetted” the fraudsters by “using his public likeness as a well-known radio disc jockey to promote their real estate scheme.”
Firing back, Envy says those kinds of allegations are not only false — he says he himself is also a victim of Pina’s alleged scheme — but also defamatory. He’s suing the social media influencer who first publicized the allegations, claiming he “spewed” lies to promote his own real estate business, and he’s demanding to be dismissed from the investor lawsuits.
“They’re sensationalizing this situation,” said Envy’s lawyer, Massimo F. D’Angelo of the law firm Blank Rome, in a phone interview with Billboard. “Envy had no involvement whatsoever. The only reason he’s being dragged into this is because he’s a public figure.”
How did we get here? What exactly are the accusations? And what comes next? Here’s everything you need to know about the growing scandal.
Who is Cesar Pina?
Pina has long pitched himself a real estate guru, frequently posting about his work to a star-studded Instagram page featuring shots of Pina with Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent, Post Malone and Meek Mill. On his website, he says he’s been rehabbing and flipping homes in the Garden State for over a decade; he claims to own 1,100 rental properties in Paterson, N.J., alone.
One of the celebs frequently pictured with Pina was DJ Envy, who for more than a decade has co-hosted The Breakfast Club, a popular hip hop-focused radio talk show on New York’s Power 105.1. And the two had a close public relationship beyond social media: Over the years, Pina has repeatedly appeared on the show as a guest, and he and Envy co-hosted a series of seminars on real estate investing from 2018 onward.
As recently as June 2022, Pina made an appearance on The Breakfast Club to plug an investment platform he was launching called Flip 2 Dao, which would allow users to make small, fractional investments in real estate projects. Throughout the interview, Envy repeatedly touted his relationship with the developer and the value of the new investment tool.
“People always ask, how can I invest with you guys? And we never take anybody’s money,” Envy told listeners. “Now there will be a way where people can actually invest to be a part owner on some of the projects that we actually buy.”
What are the accusations?
Back in May, an Instagram account called TonyTheCloser (real name Tony Robinson) began making serious allegations of wrongdoing against Pina. In a series of videos and live streams, Robinson claimed that Pina had used his celebrity status to defraud numerous people, taking their money to invest in flipping properties with the promise of big profits, but ultimately returning little or nothing.
He also claimed that Envy had played a key role in the fraud by promoting Pina to his listeners. At various times, Robinson called the radio host a “thief,” “criminal,” and “scammer,” claiming he had “stolen millions” from investors and aided a “Ponzi scheme” — an infamous form of fraud in which the perpetrator creates the façade of a real business by paying earlier victims with funds from later victims.
Those social media allegations quickly turned into a wave of civil lawsuits filed in New Jersey state courts.
In a May complaint, a company called Amy Flips claimed it had provided Pena with $500,000 to invest in properties and lost all but $30,000. A month later, attorneys for a New York man named Trevor Roman alleged he was owed $280,000 by Pina and his companies, saying their client was “one of many who fell prey to these fraudulent and deceptive tactics.” In July, a New Jersey man named Paul Peralta claimed that he had given Pina $600,000 in four payments as part of a “Ponzi scheme and investment scam” — and he specifically claimed the scheme had been promoted by “a radio show called The Breakfast Club.”
Martini, the music executive, also filed his case in July. Joined by another spurned investor named Anthony Barone, their lawyers claimed they had lost $1.5 million after Pina duped them into investing in a massive, 50-unit apartment project in Paterson that was never completed, as well as another $300,000 that they invested in the Flip 2 Dao platform.
But they also went a step further, naming DJ Envy as an actual defendant in the lawsuit. They claimed the DJ had not only plugged Pina on the air, but that he had personally attended a pitch meeting with Barone, and that he had joined Pina in leading a guided tour for big-wig investors around his New Jersey properties. Martini and Barone’s lawyers also specifically cited Pina’s June 2022 appearance on The Breakfast Club, in which he plugged Flip 2 Dao.
“But for Casey’s role in lending legitimacy to the real estate investments and portraying himself as a partner to the Pinas, plaintiffs would not have invested their money,” wrote Sean Mack, an attorney at the law firm Pashman Stein Walder Hayden and lead counsel for Martini and Barone.
