Synch
Of all the ultra-familiar songs appearing in Super Bowl LIX ads — from Bruce Springsteen‘s “Born to Run” to Van Halen‘s “Panama” to Louis Armstrong‘s “What a Wonderful World” to Seal‘s “Kiss from a Rose” — the most sentimental may be the Bellamy Brothers‘ “Let Your Love Flow,” used in a Budweiser spot about a horse rescuing a keg from a raging river and rolling it into a bar.
It’s sentimental, anyhow, for Concord Music Publishing. In the early ’70s, Larry Williams, a Neil Diamond roadie, penned the track, and a producer put it in the hands of the Bellamy Brothers. Their breezy, mid-tempo version hit No. 1 in 1976. By then, Williams had signed with a new publisher, Bicycle Music, and as the company changed hands over the years, including a sale to Concord in 2015, “Let Your Love Flow” endured as a sort of Song Zero. “That was literally the very first song technically signed to Concord,” says Brooke Primonte, the company’s executive vp of global sync. “It’s very dear to everybody who’s been here since day one.”
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The song’s story, and its timeless feel, exemplify the Super Bowl synchs this year; viewers won’t hear much contemporary music a la 2024’s Ice Spice-enhanced Starry spot featuring the rapper’s hit “Deli.” H.E.R.‘s version of “Born to Run” is in a Dove commercial about empowering young girls to appreciate their bodies; “Panama” is in an ad starring Glen Powell as a dad reading “Goldilocks” to kids and fantasizing about fighting dragons in Dodge Rams; Shaboozey sings “What a Wonderful World” as Nerds characters parade around him in New Orleans; and in a surreal, star-studded Mountain Dew spot, Seal appears as … a seal.
“These are songs pretty much guaranteed to accomplish what the agency or brand are trying to do,” says Tom Eaton, senior vp of music for advertising at Universal Music Publishing Group, which has represented Seal for more than seven years. “They’re choosing songs familiar to a wide assortment of people. They can’t miss.” Adds Frank Di Minno, vp of creative sync at Warner Chappell, one of the publishers for “Panama”: “This was definitely the catalog Super Bowl.”
The Dove spot is the first-ever commercial to use Springsteen’s signature 1975 anthem, more than three years after he sold his catalog to Sony Music Publishing for $550 million. Springsteen retains approval rights for the song, and after Brian Monaco, Sony Music Publishing’s president/global chief marketing officer, shared the spot with the singer-songwriter’s team a month or two ago, they approved it quickly. “There’s definitely demand for his catalog, as well as other ones we’ve purchased — we have Paul Simon and Queen,” Monaco says, adding that with Super Bowl ads costing a reported $7 million to $8 million, “brands want to get the most bang for their buck by using songs that people know.”
As a result, synchs, a multibillion-dollar industry for music publishers, are especially expensive for brands this year. According to music business sources, costs on the publishing side range from $400,000 to $2.5 million, not counting the separate fees for licensing master recordings.
“The numbers are showing [that] people are streaming classic music at very high rates, as opposed to music of the last 10 or 15 years, just in their daily lives,” says Marty Silverstone, president of global sync for publisher Primary Wave, whose Super Bowl synchs this year include Smokey Robinson‘s “Cruisin’” for Haagen-Dazs and Huey Lewis & the News‘ “The Power of Love” for Bud Light. “I’m seeing, even more than usual, the appetite for nostalgia-driven music.”
Super Bowl ads often mirror the times, and this year’s familiar-songs trend may have deeper cultural relevance. “The country is trying to find its way in very challenging times,” says Dan Rosenbaum, vp of commercial licensing for BMG, whose three synchs include a share of “What a Wonderful World.” “Using a song that has resonance from a time that was simpler gives a certain comfort to the viewer.” Adds Steve Nalbert, vp of sync licensing and digital for Round Hill Music, another “What a Wonderful World” publisher: “More than ever, we need unifying music that bring us together, rather than pulls us apart. Luckily, the brands realize that, too.”
Billboard asked top publishers to tally their own synchs scheduled to appear as national spots during the game — including movie and TV trailers but not Fox broadcast promos, teasers or halftime show performances. Sony Music Publishing scored the most, with 14; Universal Music Publishing Group had 11; Warner Chappell, seven; Primary Wave, six; Kobalt, five; Reservoir Media, four; Concord and BMG, three apiece; and Round Hill, one.
