United Kingdom
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LONDON — Mariah Carey, Lewis Capaldi and Sam Smith are among the recipients of the new BRIT Billion award, which recognizes artists who have surpassed one billion career streams in the United Kingdom.
U.K. labels trade body BPI, which also runs the Brit Awards, is naming the honorees, using the Official Charts Company to verify the data. Certification is based on tracks being streamed on music services like Spotify and video platforms such as YouTube where an artist has appeared either as the main performer or as a featured artist.
Around 140 acts have passed the one billion U.K. streams milestone to date, but BPI has only named 13 recipients of the award initially, a spokesperson tells Billboard. The other artists are ABBA, Coldplay, Whitney Houston, AJ Tracey, Headie One, Anne-Marie, Ellie Goulding, George Ezra, RAYE and Rita Ora.
BPI says the United Kingdom is the first country in the world in the streaming era to run a certifications scheme that recognizes an artist’s success across their entire career and multiple projects, as opposed to individual recordings.
Carey said in a statement that she was honored to be one of the first recipients of the BRIT Billion award and thanked her U.K. fans “for their endless and enduring support.”
Capaldi said in a statement that he was “buzzing,” adding that “never in a million years did I think any of this stuff would happen, but now [that] it is I will gladly accept each and every award.”
The new sales certification category recognizing one billion career plays reflects how streaming has completely upended the recorded music industry over the past decade.
Previously, the biggest sales awards issued in the U.K. were platinum, granted to albums that sell 300,000 chart equivalent units, and multi-platinum (multiples of 300,000 sales). Below that is gold (100,000 sales) and silver (60,000 sales). For singles, platinum recognizes 600,000 chart equivalent sales. Gold is 400,000 and silver is 200,000.
Those totals are, however, dwarfed by the huge number of streams that the world’s biggest artists increasingly generate with many acts racking up millions and, in some cases, hundreds of millions of streams every year. But artists must generate several multiples of more streams to make the same money they made per unit in the physical era.
In November, Capaldi’s “Someone You Loved” overtook Ed Sheeran‘s “Shape Of You” to become the most-streamed song of all time in the U.K. with over 600 million audio and video streams, according to the Official Charts Company. George Ezra’s “Shotgun” has been streamed just under 500 million times since its release in 2018, reports BPI, which first began certifying silver, gold and platinum-selling records in 1973.
The labels trade body says the number of audio music streams in the U.K. crossed 160 billion last year with streaming now accounting for more than 85% of all U.K. music consumption.
“For a recording artist, there can be few greater sources of pride than having a platinum or gold disc on their wall,” Sophie Jones, BPI chief strategy officer/interim chief executive, said in a statement. “But in an era when success in measured in the hundreds of millions and indeed billions of streams, it was clear that we needed a new and additional way to recognize and celebrate outstanding achievement in recorded music.”
LONDON – Vinyl sales generated more money for record labels and artists than CDs for the first time in more than three decades in the United Kingdom last year, helping drive a 4.7% rise in overall music revenue, according to annual figures from labels trade body BPI published Thursday (March 9).
In 2022, sales of vinyl LPs climbed 3.1% year-on-year in the U.K. to £119.5 million ($142.4 million) and now account for over half (55%) of all trade revenues from physical sales. The last time vinyl revenues eclipsed CD sales in the United Kingdom, BPI says, was in 1987 when Michael Jackson’s Bad was the year’s best-selling album and Rick Astley had the best-selling single of the year with “Never Gonna Give You Up.”
In total, 5.5 million vinyl LPs were sold in the United Kingdom last year. That marks the highest level of vinyl purchases in the country since 1990, according to BPI figures released in January measuring music consumption. The best-selling vinyl titles in the U.K. in 2022 were Taylor Swift’s Midnights, Harry Styles’ Harry’s House and Arctic Monkeys’ The Car.
Despite the ongoing vinyl revival, overall revenue from physical formats was down 10.5% to £216 million ($258 million), with CD sales slipping 24% to £89 million ($107 million).
Offsetting that decline was 6.3% year-on-year growth in streaming revenues, which climbed to £885 million ($1 billion) and accounted for 67% of U.K. recorded music revenues in 2022 — up from 66.2% the 12 months prior. Vinyl sales made up 9% of the market in terms of annual trade revenues, while CDs accounted for 7%.