All told, Pina is currently facing 20 lawsuits, almost half of which have been filed just since the beginning of August; Envy is named as a defendant in nine of those cases. It’s unclear exactly how much money Pina is alleged to owe his investors, but in an August filing, Martini’s lawyers claimed that more than 30 victims had come forward seeking over $40 million.
Pina’s lawyer, Steven Griegel of the firm Roselli Griegel Lozier & Lazzaro, did not return a request for comment from Billboard. But in at least one case against his client, he has argued that Pina’s investor did get their initial investment back — and that by demanding the huge profits they say they were promised, they are actually the ones violating New Jersey law.
“The plaintiff in this case is boldly seeking the court’s assistance to recover [triple] damages and attorneys’ fees for loansharking, even after it has been paid amounts in excess of New Jersey’s criminal usurious laws,” Griegel wrote in one case. “Obviously, the court should not be a part of validating this.”
Despite TonyTheCloser’s claims, there have been no allegations of criminal wrongdoing against either Pina or Envy.
What has DJ Envy said?
Since immediately after the allegations first cropped up in May, DJ Envy has denied that he did anything wrong, including during an interview with TonyTheCloser on an Instagram livestream. He says that he was not directly involved with any of Pina’s deals mentioned in the lawsuits, that he never solicited money from anyone during their seminars, and that he was not aware of any fraudulent activity.
But that hasn’t quieted the growing scandal. On Tuesday, New York’s local NBC affiliate ran an investigative piece under the headline “Real estate rip-off? Radio DJ promoted alleged NJ scheme leaving investors out of millions.” The story included interviews with numerous alleged victims, including a couple who say they invested with Pina “after seeing him on social media with DJ Envy.”
“He’s advertising this all over radio and television, so I thought this was legit,” the victim said in the NBC report. “We invested $200,000 and it looks like we won’t ever get it back.”
On Wednesday, Envy directly addressed the allegations on The Breakfast Club: “Cesar, if he took money, I wasn’t privy to it, nor did I even know. But I do understand how people feel if they did give him money, because I gave him a lot of money [and] I didn’t see a dollar of return. But for anybody to say that I was involved, that’s totally not true.”
In legal filings, Envy’s lawyers have made similar arguments. They say the DJ was also “lured” to invest $500,000 in separate project, meaning he “may be a victim of the Pina’s alleged fraudulent conduct” just like the plaintiffs. And they say that he was not involved in any Pina’s deals with spurned investors, nor made any direct “representations” to anyone regarding those transactions.
“Plaintiffs’ real targets are clearly the Pinas given Mr. Casey’s lack of involvement,” wrote D’Angelo, in a filing on Friday aimed at getting Envy dismissed from Martini’s case. “In an attempt to sensationalize this case, however, plaintiffs included Mr. Casey … as a defendant in this case. Plaintiffs’ conduct is wrongful and has caused, and continues to cause, significant damage to Mr. Casey’s reputation and businesses.”
But what about the fact that Envy repeatedly made public appearances with Pina and invited him onto The Breakfast Club? That’s been a common refrain from victims and other critics, who say the DJ used his sizable public platform to lend legitimacy to a scammer.
Legally speaking, Envy’s lawyers say that behavior simply does not rise to the level of active endorsement or direct involvement that would put their client on the hook for Pina’s alleged scheme. They say the DJ and his show were “used” by Pina, just like other media outlets and celebrities.
“Plaintiffs cannot plausibly or convincingly allege that Mr. Casey’s radio and social media interviews were the sole and principle reason for their investments, rather than the specific misrepresentations made by the Pinas directly to the plaintiffs,” D’Angelo wrote in that same court filing. “Mr. Casey has interviewed thousands of guests on The Breakfast Club, including celebrities and entrepreneurs, who have discussed various topics including their life experiences and businesses.”
DJ Envy has also quietly moved from defense to offense. In a federal lawsuit filed in August, he sued TonyTheCloser for defamation, interference with his business, and invasion of privacy. He claims that Robinson’s allegations against him are false — and that they’re part of money-making scheme to drive attention toward his own real estate business.
“Defendant, knowingly and intentionally, spewed false slanderous and defamatory misinformation about the plaintiff, which has, and continues to severely damage plaintiff,” wrote D’Angelo, who is also repping Envy in that case. “Defendant engaged in this wrongful conduct for the purposes of increasing traffic on his social media sites for his own personal gain in the form of paid advertisements.”