This year’s trend towards familiar songs does not mean all the songs are older classics. Childish Gambino‘s 2018 anti-racist anthem “This Is America” appears in a Hims & Hers ad about a weight-loss drug: “Historically, Donald [Glover, who performed and co-wrote the song] and his team have been pretty selective about where they license ‘This Is America.’ They don’t pursue much,” says Rob Christensen, executive vp/head of global sync for Kobalt, the rapper’s publisher. “They thought this one was a good one to pursue.” (A few days before the game, the Partnership for Safe Medicines and two U.S. senators asked the FDA to block the ad due to not disclosing potential side effects.)
Reservoir Media’s synch total includes one “contemporary hip-hop song,” according to Scott Cresto, the publisher’s executive vp of synchronization and marketing, although he declined to reveal it before the game. Instead, he pivoted to a classic: A Michelob Ultra spot starring Willem Dafoe and Catherine O’Hara playing pickleball with famous athletes (and not-so-famous pickleball stars) synchs to “Papa Loves Mambo,” a Perry Como hit that dominated the Billboard charts in 1954. The brand, he says, requested in its brief “something that played with humor, that a certain generation identified with, but all generations would recognize it.”
“It’s definitely cyclical,” Cresto adds. “There have been years where [brands] are looking for more contemporary pop hits. This year and last year have definitely leaned more catalog.”
Soundstripe, the Nashville-based music licensing company for creatives, agencies and brands, acquired tech startup The Rights, which helps streamline the synch licensing process for labels, publishers and music supervisors. According to a press release, the deal will help Soundstripe “accelerate its development of the music industry’s most robust click-to-license platform,” which is slated to launch in the first half of this year.
Warner Music Group’s indie distributor and artist services arm ADA extended its partnership with Sonny Fodera‘s label Solotoko, which has also released music by Dom Dolla, John Summit and Tita Lau, among others.
Nashville-based Walk Off Entertainment inked a global distribution deal with Virgin Music Group. Walk Off Entertainment was founded by Chris Ruediger, who also founded the creative community/promotional outlet The 615 House. The first releases under the new deal are expected in the first quarter of 2025; the company’s client roster includes Gareth and Abby Anderson. – Jessica Nicholson
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Record label LASAL announced a strategic distribution and joint venture partnership with Capitol CMG, marking “a new era in the faith-based music industry and a significant milestone for both companies,” according to a press release. Capitol will act as a partner in signing and developing artists alongside LASAL. “In Spanish, LASAL translates to ‘The Salt,’ which adds flavor and restores balance within the body,” Samuel Ash, founder of LASAL, said in a statement. “That is our purpose: to restore balance in the music industry while allowing artists to freely express their creativity and faith without limits. Capitol CMG shares this vision, and together, we believe we can inspire and impact the world.” – Griselda Flores
Independent distributor IDOL signed global partnerships with two labels: Brooklyn-based Mexican Summer (Cate Le Bon, Hayden Pedigo) and Dom Recs, a new imprint launched by Dan Petruzzi and Roxy Summers that is gearing up for its first album release, Twin Shadow’s Georgie. Both labels will receive global digital distribution, marketing and audience development services under their respective deals.
Tuned Global, a leading cloud platform for the music industry, partnered with AudioShake in a deal that will give Tuned Global clients access to AudioShake’s AI-based tools, including stem separation and lyric transcriptions. AudioShake technology is now available to Tuned Global’s white-label streaming applications and via Tuned Global’s advanced APIs.
Ticketing and live event marketplace Tixr partnered with full-scale event production company Social House Entertainment. Through the pact, Social House will integrate Tixr technology to optimize ticket sales and allow it to better manage merch, VIP experiences and other event services while streamlining the ticketing process. Social House is behind the popular multi-city Tacos and Tequila Festival and other events.
Tickets for Good, which offers affordable event tickets to healthcare workers, teachers, charity staff and others facing economic barriers, expanded into the Netherlands following launches in the U.S. and the U.K. The launch is being supported by Greenhouse Talent, ID&T, Mojo Concerts and This is Live, as well as ambassadors Robbie Williams and MassiveMusic founder Hans Brouwer. Led by Simone van Hövell and Linda Holleman, Tickets For Good Netherlands encompasses more than 30 healthcare institutions, reaching over 150,000 healthcare workers.
