tiktok
Elbows up for another Executive Turntable, Billboard’s weekly compendium of promotions, hirings, exits and firings — and all things in between — across the music business. There’s a full slate of news this week, so let’s get started.
Universal Music Canada promoted Amanda Kingsland to vp of A&R, co-leading the company’s A&R efforts with Shawn Marino, the vp of A&R operations. Together, they’ll lead UMC’s A&R teams — located in both Toronto and Montreal — to sign, develop, and break new Canadian artists. Kingsland, who joined UMC in 2021, revitalized the country music roster and multiple projects. Marino, a 30-year industry veteran, oversees 80A Studios, the label’s multi-room recording space, and The Academy, UMC’s event space. UMC’s artists include Josh Ross, Sofia Camara, Mae Martin, Owen Riegling and thiarajxtt, alongside recent signings AP Dhillon, Lindsay Ell, James Barker Band, Sebastian Gaskin, and TyriqueorDie. Julie Adam, president and CEO, praised Kingsland and Marino’s leadership, emphasizing their role in investing in artistic voices. “Music – and the artists who create it – are our driving force,” she said. “We focus our hustle, passion, care, creativity, and abundance of forward-thinking ideas on helping the artists we work with achieve personal, artistic, and commercial success. And at the centre of our mission to sign, develop, and break artists is our industry-leading A&R team.”
Hopeless Records announced key hires and promotions as it cements its position in the indie music industry. Ian Harrison is promoted to executive vp, focusing on business development and global growth. Erin Choi becomes general manager, overseeing global marketing and promotions after nearly two decades with the label. Christina Johns steps up as vp of operations, while Nonafaye Williams advances to senior director of product management. New additions include Jen Darmafall as director of marketing and Rheanna ‘Caedance’ Lauren as program director of the Hopeless Music Academy, which offers music education to under-resourced youth in Los Angeles. Founder Louis Posen praised the leadership team — Harrison, Choi, Johns, CFO Al Person, and evp of A&R Eric Tobin — as a passionate, “caring and talented executive team.” He also emphasized the label’s commitment to artist development, highlighting the Academy’s launch as a dream realized.
Trending on Billboard
Universal Music Greater China appointed Vivian Xu as chief operating officer, effective immediately. Based in Beijing, Xu will report directly to Timothy Xu, chairman and CEO. In her new role, she’ll collaborate with the senior leadership team to oversee daily operations and identify market expansion opportunities. Xu brings extensive experience from her previous roles at Columbia China, Sony Music Entertainment China, Motorola Solutions, Sony Ericsson and Schneider Electric China. Xu’s appointment is expected to enhance UMGC’s capabilities and strengthen its position in the Chinese music market. UMGC represents a diverse artist roster, including Li Nong Chen, Sunnee, Tanya Chua and Guo Ding. It has also partnered with Modern Sky, which features acts like New Pants and Tizzy T. Timothy Xu and Adam Granite, executive vp market development at UMG, praised her strategic insights and operational expertise.
MSG Entertainment and MSG Sports — friends call-em “the MSG family of companies” — appointed Doug Jossem as executive vp, global sports and entertainment partnerships. Reporting to Jamaal Lesane, chief operating officer of MSG Sports, Jossem will lead global partnership initiatives across MSG Sports and MSG Entertainment while supporting sales for MSG Networks. Jossem brings over 20 years of experience in media, advertising, and management, previously leading Walmart Connect’s largest business unit and holding key roles at Twitter, Vice, Comedy Central and CNN. Lesane highlighted MSG’s topline brands, expressing confidence in Jossem’s ability to create “innovative solutions that leverage the full depth and breadth of our portfolio to create unique platforms and unrivaled exposure for our partners.”
Nathaniel Brown, former PR head at Warner Bros. Discovery, joined TikTok as global head of corporate communications, reporting to Zenia Mucha. Based in New York, Brown previously held roles at 21st Century Fox, MTV Networks and SiriusXM. At Discovery, he managed PR during the 2022 merger and controversial decisions like shelving projects for tax write-offs. Brown left the company in January 2024. Now at TikTok, he faces significant challenges, including a potential U.S. ban on the app, set for April 5, after President Trump delayed the law earlier this year.
Candice Watkins, senior vp of marketing at Big Loud Records and a fixture on various Billboard power lists, confirmed she is leaving the Nashville label after a six-and-a-half year run. Prior to joining BLR, the USC alum clocked a couple years as senior director of marketing and artist development at Universal Music Group. The news was first covered by HITS, which reported “big plans on the horizon” for the executive.