Breaking down streaming revenue, paid subscriptions generated £763 million ($910 million), up 4.8% on 2021, while ad-funded revenue grew by more than a fifth (22%) to £63 million ($75 million). Digital download sales fell 17.5% to £28 million ($33 million).
Synch revenues were up even more sharply, rising 39% year-on-year to £43 million ($51 million), while public performance income spiked 23% to £143 million ($170 million).
Total U.K. recorded music sales — comprising digital and physical revenues, public performance rights and synch — climbed 4.7% to £1.32 billion ($1.57 billion) in 2022. That marks a rise of 36% over the past five years, according to BPI, as well as the eighth-consecutive year of growth.
The United Kingdom is the world’s third biggest recorded music market behind the United States and Japan with sales of just over $1.8 billion in trade value, according to IFPI’s 2022 Global Music Report. (BPI’s year-end sales figures are based on pound sterling, rather than the far stronger U.S. dollar, hence the perceived decline in overall revenues when BPI’s figures are converted into dollars at a constant currency basis).
“2022 was another great year for British music, but we must guard against any complacency in the face of growing challenges and keep promoting and protecting the value of music,” BPI chief strategy officer and interim CEO Sophie Jones said in a statement. She also called upon the U.K. music community to work together to “create the impetus” for further growth and “futureproof the success of British music in an increasingly competitive global music market.”
As previously reported, British artists accounted for the top 10 biggest-selling singles in the U.K. last year (either as the lead or as a featured artist) for the first time since year-end charts were introduced more than 50 years ago. Leading the pack was Harry Styles’ “As It Was,” which topped the U.K. singles chart for 10 consecutive weeks (it also spent 15 weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100) and was streamed more than 180 million times in the country.
Joining Styles in the U.K. top 10 was Ed Sheeran, Cat Burns, Glass Animals, Lost Frequencies & Calum Scott, LF System, Sam Fender and Kate Bush, whose 1985 track “Running Up That Hill” spent three weeks at No. 1 following its high-profile Stranger Things synch; it was streamed 124 million times in her home country last year.
Styles also landed the year’s best-selling album with his third studio set, Harry’s House, making him the first artist to have both the United Kingdom’s top single and top album since Lewis Capaldi in 2019. Sheeran’s = (Equals) and Swift’s Midnights were the year’s second and third-best-selling albums.
LONDON — A proposed hike in U.S. visa fees, which could take effect as early as this November, would have a “deeply damaging” effect on touring artists from other countries by more than doubling their costs, says a leading British music industry trade group.
The proposal from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, announced in early January, would raise the rates for O and P visas for working entertainers in the U.S., including musicians playing festivals, concerts or label events.
U.K. Music, which represents the country’s recorded and live music industries, is protesting the fee hike, including a $600 “asylum program fee,” a new charge USCIS has proposed adding for U.S.-based employers, which the U.K. group says would raise total visa fees by more than four times their current levels. The trade group, which says the U.S. visa process is “already long, complex and prohibitively expensive” for many musicians, has asked British officials to lobby against the increases.
“The visa process for U.S. musicians entering the U.K. to work is far simpler and less costly,” the group says in a statement, “and we believe that this should be reciprocated by the U.S.”
Under USCIS’s proposed new rates, a concert promoter who employs an international musician qualifying for an “O” visa to tour the U.S. would pay $1,055, rather than the current fee of $460, an increase of 129% — or 260% with the proposed $600 asylum program fee. For the “P” visa classification for touring musicians, the U.S. employer’s fee would jump from $460 to $1,015, or 121% — plus the $600 fee, which would add up to a 251% spike.
A USCIS spokesperson tells Billboard the increases would not affect musicians themselves, but rather their U.S. employers, including promoters, club owners, labels or festival producers. International artists reps say employers are likely to pass these fee increases onto the artists — and possibly to consumers as higher-priced tickets —making it more challenging to tour crucial American concert venues.