Robinson did not return a request for comment on the allegations.
What comes next?
Two of Pina’s companies, Whairhouse Real Estate Investments LLC and Taylor Court Apartments LLC (the company that administered the 50-unit apartment project in Paterson), have filed for federal bankruptcy since start of August. His wife Jennifer, who is named in many of the civil lawsuits, has repeatedly attempted to file for personal bankruptcy, but has been rejected for procedural defects. Pina himself does not yet appear to have sought bankruptcy protection.
Fearing that they’ll never have a chance to recover their money, some of Pina’s aggrieved investors have already jumped into those bankruptcy cases, demanding that the court appoint a trustee — an independent attorney chosen by the U.S. Department of Justice to oversee the case and make sure that any remaining money is fairly allocated to creditors. And those arguments worked: Last week, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Rosemary Gambardella ruled in both bankruptcy cases that a Chapter 11 trustee was needed to sort out the messy web of alleged debts and wrongdoing.
That ruling came after attorneys for Pina’s creditors argued that a single combined bankruptcy case, administered by one trustee, would be better than dozens of separate lawsuits at “unraveling of this wide-ranging fraud and the marshalling of assets to satisfy the scores of victims.”
“This will soon become the proverbial race to the courthouse to seize whatever assets remain of the Pinas and their entities,” wrote attorney Mack, the lawyer who represents Barone and Martini in their case against Pina and Envy. “A trustee is needed in this case, and in the cases of the related debtor parties, to organize and efficiently marshal and distribute the remaining assets to the Pinas’ many victims.”
On-air personalities Mary Turner, Bob Grant, Jack “The Rapper” Gibson, Long John Nebel and Terry Dorsey are among 12 radio professionals who will receive the Legends of Radio award from the Radio Hall of Fame. The award recognizes “the talents and efforts of on-air personalities, programmers and operators who contributed with greatness to the radio industry and have since passed away.”
They will be honored at the 2023 Radio Hall of Fame induction ceremony on Nov. 2 at the InterContinental New York Barclay Hotel in New York City. Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo, a 2022 Radio Hall of Fame inductee, will MC the event.
“It’s heartfelt recognition to see these individuals and their career contributions to the radio industry recognized with this induction,” Kraig T. Kitchin, co-chair of the Radio Hall of Fame, said in a statement. “They’ve made a forever impact on the audiences and businesses they interacted with and for that, we’re grateful.”
Dennis Green, the other co-chair of the Radio Hall of Fame, added: “Gone but never forgotten, these Legends of the radio industry deserve to be recognized as Hall of Famers and it is an honor to induct them to the Radio Hall of Fame. From programmers to talent to executives, these individuals are the best of the best.”
Another of this year’s Legends of Radio honorees, Tom Rounds, co-founded Watermark Inc., the syndication company responsible for American Top 40, American Country Countdown and other shows. By coincidence, Shadoe Stevens, who succeeded Casey Kasem as host of American Top 40 in 1988, is one of eight inductees into the Radio Hall of Fame this year.
This year’s seven other Radio Hall of Fame honorees are: John DeBella (WMGK-FM, Philadelphia), Gerry House (WSIX-FM, Nashville), Pat St. John (60s Gold, SiriusXM), Bob Rivers (The Bob Rivers Show), Nina Totenberg (National Public Radio), Deborah Parenti (publisher, Radio Ink) and Charles Warfield (executive).
Here are this year’s recipients of the Legends of Radio award:
Bob Grant – on-air personality
Dave Robbins – programming executive
Ed Christian – executive
Eduardo Caballero – executive
Jack “The Rapper” Gibson – on-air personality/writer
Joe “Butterball” Tamburro – programming executive
Long John Nebel – on-air personality
Marty Glickman – play-by-play host/executive
Mary Turner – on-air personality
Steve Rivers – programming executive
Terry Dorsey – on-air personality
Tom Rounds – executive
Apple Music Radio is coming to Apple Podcasts.
On Tuesday (Sept. 26), Apple announced that Apple Music subscribers will now be able to stream more than 2,500 “musically rich” episodes from Apple Music Radio on its podcasts app.