Red Street Records hired Jason McArthur as the label’s vice president of Christian A&R and publishing, to lead in developing and expanding the roster of Christian artists and songwriters at Red Street Records and Red Street Publishing. McArthur will oversee the label’s Christian roster, including Jason Crabb, Consumed By Fire, Cade Thompson and Iveth Luna, in addition to songwriters Brian White, the Ward Brothers and Crabb. McArthur previously served as vp of A&R at Sony Music Entertainment’s Provident Entertainment. –Jessica Nicholson
ATC Management expanded its U.S. team with new managers Dev Crawford and Jay Saunders. Based in Los Angeles, Crawford represents rapper Earl Sweatshirt and singer-songwriter Fana Hues, bringing extensive experience in hip-hop and R&B, including tour management for Snoh Aalegra and NxWorries. Saunders will lead ATC’s Nashville expansion, specializing in Americana, folk and all things roots. He previously worked with Marty Diamond and Mark Williams at Concord and now represents artists like John Vincent III and Kacy Hill. Both managers will continue signing new clients, joining a roster that includes Nick Cave, PJ Harvey and The Smile. They’ll work closely with Jackson Perry, head of management in North America, and can be reached at dev@atcmanagement.com and jay@atcmanagement.com.
Warner Music France launched Adore Music, a dance label led by Romain Pasquier, a 17-year WMG veteran. The label aims to showcase both emerging and established dance artists, leveraging Warner Music’s global resources to support talent in France and beyond. Pasquier, the managing director who’ll keep his senior role at label and artist services division WEA, is committed to honoring France’s electronic music legacy while nurturing the next generation. He is joined by Adrien Morin-Guardia, A&R and head of marketing, and Nicolas Klersky, A&R. Adore Music’s first release, “Need You the Most” by house duo Ofenbach, debuted on March 21. Parlez-vous français? Check out Billboard France‘s story on the launch.
Infamous promoted Jelani Wright to vp of festivals & events for North America. In his new role, Wright will oversee creator and publicity campaigns for North American music festivals, including CRSSD Festival, Lightning in a Bottle and its producer Do Lab, HARD Summer, Hangout Festival, Sand In My Boots, ARC Festival, Splash House, M3F Festival, and Electric Forest. Wright will also handle campaigns for international festivals including Barcelona’s Primavera Sound, Montreal’s Igloofest and Turin’s KappaFutur Festival. Wright started at Infamous as a publicist in the festival division in 2020 after graduating from the agency’s Fellowship program, an initiative that helps BIPOC candidates break into the music industry. Wright will report to Infamous COO Maxfield Frieser, who says that “Jelani’s passion, leadership, and innovative approach to earned media have been instrumental in evolving our festival campaigns and helping grow the division.” –Katie Bain
“Single White Female” singer-songwriter Chely Wright announced her new role as senior vp of corporate social responsibility and new market growth at facilities management firm ISS. She’ll drive impact by fostering client and community partnerships and empowering ISS’ 320,000+ employees. Wright’s initiatives will strengthen client relationships and celebrate internal culture, focusing on partnerships that unite corporate entities and community organizations. Wright was the first country artist to come out as gay in 2010 — read about her career transition in Stephen Daw’s new profile.
NASHVILLE NOTES: Matthew Miller, a veteran country music manager, joined talent agency The Familie, bringing artists William Beckmann and LEW. With 20-plus years of experience at WME, Red Light and more, Miller praised The Familie’s collaborative culture, while evp Royce Risser highlighted his expertise and artist-focused management approach … Monti Smith joined King Pen Music as creative coordinator after interning at the publishing company. He will work closely with CEO Kelly King and Amanda Roach, creative manager.
Brandon Holman joined Amber Health to lead industry relations. Previously, he was vp of marketing and wellness at Guin Records and co-founded The Lazuli Collective, an experiential wellness agency. Earlier in his career, Holman made stops at UnitedMasters and TikTok in various marketing and label partnerships roles. Amber Health, established in 2020, styles itself as the only full-service mental health and wellness solution for the music industry, focusing on supporting artists, tours, events and music companies. In 2023, Holman penned a guest column on how Guin prioritizes artists’ well-being, empowering them to create and share their music in a sustainable way.
The Circuit Group formed a joint venture with James Ahearn, founder of Buena Artists & Projects, to expand its global artist management team. Ahearn brings his roster, including Sparrow & Barbossa, Two Friends and Stevie Appleton/Collect 200. Ahearn praised The Circuit Group’s innovative approach and expressed excitement about launching his own division within the company. Dean Wilson, CEO of The Circuit Group, highlighted Ahearn’s impressive track record in artist management, adding, “his ability to identify and develop artists, foster impactful partnerships and navigate both the major label system and independent space makes him a perfect fit.”