“It leaves our artists in a state of paralysis,” says Courtney Askew-Conti of Verdigris Management, which represents U.K. bands Hot Chip and Jungle, adding that the fee increase “feels like the final nail in the coffin” after Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic.
The U.S. government is proposing the new fees to allow USCIS to “more fully recover operating costs for the first time in six years” and to “support the administration’s effort to rebuild the legal immigration system,” the agency’s director, Ur M. Jaddou, said in a January statement.
“For artists who are established, it’s an annoyance,” says Michael Lambert, whose management company A Modern Way represents Idlewild, We Were Promised Jetpacks and other Scottish bands. “There will be a lot of artists in that emerging to mid-level stage that just decide that they can’t afford to do it.”
While “some cases might be reasonable, this gigantic increase seems unreasonable,” says Rita Sostrin, a Los Angeles immigration lawyer who represents international artists trying to obtain O and P visas. “It’s just not the right way, to do this broad-brush increase for everyone.”
The USCIS rep stresses that the fee changes are not final, and the comment period is open through March 13. “If organizations have those concerns, that’s what they should be submitting,” the spokesperson says. “This is just a proposed rule.”
U.K. trade groups are particularly concerned about how the changes will affect artists during a period when gas prices, supply-chain issues and other lingering COVID-19 effects are making it challenging for club-and-theatre-level artists to tour international markets, including the U.S.
For U.K. artists, the U.S. is the second-largest touring market after Europe. Even before the proposed price hikes were announced, rising costs were already leading British artists to pull U.S. shows. In April, Mercury Prize-winning rapper Little Simz cancelled an 11-date U.S. tour, citing the financial unviability of the undertaking as an independent artist.
A survey conducted by two other U.K. trade bodies, Music Managers Forum (MMF) and the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC), found that 70% of their members believe the increased visa charges would mean they could no longer afford to tour the U.S.
Primary Talent International has announced a surprise decoupling with Creative Artists Agency, less than a year after CAA acquired the UK booking agency through a blockbuster $750 million purchase of its parent ICM Presents in June.
ICM Presents bought the 30-year old booking agency in March 2020, just days before international concert touring was suspended for more than a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That acquisition — in which Primary would retain its name and office — came just months after ICM Partners sold a minority stake in the agency to private equity firm Crestview Partners.
When ICM acquired Primary Talent, ICM CEO Chris Silbermann noted that the 32-year-old company, with clients including The 1975, The Cure, Lana Del Rey, Noel Gallagher, Jack Harlow, alt-J, Dropkick Murphys and Patti Smith, “greatly enhances our ability to serve our clients on a global scale, through added resources, support and even greater opportunities,” noting the agency’s reputation for being “fiercely independent, which we love about them.”
Silbermann added: “We are honored that they believed we were the right partners to help take their clients and their agency to the next levels of success, while retaining their brand and management identity and philosophy.”
Primary Talent asked for a split from CAA in order to “re-establish Primary’s independent status,” one source tells Billboard. Shortly after closing the ICM deal last year, CAA laid off 105 ICM Presents employees from different parts of the company.
An agreement to terminate the coupling was finalized earlier this year in a deal led by Primary Talent managing partner and CEO Matt Bates along with former ICM founding partner and COO Rick Levy. Veteran agent Ben Winchester will continue to serve as a board member along with Bates and Levy.
As part of the new management configuration, the agency has promoted Primary agents Laetitia Descouens, Sally Dunstone, Martje Kremers and Ed Sellers to partner status. They will be joined by veteran agent Simon Clarkson, who will be based in Los Angeles. The agency, which currently numbers 35 employees, expects to announce additional agents to their growing ranks in the coming weeks.
“The pandemic changed the landscape of the music touring business, and we felt it was beneficial to return to our roots as the UK’s largest independent music talent agency,” said Bates. “Adding to the strength and experience of the original Primary agent team, we are excited to bring aboard the next generation of talented agents to join as founding partners. In this new incarnation, Primary will be even better positioned to support the evolving careers of our artists and guide them wherever needed.”
LONDON — Security services could have prevented a suicide bomber from killing 22 people in a terror attack outside an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena in 2017 if they had acted swiftly on key intelligence, a public inquiry has found.