Apple Music’s original shows air across three global stations — Apple Music 1, Apple Music Hits, and Apple Music Country — and feature such top talent as Zane Lowe (The Zane Lowe Show), Ebro Darden (The Ebro Show, Hip-Hop DNA) and Kelleigh Bannen (Today’s Country Radio, The Kelleigh Bannen Show). It additionally airs artist-hosted programs including Angel Hour Radio with Reneé Rapp, Time Crisis hosted by Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig, OTHERtone featuring Pharrell Williams and Deep Hidden Meaning Radio hosted by Nile Rodgers.
Apple Music’s coverage of the 2024 Apple Music Halftime Show featuring Usher will also be available to Apple Music subscribers on Apple Podcasts.
In addition to Apple Music Radio shows, Apple Podcasts will now also include audio programming for subscribers to other connected apps, including Apple News+, meditation app Calm and “playlearning” app Lingokids. Starting next month, subscribers to several more apps — including Bloomberg, Curio, L’Équipe, Mamamia, Sleep Cycle, The Economist, The Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, WELT News and Zen with Apple Podcasts — will be able to connect their subscriptions as well.
Listeners with subscriptions to any of these apps will have those subscriptions automatically connected the next time they open Apple Podcasts. They can also connect their subscriptions manually by signing into their accounts from each app’s channel page on Apple Podcasts. Subscribers will be able to listen across Apple devices, including iPhone, iPad, Mac, HomePod, CarPlay and Apple Watch with AirPods. The company notes that Apple’s latest operating systems — iOS 17, iPadOS 17 and macOS Sonoma — are required to connect subscriptions.
Once subscriptions are connected, listeners can browse all podcasts available to them from the Library tab. They can also learn more information about each show and follow any show for free to automatically download and be notified about new episodes. They will also receive personalized recommendations in Up Next on the Listen Now tab.
Three years ago, the pandemic temporarily turned Nashville recording studios into miniature ghost towns.
The business looks a whole lot different in 2023.
“Every engineer out of work in 2020 is so slammed now that they can’t take a vacation,” says producer Trent Willmon (Cody Johnson, Granger Smith). “I was talking to somebody — I can’t remember who said it — but booking a session, he said he called seven steel players before he found someone available. That means country music is badass, baby. Four years ago, all the steel players were just like, ‘Hey, man, you got any work?’ And now they’re just all overwhelmed.”
A year or two ago, the bulk of that workload would have been a result of artists bringing new material created during COVID-19 isolation to the studio. But the volume of recording work in Nashville hasn’t subsided since that first postcrisis wave, and it appears that another development from the pandemic era is behind the ongoing studio traffic.
Morgan Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album rode 30 tracks to a record-setting run atop Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart, which reflects streaming and sales data compiled by Luminate. Following its success, now albums — which were typically 10 to 12 tracks in the past — have become much more robust. A dozen have hit No. 1 since the beginning of 2021, and only two have fit the historic range: Carrie Underwood’s 11-track holiday album, My Gift, and Luke Combs’ 12-track Growin’ Up, which was later revealed as the lead-in to the 18-track companion Gettin’ Old.
The rest of the No. 1 albums have spanned from Underwood’s 13-track gospel album, My Savior, to Wallen’s 36-track One Thing at a Time. Those larger albums obviously utilize more songs, but that also means they require more hours from the artist, producers, engineers, musicians and other crew members. Thus, the country studio business is booming.
“I’m busier than I’ve ever been in my life in terms of workload, and at the same time, it’s fewer artists,” says guitarist Derek Wells, one of country’s first-call studio players. “The reality is your big, premiere artists kind of gobble up weeks and weeks and weeks of your year. And there’s just no room left for some of the newer stuff. It’s not an unwillingness to do it, or lack of a desire to go be amongst some of those things. It’s just kind of first come, first serve.”
While supersized albums are an aggressive way to compete for chart superiority, they also serve as a digital-era method of satisfying artists’ superfans. The maturation of streaming has given consumers quicker access to music by their favorite artists for a set monthly price, rather than compelling them to buy albums. Artists’ biggest fans have always wanted more music. And with home studios and digital recording techniques providing more flexibility, it’s easier than ever to satisfy that hunger.
While the leading acts are supersizing albums, artists with smaller fan bases are releasing EPs with greater frequency, putting out more music than their predecessors often did at a similar career stage to satisfy their own strongest supporters’ demands. The combination of supersized albums and more frequent EPs is stretching the resources in Nashville.