Viamedia, the independent digital and linear advertising rep firm, acquired digital advertising company LocalFactor. LocalFactor’s founder and CEO, Evan Rutchik, will become Viamedia’s president and chief strategy officer, reporting to CEO David Solomon. Rutchik will drive Viamedia’s strategic vision, oversee LocalFactor’s operations, and join Viamedia’s board.
ALL IN THE FAMILY: Billboard welcomed Delisa Shannon as its new shortform content director. She joined from Rolling Stone and started this week in the New York office. Also, new staff writer Mackenzie Cummings-Grady will officially join the team on April 1, based in NYC … The Hollywood Reporter made three key editorial changes: Beatrice Verhoeven dropped the “deputy” from her title and is now “just” awards editor, longtime contributor Brande Victorian joined as the deputy awards editor, and senior awards editor Steven Zeitchik is now senior editor of technology and politics.
ICYMI:
Fernando Cabral
Fernando Cabral de Mello was appointed CEO of Sony Music Entertainment Brazil as part of a new organizational structure … Avex appointed S10 founder Brandon Silverstein as CEO of its new Avex Music Group to enhance its U.S. presence and promote Avex artists globally … and longtime music manager Andrew Goldstone joined the team at Milk & Honey as head of electronic music. [Keep Reading]
Last Week’s Turntable: Dizzying Changes Made at Spinnin’ Records
The trend has been clear in recent years: Listeners are less enthralled with new songs. Current music’s share of ear-time has fallen from 27.8% in 2022 to 27.3% in 2023 to 26.7% last year, according to Luminate. In 2024, listening to catalog albums — releases more than 18 months old — increased by 6.5%, more than twice as fast as consumption of current albums.
Much of the music cued up on streaming services is still relatively recent: Luminate found that tracks released in the last five years account for roughly 50% of on-demand streams in the U.S. Even so, SoundCloud users are much more keenly attuned to the newest releases than the average listener — current music has accounted for more than 46% of plays on the platform in each of the last three years, according to SoundCloud’s latest Music Intelligence Report, an annual run-down of listener behavior which the company is making public for the first time.
The document “highlights some of our unique positions in the industry,” says Wyatt Marshall, the company’s director of music intelligence. “An artist might start on SoundCloud before they go somewhere else. [As a result], you get people coming to listen to new music on SoundCloud, because that’s where it exists first.”
Trending on Billboard
For young listeners, new music discovery is increasingly spread across a variety of short-form video platforms and streaming services; TikTok especially has commanded the conversation in recent years. Still, even “in today’s landscape dominated by TikTok and Instagram, SoundCloud remains a critical launchpad for Gen-Z’s emerging cult favorites,” says Corey Goldglit, manager of A&R at the distribution company Too Lost. “While social media fuels trends, and Spotify fuels hits, SoundCloud continues to be where devoted fans first discover raw, innovative talent like Fakemink, OsamaSon, 1oneam, and Nettspend.”
While SoundCloud is best known for nurturing rappers and electronic producers, it’s adding value in other genres as well: Sean Lewow, co-founder of the label Music Soup, has seen the platform introduce listeners to Waylon Wyatt and Vincent Mason, a pair of rising country artists on his roster. (Music Soup is a joint venture with Interscope Records and Darkroom Records.) Uploads of country and folk music on SoundCloud have risen by more than 50% in the last two years, while streams of these styles rose 15% on SoundCloud in 2024.
This mirrors the growing interest in these genres in the U.S. and around the world. “These scenes are attracting people [on SoundCloud] who have always been into it,” Marshall says, “but also engaging a new group of people who are discovering these sounds.”
Since SoundCloud artists and users can interact with music in ways beyond just clicking “play” and “skip” — commenting on songs, for example, or sending direct messages to peers — the platform has additional data to parse when trying to map scenes. “We look at social interaction amongst artists as an indicator of affinity,” Marshall explains. “Zooming out from that gives a feel for what shapes a scene.”
And for how scenes meld borrow from and build off each other. Historically, it’s been difficult for U.K. hip-hop to acquire fans en masse outside of its home country — even with other English-speaking listeners. The Music Intelligence Report, however, singles out two sets of British acts “that are building their sound around the U.S. underground while adding a unique English twist;” in the process, they are “drawing listeners from England and beyond.”
These two groups — the first includes fakemink, Feng, and GhostInnaFurCoat, while the other counts Rico Ace, kwes e, and TeeboFG as members — enjoyed a 71% uptick in streams in the past two years, according to SoundCloud’s data. “In recent months,” the report continues, “tracks from these artists are increasingly showing engagement spikes indicative of future success.”