The chair of the inquiry, John Saunders, says there was a “realistic possibility” that the bomber could have been stopped from carrying out the atrocity if British security service MI5 had acted decisively upon on two pieces of intelligence that they received in the months leading up to the attack. The significance of that intelligence, Saunders notes, “was not fully appreciated at the time.”
A 207-page report, published Thursday (March 2), details the radicalization of bomber Salman Abedi but does not disclose details of either piece of intelligence, citing national security reasons. It does, however, state that neither piece of intelligence was shared by MI5 with counter-terror police — a failing that Saunders calls “a further example of a communication breakdown” between security agencies.
The inquiry found that an MI5 officer, identified as Witness C, failed to write a report on the second piece of intelligence on the same day MI5 assessed it and did not discuss it with colleagues. That delay “led to the missing of an opportunity to take a potentially important investigative action.”
Abedi flew from Libya to Manchester on May 18 — four days before he detonated a homemade explosive device in the foyer of Manchester Arena (now known as the AO Arena) at the end of Grande’s sold-out show. Twenty-two people died in the terror attack, the youngest aged 8 years old. Hundreds of people were injured, many of them children.
The report contends that had MI5 taken the intelligence more seriously Abedi could have been stopped at Manchester Airport upon his return from Libya and followed to his car where he had stored his explosives.
In a press conference in Manchester on Thursday, Saunders said the “failure by the security service to act swiftly enough” had contributed to a “significant missed opportunity to take action that might have prevented the attack.”
The inquiry chair went on to say that while “it is not possible to reach any conclusion on the balance of probability” as to whether the bombing would have been prevented, he believed “there was a realistic possibility that actionable intelligence could have been obtained which might have led to actions preventing the attack.”
The report also found that Abedi’s family held “significant responsibility” for the radicalization of both him and his brother, Hashem Abedi, who was sentenced in the U.K. in 2020 to a minimum of 55 years for his role in the murders.
Thursday’s report is the third and final set of findings to come out of the public inquiry into the terror attack. The U.K. Home Secretary launched the inquiry in October 2019 with its first hearings taking place in Manchester in September 2020. In total, more than 250 witnesses gave 194 days of oral evidence, although much of the evidence from MI5 and counter-terror police officers was heard in secret.
The inquiry’s two previous reports have focused on how emergency services responded to the attack and whether police and concert security should have done more to prevent the bombing.
Families of the victims called the failures exposed in Thursday’s report “unacceptable” and a “devastating conclusion” to the inquiry. “Those killed and injured in this murderous attack had every right to feel safe and protected, but as this inquiry has demonstrated, they were failed at every level — before, during and after this horrific attack,” said Richard Scorer, principal lawyer at Slater and Gordon, reading out a statement on behalf of 11 of the victims’ families.
Andrew Roussos, the father of 8-year-old Saffie-Rose Roussos, who was one of the 22 victims, said the security services’ actions amounted to a “cataclysmic failure.”
“The fact that MI5 failed to stop [Salman Abedi] despite all of the red flags available demonstrates they are not fit to keep us safe and therefore not fit for purpose,” said Roussos.
Following the report’s publication, MI5’s director general, Ken McCallum, said he was “profoundly sorry” that the security service did not prevent the attack. “Gathering covert intelligence is difficult,” McCallum said in a statement, “but had we managed to seize the slim chance we had, those impacted might not have experienced such appalling loss and trauma.”
U.K. labels trade body BPI has appointed Jo Twist as its new chief executive, replacing Geoff Taylor who exited the London-based organization in December after more than 15 years at the helm.
Twist has been CEO of Ukie, the U.K. trade body for the games and interactive entertainment industry, since 2012 and was awarded an OBE (Order of the British Empire) for services to the creative industries in 2016. BPI’s chief strategy officer, Sophie Jones, will continue as interim chief executive until Twist takes up her role in July.
The labels trade body celebrates its 50th anniversary this year and represents the U.K. arms of all three major labels, as well as more than 500 British independents. BPI says its total membership accounts for approximately 85% of legal music sales in the United Kingdom and around one in 10 streams globally.
Last year, a record 159 billion music tracks were streamed in the U.K., up 8.2% on 2021, and the equivalent of 166 million albums were streamed or purchased across digital and physical formats, up 4.3% on the previous 12 months, according to BPI figures.