Live Nation Urban partnered with Black on the Block, a monthly vendor festival that highlights Black-owned businesses. Through the deal, Black on the Block will expand to seven cities in 2025, kicking off March 23 at Global Life Field in Arlington, Tex. Other new stops made possible by the pact include Houston, Atlanta, Detroit and Charlotte, N.C.
According to Morning Consult, 57% of people born roughly between 1995 to 2010 aspire to become influencers and earn a living publishing their lives — or a fictional semblance of their real lives — on platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. That means there has never been a greater need for simple solutions to license music.
Making synch licensing simple is key to capturing the potential in today’s creator economy, says Wendy Connell, vp of marketing at music synch startup Soundstripe. “How can we guide people through this complicated process and make it as easy as possible, and make sure that they know that they’re covered, it’s legal, and take care of all the complication for them?” she says.
Soundstripe has business customers, too, and its traditional synch (film, TV and movies) rose 87% in 2024. But personal users — influencers, hobbyists, students, etc. — account for 53% of its customers. With evidence growing that content creation is big business, there’s a huge opportunity for companies like Soundstripe that provide them with services — and the need for affordable music licensing could help grow a U.S. synch revenue market that was worth $411 million in 2023 (a number that includes only label revenue tracked by the RIAA) and probably more in 2024.
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The world is awash in content creators — the term for professional, semi-professional and amateur photographers and video makers who flood digital platforms with everything from cooking tips to travel videos to Amazon product recommendations. But making short videos for a living isn’t just an aspiration of the younger generations for whom Mr. Beast is the peak of celebrity and Kim Kardashian is the blueprint for turning fame into wealth. Morning Consult also found that 41% of all adults surveyed would choose the career: Across all age groups, millions of creators already operate at the sub-career level. And a November 2023 report by the Keller Advisory Group found there were 27 million paid creators in the U.S. aged 16 to 54. For a small group of them, being an influencer provides a six-figure annual income, but for most of the 27 million “micro-influencers,” annual income is less than $10,000. Regardless of how much they make, though, influencers are churning out content — much of it requiring music.
This supply of content exists because there is a massive, eager audience for creators’ videos and photos. Young consumers are spending their time on smartphones, not TVs: 60% of American teens spend four or more hours each day on social media on average, and nearly 30% are on social platforms for more than six hours per day. Older age groups also spend time on social media — the 55-64 age group logs two hours per day on average, according to eMarketer — but younger people skew toward short-form videos on TikTok while older consumers bank most of their social time on Facebook.
In the past, TV shows and movies provided a constant source for synch royalties for the use of a sound recording and its underlying musical work. Today, those traditional synch opportunities still exist, but influencers and other content creators are eroding legacy media’s viewing time. In July, YouTube accounted for more than 10% of TV viewing, according to Nielsen, becoming the first streaming platform to surpass the 10% threshold. That was more than Netflix, a TV juggernaut that commanded an 8.4% share, and Amazon Prime, a distant third amongst streaming platforms at 3.4%. All streaming platforms accounted for 41.4% of TV viewing, well ahead of cable (26.7%) and broadcast (20.3%).
But influencers need easy-to-use, affordable licensing options to stay out of legal trouble. Last year, companies such as Marriott, Bang Energy and OFRA Cosmetics were sued by music rights holders for using unlicensed music in influencer marketing. (Sony Music and Marriott ended their lawsuit while Bang Energy lost separate court cases against Sony and UMG in 2022.) While TikTok’s licensing deals allow users to incorporate music into their videos, they stop short of allowing corporations and the influencers they — or third-party firms — hire to use music for commercial purposes. Outside of influencer marketing, there are numerous other instances of companies using music without permission when simple, legal and affordable licensing options exist.
Aside from Soundstripe, platforms such as Epidemic Sound, PremiumBeat, Artlist and, most recently, The Rights provide royalty-free music, typically through a subscription model, that provide a wide range of mostly anonymous production music, though professional musicians and songwriters working under their stage names are largely absent from these platforms. While Soundstripe currently has in-house musicians to build its catalog, Connell says the company is working on bringing in record labels’ catalogs to offer to their customers. That would benefit artists and songwriters whose music isn’t available at Soundstripe and similar platforms and who would otherwise miss out on the rise of influencer culture — and the financial benefits that can come from tapping into it.