The Music Intelligence Report identifies other sounds that SoundCloud believes are poised to become more popular in 2025: Vinahouse, which Marshall describes as a “hyper-speed, really energetic” style of club music that’s popular in Vietnam; Brazilian plugg, the latest mutation of a hip-hop sub-genre that has thrived on SoundCloud for several years; and shoegaze, which has also been enjoying a revival on TikTok.
New rappers continue to see success on the platform as well. The third most-played account created on SoundCloud last year belonged to BabyChiefDoIt, who trailed behind only VonOff1700 and Raq Baby. BabyChiefDoIt signed a deal with Artist Partner Group in August, and Izzy Elefant, the label’s head of streaming, calls the platform an “essential” part of the rapper’s rise.
SoundCloud’s features, especially “real-time comments and direct messaging, create an interactive experience that sets it apart from other streaming services,” Elefant continues. “These tools allow BabyChiefDoIt to engage with listeners directly, receive immediate feedback, and foster a sense of community.”
In a splintered landscape for music discovery, Lewow adds, it’s important to “leave no stone unturned.” SoundCloud “has opened our artists up to an audience that they might not have found otherwise.”
Somebody’s watching Will Smith, but it’s not what (or rather who) you think it is. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air superstar linked up with the one-and-only Swamp Princess Doechii for a trippy TikTok clip on Thursday (March 13), where he’s seen mouthing along to her viral “Anxiety” track in the mirror before taking his hood […]
This analysis is part of Billboard’s music technology newsletter Machine Learnings. Sign up for Machine Learnings, and other Billboard newsletters for free here.
In an interview in 2023, Techstars managing director Bob Moczydlowsky told Billboard, “If Streaming 1.0 was about making all the music play, Streaming 2.0 should be about being able to play with all the music.”
In 2025, that statement feels prescient. Bloomberg reported on Feb. 14 that Spotify’s long anticipated superfan tier will likely roll out later this year and include extra features like high-fidelity audio, access to concert tickets and song remixing tools for an additional fee on top of Spotify premium.
Trending on Billboard
Also this month, the AI remixing app MashApp launched on the Apple App Store, offering users the ability to quickly and easily mash up selected songs from the Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Sony Music and Kobalt catalogs. Similarly, Hook, a competitor, just announced a new partnership with indie distributor Too Lost to license its works for Hook’s library of mashable, customizable songs. (Hook also previously struck a deal with Downtown for its library of music.)
Even though remixes of songs have dominated TikTok and other short-form video apps for years — and were all over SoundCloud and YouTube before that — participating in the fun of creating them has had barriers to entry. A user would need to learn how to use a digital audio workstation (DAW), like Garageband or ProTools, to create a good-sounding rework of a song, and they’d likely need the stems (the individual instrument tracks that make up a song), too. Now, with AI-powered stem separation and remix apps, there’s almost nothing left standing between a music fan and getting creative with their own derivative mashups.
But copyright law, the longtime nemesis of remixing, remains a major obstacle. For years, record labels and publishers have been playing an ever-expanding game of whack-a-mole with unauthorized remixes online, trying to retain control over their sound recordings. In the TikTok age, unauthorized remixes have gotten even further out of control as sped-up, slowed-down and other types of reworkings gained prominence. But it seems some companies are now taking the “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” philosophy by uploading officially sanctioned sped-up, slowed-down, a cappella and other alternate renditions of their work to streaming services.
Music companies, sensing the business opportunity, are also licensing to Hook and MashApp. While both have properly licensed libraries of songs to work with, these apps still leave a lot to be desired for users today. MashApp only has selected songs licensed from the three majors and Kobalt — among the recommended tracks are “I Want It That Way” by the Backstreet Boys, “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac and “Tequila” by Dan + Shay. Hook has a similar problem — its top songs include “Buy The World” by Kendrick Lamar, Mike WiLL Made-It and Future, “Fall Back” by Lithe, “fisherrr” by Cash Cobain and Bay Swag, and more. If you look up a major artist on either of these apps, odds are they either have only a few of their tracks licensed, or don’t have their catalog at all.
For these apps to succeed, they must get deals done with, essentially, every rights holder on the recorded music and publishing sides to offer a comprehensive catalog — and if you look at the songwriter credits of any major pop or rap song, you’ll realize how challenging getting all of these parties to agree could be. Just one songwriter or company could hold up the licensing of a top song.
Spotify has already done the hard part by getting all the music on the service during what Moczydlowsky calls the “Streaming 1.0” period, but significant challenges still remain ahead if it wants to integrate these much more playful 2.0 remix features. The top streaming service made an enemy of the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA), the trade organization representing the vast majority of publishers in the U.S., in March 2024 by decreasing the royalties paid to publishers and songwriters in the U.S. on premium-tier streams by about 40%. Known colloquially as the “bundling” issue, Spotify argued that adding audiobooks into its premium subscriptions meant it could divide the royalty pool between music and book publishers.