“Work is definitely surging,” Nashville Musicians Union president Dave Pomeroy says. “We’ve more than gotten back to where we were before the pandemic, in terms of [recording contracts] we see coming through the building,”
That makes booking a recording session something of a Rubik’s cube. A producer’s top musician choices will likely not all be available at the same time for a session that wasn’t booked far in advance. That encourages even more overdubbing, with producers doing bare bones tracking dates and hiring musicians to layer on parts at home.
“A lot of the times I’m not doing a full session on my songs,” says Alana Springsteen, who co-produces her music. “We’ll start [recording] things in the room sometimes the day we write the song, I’ll lay down an acoustic, lay down a vocal, one of my co-writers might play the electric, and we’ll lay down a path. Sometimes it looks a little different than a traditional session.”
While it’s possible to record musicians one at a time, many artists still want to use a larger room with the players all working in unison. Many of the established studios have shuttered since 2000 as home recording increased, so now that recording is in a boom cycle, it’s increasingly difficult to find an available large studio. As a result, many individual tracks are recorded in three or four different locations, and a full album may be pieced together at six or more sites.
“It used to be when we’d do a record, if we did three or four different tracking days, it was all going to be in the same room,” says producer Frank Rogers (Scotty McCreery, Frank Ray). “At the end of the day, I put the players first, because if you have the right players, you can go and set up in a living room and still make a really good record. If you got the greatest studio in the world and C [grade] players, then it’s just not going to be what it needs to be.”
Chris Young found a previously untapped studio when he booked Sony Music Publishing’s upgraded facility for the master tracking session on his new single, “Young Love & Saturday Nights.” At the same time, he also has a home studio, and his output there is using engineer hours beyond the traditional venue. Multiply that phenomenon by dozens of artists, and the ramifications become much more apparent.
“It’s sort of insane,” Young says, hinting that his next album may be larger than a traditional project. “I have seven songs for my next record already. And part of it is, I try and write all the time when I’m home [from touring]. I usually write, every single year, 100 songs on top of what I find outside… I’m [taxing the system] a little bit.”
The engineering sector may be stretched thinner than every other area of production.
“With the ease of recording, everybody — half the songwriters in town, and every musician, every producer — is an engineer,” Rogers says. “But the ones who know how to track really, really well or know how to mix really, really well, there’s not a whole lot of them that are great. There’s a lot of good, there’s not much great, and so those guys are as busy as they’ve ever been.”
At the other end of the music chain, the increase in the number of tracks is stretching the infrastructure with radio and digital service providers (DSPs), too.
“There’s always too much music — it’s not manageable on any of the platforms,” says artist consultant John Marks, a former programmer for broadcast radio, satellite radio and Spotify. “Wherever you are today, you cannot manage that traffic, the amount of releases, regardless if you have an album of 12 tracks, or 36 tracks, or 50 tracks. Whatever it is, you are treading water in the ocean.”
The DSPs get thousands of new tracks every week, and while they can make educated guesses about what to playlist from new albums and -individual -singles, fans’ choices will ultimately require programming adjustments. Similarly, traditional country radio stations — which have drawn their playlists primarily from major labels — are increasingly auditioning songs from sources they would not have considered in the past, thanks to digital consumption.
“If Zach Bryan’s new song gets streamed 20 million times, why would I think that radio listeners wouldn’t feel the same way about the song if they were exposed to it?” Cumulus vp of country formats Charlie Cook says. “So then it’s incumbent on me to expose it. When you get 20 million streams on Oliver Anthony or 13 million on Tyler Childers, why am I smarter than them? I’m not.”
Traditional radio still plays one song at a time, no skips, so instead of trying to satisfy every artist’s superfans, its business still requires identifying the songs that fit the widest number of individual tastes. Even if it means sifting through more music to play the same number of songs.
“It’s radio’s opportunity to find the strongest songs and play the heck out of them,” Cook says. “We had a liner for a while that said, ‘We’ll cut through everything that’s out there and find the best music for you.’ And I think that has now become radio’s position.”
The new, longer albums are likely to continue as the artists, and the media that exposes their music, attempt to superserve their most ardent fan base.
“I think it will last, and it will permeate the lower rungs of artistry,” Marks says. “Really, the only way to get to your fans these days is a continual release pattern, keeping in front of your audience and not letting them rest. Listeners and fans want more of whatever they’re finding, and they want it now.”
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