The Rights, a synch licensing clearance platform, launched publicly on Tuesday (April 16) following a beta test period that involved participation from two major music companies, Kobalt Music Group and Believe. Founded by a team of synch and licensing veterans with funding from a motley cast of investors, executives and entrepreneurs, the company is trying to build a better mousetrap that simplifies a time-consuming process and, possibly, reduces the threat from emerging technology.
Created in partnership with Dequency, a blockchain-based synch licensing company, The Rights purports to be a useful tool to handle the increasingly high volume of synch licensing requests from small productions like limited-release films, podcasts, content creation and concert footage. The goal is to make the process easier at scale by allowing a track with multiple rights holders to be cleared in a single transaction.
“We can match the agility of production music libraries and one-stop catalogs, yet offer the pricing flexibility, consent rights and customized terms required to maintain the premium value of commercial music,” said Tres Williams, founder/CEO of The Rights, in a statement.
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Williams is a former executive vp of business affairs at iHeartMedia who had similar duties at Thumbplay, a subscription music streaming service acquired by Clear Channel — later renamed iHeartMedia — in 2011. Williams is joined at The Rights by president Keatly Haldeman, who is founder/CEO of Dequency as well as co-founder/CEO of Riptide Music Group; and chief business officer Scott Marshall, another former executive at both iHeartMedia and Thumbplay.
The Rights has raised $7.5 million to date from the likes of film and TV production company Spyglass Media Group; Endeavor Entertainment; venture capital firm Borderless Capital; blockchain developer Algorand; Grit Capital Partners; iHeartMedia chairman/CEO Bob Pittman; and Elon Musk’s siblings: entrepreneur Kimbal Musk and Tosca Musk, the latter a filmmaker and co-founder of video streaming platform Passionflix.
Despite an explosion in opportunities for placement in streaming content, synch license revenue has grown at a slower rate than subscription streaming royalties. The global synch license market, as measured by the IFPI, grew 4.7% to $632 million in 2023 — a figure that covers recorded music only, not music publishing, and excludes production music libraries. That’s less than half the 11.2% growth in subscription revenue. In the United States, synch revenue grew 7.4% to $411 million last year, according to the RIAA, well behind the 10.6% growth in subscription revenue.
Now, synch licensing faces a threat from the sudden rise of artificial intelligence-created music. The Rights warns that AI-created music could grow into a multi-billion-dollar business in less than a decade, “siphoning revenue away from the artists and writers of the world’s most-desired songs,” it said in a press release. While technology has transformed everything from music distribution to marketing, the process of clearing synch licenses remains “untouched by tech efficiencies,” Haldeman said in a statement. “Our goal is to create infrastructure for the industry to make the clearance process smooth for both rights holders and licensees.”
Now that the Hollywood actors’ strike is over, music supervisor Justin Kamps can afford to keep his 3-year-old daughter in daycare. “Things were getting a little bit scary these last couple months,” says Kamps, who picks songs for Bridgerton, Grey’s Anatomy and other hit TV shows. “We were going through the financials and cutting back whatever we can.”
SAG-AFTRA’s 60,000 members voted to approve a deal with studios last Friday, after halting work for nearly four months, following a screenwriters’ strike that lasted from early May to late September — both of which were devastating not just to Hollywood but the $2 billion music-synch industry. “That’s been quite a dark thing,” Stephanie Diaz Matos, head of music supervision for writer-actress Issa Rae‘s music company Raedio, told Billboard in July.
With Hollywood going back to work, TV shows and movies have already resumed sending out briefs to publishers and record labels requesting songs for key dramatic moments and soundtracks. “It’s definitely a relief,” says Alison Dannenberg Frost, vp of film and TV creative for music publisher peermusic. “We saw a slowdown on the creative side and licenses coming in the door. We really just started seeing it affecting our monthly numbers.” The synch business makes up 50% of Spirit Music Group’s publishing revenue, according to Amy Hartman, the company’s senior vp of creative services, film and TV music, who adds, “It’s incredibly important.”
Had the strikes continued much longer, Spirit would have had to consider cutbacks and “do some reevaluating,” Hartman says. “Thankfully, we’re pretty lean and mean, so we weren’t forced to face that question.”
By contrast, music supervisors for films and TV shows are generally freelance contractors and had to scramble to stay afloat financially during the strikes. Laura Webb, a supervisor for Love at First Sight, Monster High and other shows, spent the first month of the strikes on post-production for existing shows, but one of them wound up getting canceled and cut the pay for that job in half. “We have no protections. We were expecting to get that money, and we just lost it,” she says. “The last week has been slower, for sure — the slowest it’s been. But hopefully good timing for things to turn around.”