The NMPA’s president and CEO, David Israelite, said Spotify “declared war on songwriters,” and to fight back, the NMPA launched a series of attacks, including sending Spotify a cease and desist letter warning that if it launched tools to “speed up, mash up and otherwise edit songs from their favorite artists… without the proper licenses in place from our members,” it “may constitute additional direct infringement.”
In January, Spotify’s standing with publishers seemed to be getting better. The streamer forged direct deals with Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group, which included improved remuneration on the publishing side. At the time, I noted in my analysis of these deals that Spotify likely came back to the negotiating table with publishers because the streamer knows it needs the publishers to voluntarily license their catalogs to support these upcoming features, including remixing. Still, that doesn’t mean all publishers, or the NMPA, have buried the hatchet.
On Feb. 4, the NMPA issued 2,500 podcast takedowns against Spotify, in a move that signaled that the NMPA will continue to hold a grudge. (Spotify called this move “a press stunt.”) Press stunt or not, Spotify needs the rest of the NMPA members on its side to make a remix tool with a full working library. Otherwise, they’ll be forced to launch with a piecemeal catalog like their start-up competitors.
But if anyone is poised to take over this budding remix market, it’s likely Spotify, given its pre-existing relationships and significant resources. Still, it remains to be seen how much users will even take to this type of feature. Is remixing the next big thing, or just another fad?
Even before a disruption in January caused by a looming U.S. ban, TikTok’s domination of video-based social media usage had started to wane. The service’s share of U.S. consumers’ time spent using social media apps fell to 29% in the fourth quarter of 2024 from 34% in the prior-year period, according to MusicWatch. In that same time span, YouTube Shorts’ share increased from 24% to 26% and Facebook Reels improved from 16% to 18%, while the “other” category rose one percentage point to 6%, Instagram Reels was flat at 18% and Triller remained at 3%.
That coincided with an overall downward trend in social media use. The average time spent using social media apps per week dropped from 7.9 hours in the fourth quarter of 2022 to 6.5 hours in the fourth quarter of 2024, says MusicWatch principal Russ Crupnick. That’s not an unexpected trend as Americans move further past pandemic-era behaviors, but Crupnick also notes that average times will fall as older, more casual users adopt social media platforms.
Trending on Billboard
Still, that overall decrease doesn’t account for TikTok’s declining share of consumers’ attention. A few years ago, the app seemed like an unstoppable freight train as its influence spread across tech and commerce. It also became a powerful promotional vehicle for artists, many of whom launched their careers by going viral on the platform. Once TikTok proved there was an insatiable demand for short-form video, Instagram and YouTube launched copycat products with Reels and Shorts, respectively. Its impact even spread to Amazon, which launched a TikTok-styled feed for product discovery called Inspire in 2022 (Amazon announced it was shutting down the feature earlier this week). Music streaming services also followed suit: At Spotify, artists can now post short video messages to their fans.
Exactly why TikTok lost share in 2024 isn’t clear. “It’s hard to say,” says Crupnick. “Is this a function of all the political nonsense going on around the app? Is it a function of YouTube and some of the competitors catching up a little bit? Is it a little bit of exhaustion with music on social video? Or is it all three?”
Whatever the case, this reshuffling of the landscape has led artists to flock to other platforms and eroded TikTok’s dominance as a promotional vehicle. Experts who spoke with Billboard about TikTok’s decline described a changing social media landscape in which the platform remains a powerful marketing tool but has lost some of its allure and potency. For a variety of reasons, consumers are spending more time at TikTok’s competitors, and artists are thus seeing more opportunity at platforms such as YouTube and Instagram.
One factor in TikTok’s decline in market share is YouTube and Meta successfully leveraging the scale and scope of their respective platforms to become serious contenders in short-form video. YouTube, in particular, has succeeded in integrating Shorts into a platform that used to be occupied only by long-form videos. “I think YouTube has done a good job of building an ecosystem,” says J.D. Tuminski, founder of Casadei Collective Marketing Agency. “They do a lot of education for artists and labels about building the Shorts ecosystem that feeds into the bigger picture of music video content and lifestyle content.”
Jenna Rosenberg, head of operations and marketing at Gorilla Management, agrees that YouTube has benefitted by combining short-form and long-form videos. “I think when people are watching the longer videos [on YouTube] they can easily get sucked into the short-form part of that platform as well, and vice versa. Whereas TikTok, it’s literally just the vertical short-form content.”
At the same time, YouTube and Instagram are increasingly seen as friendly to creators. “Anecdotally, YouTube and Meta pay better than TikTok,” says Tuminski. “Also, the TikTok creator fund is always shifting. There are different thresholds that you have to meet to be able to earn on there, and they’re not always clear.”
TikTok, on the other hand, is seen as prioritizing some of its e-commerce initiatives. TikTok Shop, for example, allows creators to stream live videos and sell goods and merchandise. In January, TikTok Shop sales were up 153% year-over-year, far exceeding the growth rates of Chinese e-commerce platforms Shein and Temu, according to Bloomberg. While live shopping may be a sensible practice for a TikTok influencer, musicians tend to shy away from that kind of activity — and as a result, they aren’t flocking to TikTok Shop. “An artist isn’t necessarily going to go on TikTok Live and say, “Hey, come and buy my vinyl,’” says Rosenberg. “It’s just very uncomfortable for them.”
The standoff between Universal Music Group (UMG) and TikTok may also have played a part in shifting sentiment around the app in the music community. In February 2024, UMG began pulling its content from TikTok over a disagreement about compensation, among other factors. For many artists and labels, that dust-up was “a warning sign” that TikTok’s dominance in social media wasn’t secure, says Dan Roy Carter, managing director of digital consultancy Carter Projects. “Deals fell apart, carefully designed viral campaigns became eye-watering wastes of budget, and acts who had built their presence reliant on TikTok were left very much bent out of shape.”
“I think a lot of folks were looking for alternatives, even before all the political things that are going on,” says Tuminski. Artists want to work with brands they trust, he adds, and they will go where their fans are. If one service isn’t providing what they want, “they’ll go to somewhere that makes a little bit more sense to them.”
Things have worsened for TikTok in 2025 due to a pending shutdown in the U.S., although President Donald Trump provided a stay of execution when he entered office. The looming ban caused traffic to decline, however, and pushed people to download alternatives such as RedNote. As of this week, TikTok has lost one-tenth of its U.S. users since the first week of January, according to Similarweb data published by The Information.
Still, TikTok remains a powerful and influential force in music and entertainment. By 2024, a third of U.S. adults used TikTok, while almost six in 10 teens (57%) say they use the platform daily and 16% say they’re on it “almost constantly,” according to Pew Research. People use TikTok mostly for pop culture and entertainment but also viral music and dances, humor and comedy, personal stories, fashion advice, product recommendations, politics and, for 5% of U.S. adults, news.
“There is still huge value in TikTok as a platform for music discovery and promotion, and perhaps their ability to tap into merch, ticketing, and conversion to paid streaming will usher a second coming,” says Carter. “But its days of being the only horse are seemingly coming to an end.”
Not long after Lil Tecca released his fifth album Plan A last September, he visited a boisterous livestreamer named Tylil, who has more than 300,000 followers on Twitch. “We wanted to portray Tecca’s personality, which is sometimes a little too shielded,” says Giuseppe Zappala, who manages the rapper. “And streamers have been recognized at the top of the hierarchy in the digital landscape.”
Livestreaming was once dominated by gamers, which limited the ways that artists could engage with the Twitch ecosystem. But the landscape has diversified over time. When Tecca met up with Tylil, the two played paintball together; later, the streamer gave the 22-year-old rapper a driving lesson, even though Tecca didn’t have a driver’s license. (“Do not press on the gas hard… I know you play a lot of car games; this is a real car.”) Everything was captured on camera in real time, and the resulting “relatable” videos, Zappala says, remind viewers “that Tecca is a down-to-earth, funny person.”
A lot of people watch streamers like Tylil, Kai Cenat, PlaqueBoyMax, Duke and IShowSpeed when they’re live. Still, relying only on a live audience limits their reach. “Core fans will watch hours of streams,” says Rafael Rocha, CEO of the marketing agency NuWave Digital. “Everybody else will consume that content mainly in short-form video.”
Trending on Billboard
Music marketers are increasingly focused on facilitating that second wave of engagement, which they do by snipping out the highlights of livestreams — either relying on their own teams of editors; “clippers” who congregate on Discord; or AI programs — and then promoting those bite-sized videos across TikTok, Instagram, X and more.
“Twitch is, in many ways, the new live TV,” says Alec Henderson, head of digital at APG. “And the clips from the livestreams are just like TV reruns. Those highly engaged, entertaining moments can live online forever.”
Henderson saw the value of livestreams when he brought the rapper Lil Baby on to Cenat’s stream back in the fall of 2022: “It ended up one of the most fruitful parts of our rollout,” he says. Last year, livestreamers led to boosts for APG acts like BabyChiefDoit and Flawed Mangoes. A recent press release promoting DDG‘s new single “The Method” credits the rapper’s appearance on PlaqueBoyMax’s livestream with jump-starting the track: “Immediately, clips of the recording went viral across socials and garnered over 1 million views on TikTok alone.”