Webb and her colleagues faced a separate setback over the summer, when the National Labor Relations Board ruled against part-time freelance Netflix music supervisors who’d requested a union certification election in October 2022. After Netflix refused to recognize the union, the supervisors argued they needed collective-bargaining power to improve their financial conditions: “Their responsibilities have expanded, their conditions have deteriorated, and their pay has stagnated,” the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, which collaborated with the Netflix employees, declared at the time. But Danielle M. Pierce, the NLRB’s acting regional director, wrote in August that “music supervisors are independent contractors who are not employees of Netflix.”
“We’re regrouping and trying to figure out next steps,” Webb says. “It’s not over, but really a big blow.”
Throughout the strikes, music companies pivoted to an increased focus on pitching for synchs in video games and TV commercials — continuing to take music supervisors to lunch to maintain relationships and help out their struggling freelance colleagues. Peermusic donated $100 grocery-store gift cards to out-of-work members of the Guild of Music Supervisors, a non-profit organization.
Although Spirit’s Hartman is ready for the synch faucet to turn back on and “all the beautiful amount of licensing and briefs to come our way,” peermusic’s Frost expects a lag, possibly extending into early 2024. Movie and show projects are likely to restart at the “script and filming stage,” she says, while synch work generally begins during post-production at the end: “I’m predicting it’s going to be a slow pickup, especially now we’re going into the holidays.”
Because Netflix, Disney and other top studios have said they would pull back on new content, the synch business may also begin to flatten after years of growth. Frost predicts a post-strike boom in synchs in early 2024, followed by a longer-term drop-off: “I think it’s going to slow down as streamers adjust to this new world, and they’re picking up less content.” Heather Guibert, a music supervisor working on a documentary about songwriter Diane Warren, adds: “Disney used to make, let’s hypothesize, 100 projects a year; suddenly, that goes down to 50. That’s 50 fewer projects for the music supervisor to work on. It’s rough.”
During the strikes, Amanda Krieg Thomas, a music supervisor for American Horror Story and Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, had to slash the hours for the three employees of her company, Yay Team — forcing one of them to quit for another job. She’s hopeful — and “still a little cautious” — that the post-strike era will restore her company to maximum financial health. “What’s the new normal? Is there actually going to be less content, and what does that look like for music supervisors?” she asks. “But everybody’s excited to really get going again.”
Hipgnosis Song Management announced a deal on Tuesday that gives Beatclub producers access to some of Hipgnosis’ iconic hit songs and boosts its own access to more synch opportunities, the companies said in a joint statement.
Launched in 2021 by four-time Grammy winner Timbaland and his longtime manager, the head of Mono Music Group Gary Marella, Beatclub is an online marketplace built to help creators and producers monetize their beats and music.
Beatclub users can already use beats by Timbaland and others, like Justin Timberlake, Tainy, J. Cole and Mike Dean, in their own mixes. Hipgnosis, which also invested in Beatclub’s recent series A-2 funding round, will now also offer a hand-picked collection of songs from its catalog approved for sampling by Beatclub’s elite tier of producers. Any other rights that artists need to have cleared for usage are handled by Beatclub’s licensing team.
The deal could also help place more of Hipgnosis’ songs in films, TV, ads and games because Beatclub’s portal helps connect artists on its platform to synch opportunities with major brand, label, gaming and production companies. Similar strategies have been deployed by other catalog companies, like Primary Wave.
Timbaland has worked with Hipgnosis and its founder Merck Mercuriadis before, having sold his catalog to the music investment in 2019.
“At a time when interpolation and sampling has never been a more important part of creation and success, I want the greatest creators in the world to have access to our incomparable songs to make them the hits not only of the past but the future,” Mercuriadis, founder and head of Hipgnosis Song Management, said in a statement.
Calling Mercuriadis a “disruptor,” Timbaland said Mercuriadis’ “vision of the future of the music creator economy aligns closely with Beatclub’s.”
Marella, Beatclub’s co-founder, said Hipgnosis’ mission to promote songwriters and producers’ rights aligns with Beatclub’s values. “Beatclub … was built for creators by creators,” Marella said in a statement. “Our mission has always been to empower artists, song writers and producers however we can.”
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