The clipping practice has been popular in the Twitch streaming community for some time, according to Parker Ulry, who runs the digital marketing agency Perfect Circle. “The podcast community is super on it now, and music is falling in line.”
“Ideally, someone discovers your Twitch stream or podcast interview through a 30-second clip and then goes back and consumes the whole piece,” Ulry continues. “Then they become a fan of you and start streaming your music.”
Artists have several options when they want to reach the livestreaming audience, according to Alex Falck, head of commercial at the digital marketing company Creed Media. They can get streamers to play their music and react to it on camera; let them use their music for highlight compilations; actually go on the livestream to hang out; and even produce music with the streamer. (This is how PlaqueBoyMax has built his following; Henderson predicts that “it’s just a matter of time before a hit record comes out of one of those streams.”)
Once the stream is underway, the captivating moments need to be isolated and extracted. “If you’re on a three-hour stream, that’s a content goldmine — 20, 30, 50 posts,” Ulry says.
Some digital marketers do the clipping in-house. But many find armies of capable clippers on the messaging platform Discord. “A lot of these niche underground communities are naturally congregating on Discord already,” says Vanessa Sheldon, a digital marketer at Forever Music Group who works on a lot of clipping campaigns. “Discord allows developers to build things into these servers and communities, so we created our own server, got a lot of those kids in there, and then built the tool kit for them to participate in these campaigns and get paid out.”
Clippers she works with are compensated based on the performance of their videos. Usually, the rate is between 30 cents and 50 cents per thousand views, though it can go as high as 70 cents in some cases. This means that the roughly 2,000 members of the Discord community she assembled are incentivized to make their clips as eye-catching as possible. “The more viral your video is,” Sheldon says, “the more you get paid.”
Marketers can also use AI-powered tools to create the clips for them. “OpusClip will spit out a bunch of content for you automatically with edited subtitles,” Falck explains. The results may be haphazard, but they are delivered quickly. “AI is still somewhat new, so it doesn’t necessarily get the same level of attention or amazing editing as if you use your in-house team,” Falck continues. “It’s more of a volume game, pushing out 100 assets per stream, just seeing what takes off.”
Once the clips are in hand, “Start pumping them onto TikTok, Instagram, even YouTube Shorts, these algorithmically powered platforms,” Ulry says. One natural ally in this effort is fan pages, which are dedicated to posting nonstop about a particular artist or group of artists. (These accounts can be created by the artist or their team, or run by enthusiastic civilians with lots of time on their hands.) Another is what Falck calls “community pages” — accounts dedicated to a specific genre of music, for example. They all help create what Zappala describes as “an explosion of content that’s circulating the internet” in the wake of the livestream, raising awareness and hopefully hooking potential fans.
One manager recently asked Mayor Cohen, a digital marketer, if he could organize a “tour” of five to 10 livestreamers for an artist. “That’s kind of the business: Get artists on the stream, then repurpose content,” Cohen says. “Not that many people will watch a four-hour stream. But they will go on TikTok or Instagram and watch the best clips.”
“If the clip is reactive,” Ulry adds, “it’ll find an audience.”
Ole Obermann, the long-serving global head of music business development, is leaving the company. Tracy Gardner will step into the role after his departure at the end of March.
“I am proud to have played a role in bringing so many people the joy of music while at TikTok,” Obermann wrote in a note to staff on Tuesday (Feb. 18), according to Music Business Worldwide. “We have an amazing team,” he continued, “and leadership and music will continue to thrive and evolve on TikTok.”
A representative for TikTok declined to comment.
Trending on Billboard
Obermann started at TikTok in 2019. Before that, he spent three years at Warner Music Group as chief digital officer/evp, strategy and business development, and a decade at Sony Music, where he worked on licensing renewals with Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube, as well as deals with Facebook and many other digital services. Gardner also worked at WMG prior to joining TikTok.
During Obermann’s time at TikTok, the platform grew rapidly and became a major conduit for music discovery, changing the ways that artists made and marketed songs, and the ways that labels signed and promoted artists.
As TikTok grew, it also evolved from its roots as a dance-focused app for younger users. “Even though it’s been a bunch of years since we morphed from Musical.ly to TikTok, there is still, in some communities, this misconception that the artist needs to get out there and do a dance to their song, and then it’s going to go viral,” Obermann said last year.
For the music business, Obermann often served as the TikTok’s public face. TikTok’s relationship with the industry was tense for much of 2024: There was a monthslong standoff with Universal Music Group before the two parties came to a licensing agreement.
“There was obviously a value conversation: What are the payments that are happening, and also how much marketing and promotion can we provide to help with the discovery of new music or new artists that are priorities for them?” Obermann explained last year. “So that was one thing that we were wrestling over, and we ultimately got there.”
HipHopWired Featured Video
CLOSE
Source: NurPhoto / Getty / TikTok
TikTok is back in the Apple Store and Google Play stores for US users.
The popular social media platform officially returned to Apple’s App Store and the Google Play store for US users on Thursday after the companies removed it on Jan.19.
A federal law banning TikTok as of Jan.19 because TikTok’s Chinese-based parent company, ByteDance, failed to divest its ownership of the app forced both companies to pull it from their US stores. Failure to adhere to the law by still hosting or distributing TikTok in the US would result in penalties, $5,000 per user or $850 billion in fines because the platform boasts it has 170 million US users. Hence, it’s not surprising both companies yanked the app from their stores.
TikTok gained an ally in Donald Trump, who initially spearheaded the app’s banning before he lost his reelection bid to Joe Biden. Unfortunately, after returning to the White House, Felon 47 signed an executive order on Jan.20 instructing his Attorney General, Pam Bondi, not to enforce the ban for 75 days.
The executive order also instructed Bondi “to issue a letter to each [TikTok] provider stating that there has been no violation of the statute and that there is no liability for any conduct’ as of Jan.19 throughout the 75-day extension.
According to Bloomberg’s report, Bondi sent Apple and Google letters on Thursday.
In a blog post, TikTok celebrated its return to both stores: “The TikTok app is now available for download from the App Store and Google Play. Our U.S. users can download the latest version of our app and continue to create, discover, and share what they love on TikTok.”
How The TikTok Ban Jig Played Out
What a turn of events following TikTok’s loss in its appeal to the Supreme Court, claiming the ban was in direct violation of the First Amendment.
Following the court’s decision, TikTok shut down on Jan.18, a day before the ban was supposed to start, before restoring service after Donald Trump vowing not to enforce the ban. When US users opened the app, they were greeted by a message telling them the app was back thanks to Orange Mussolini.
Users on X, formerly Twitter, have been reacting to the app’s return to the Apple Store and Google Play store; you can see those reactions in the gallery below.
1. Serious question
5. Accurate
TikTok has returned to the app stores of Apple and Google in the U.S., after President Donald Trump delayed the enforcement of a TikTok ban. TikTok, which is operated by Chinese technology firm ByteDance, was removed from Apple and Google’s app stores on Jan. 18 to comply with a law that requires ByteDance to divest […]
It’s well established that a song which becomes popular on TikTok often becomes popular on streaming services soon after. The platform aims to quantify this effect in its second annual Music Impact Report, released on Thursday (Feb. 13): On average, “an artist can expect an 11% increase in on-demand music streaming over the course of the three days following a peak in TikTok total views.”
TikTok commissioned the latest report, and it hits the same themes as its predecessor, repeatedly emphasizing the extent to which music fans on the platform are more engaged than average listeners, and thus more supportive of the larger music ecosystem. (Luminate conducted the analysis.)
“TikTok’s role as a driver of music discovery and artist success is already well known,” Ole Obermann, global head of music business development at TikTok, said in a statement. “However, Luminate’s report goes even further in laying out the many ways in which TikTok and its community of highly-engaged and high-spending music fans are proven to drive incremental revenues, chart success, and added value to artists and the music industry.”
Trending on Billboard
The study finds that 40% of U.S. TikTok users “listen to a new album on release week — a rate that is 27% higher than that of the average U.S. music listener.” And they are more likely to seek out additional information about musicians they like: “50% of U.S. TikTok users say they enjoy watching videos about music artists, such as interviews and behind-the-scenes content — 47% higher than the average U.S. social and [short-form video] user.”
The report also finds that American TikTok users are more willing to shell out for music (“spending 46% more money on [it] each month than the average U.S. music listener”), live experiences (52%), and artist merch (62%).
On top of that, they like to watch the charts — and try to influence them. “TikTok users are 40% more likely to make music purchases with the specific goal of boosting an artist’s chart position compared to the average consumer who makes music purchases,” according to the report.
In 2024, TikTok went wide with the “add to music app,” which allows users to quickly save music they find on the platform to their streaming service of choice. The latest report indicates that users have saved more than 1 billion songs to their streaming service of choice, though it’s hard to make much of this number without any additional context, as TikTok has a large user base.
The report also serves up two case studies that suggest a strong correlation between TikTok views and saves (for Sabrina Carpenter the week she released Short n’ Sweet) and between saves and streams (for Korn’s catalog). But the overall impact of the feature on the interplay between TikTok and streaming services remains unclear.
In his statement, Obermann said the “add to music app” “is already positively influencing artist success and chart placements, and the most exciting thing is that we are just getting started.”