The U.K. is the world’s third biggest recorded music market behind the U.S. and Japan with sales of just over $1.8 billion in trade value, according to IFPI’s 2022 Global Music Report.
In a statement announcing her appointment, Twist said she was looking forward to supporting BPI label members and the wider music community “in fully realizing the value of music – growing the market, boosting exports and ensuring the recognition and backing the industry deserves.”
“The industry’s talent, so passionately nurtured by innovative major and independent record labels, is world leading, and the BPI plays an important role in creating an environment where labels and their artists can thrive,” said Twist, who sits on a number of industry and charity boards, including the Creative Industries Council.
Prior to joining Ukie, Twist held senior roles at the BBC and commercial U.K. television station Channel 4 and was awarded a doctorate by Newcastle University in 2001. BPI chair Yolanda Brown said the incoming chief executive’s “fresh perspective” and “rich breadth of experience” across the creative industries will prove invaluable to the organization’s members “as we navigate great changes in our industry.”
Among Twist’s duties as head of BPI is overseeing the BRIT Awards, the U.K.’s biggest annual music awards show, and the Mercury Prize, its independent-leaning sister event, recognizing what judges determine to be the 12 best albums of the year by U.K. and Irish artists.
BPI also runs a number of international trade functions, including its annual LA Sync Mission event, and administers the Music Export Growth Scheme (MEGS), which awards U.K.-based indie artists and labels grants of between 5,000 pounds ($6,000) and 50,000 pounds ($60,000) to help them break international markets.
In 2021, more than 60 U.K. artists whose music was streamed at least 20 million times worldwide received funding from the scheme, including Bicep, Beabadoobee, Wolf Alice and Rina Sawayama.
LONDON — The 2023 Brit Awards drew its biggest television audience in three years with 3.9 million viewers watching the show on Saturday Feb. 11, a rise of more than 1 million on the previous year, according to U.K. broadcaster ITV.
The 43rd edition of the Brits, the U.K.’s biggest music awards show, featured live performances from Harry Styles, Stormzy and Sam Smith & Kim Petras, among others, and was staged on a Saturday night for the first time in the Brits’ history.
The move from the Brits’ traditional mid-week slot to the weekend had the positive impact organizers were hoping for with the show — hosted by Mo Gilligan and broadcast live from London’s The O2 arena — drawing an average audience of 3.3 million viewers over its two-hour running time, peaking at 3.9 million. ITV says another 780,000 people watched the show via its on-demand streaming app ITVx.
In comparison, last year’s ceremony was watched by 2.7 million television viewers in the U.K., down from 2.9 million in 2021 — the Brits’ lowest-ever TV audience, according to industry publication Broadcast.
Despite this year’s ratings upturn, Saturday’s show is still the Brits’ third-smallest TV audience, failing to surpass the 4.4 million viewers that watched in 2020, and some distance behind the ceremony’s peak popularity at the turn of the millennium when around 9 million people would regularly tune in.
There are, nevertheless, positives that labels trade body BPI, which organizes the Brits, can take away from this year’s event. Saturday’s broadcast – where Styles enjoyed a clean sweep, winning all four awards for which he was nominated – attracted a 53% audience share of 16-34 year-olds, up from last year’s 33% share, according to ITV.
Music performances and show highlights streamed on the Brit Awards 2023 official YouTube channel have additionally generated around 3 million views in total in the 24 hours after the event, according to Billboard’s calculations.
The Brit Awards’ other digital partners include Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube Kids, Vevo and fan engagement platform Filmily, while Saturday’s show was live-streamed internationally on YouTube. BPI is due to release its digital audience figures later this week.
LONDON —Throughout its five-decade history, the Brit Awards, the U.K.’s biggest music awards show, have produced many headline-grabbing moments — from Pulp singer Jarvis Cocker wiggling his butt at Michael Jackson in 1996 to Adele flipping the bird at TV executives for cutting off her acceptance speech in 2012 — and featured unforgettable performances from Amy Winehouse, Stormzy, Dave, Kanye West and the Spice Girls.
But like other entertainment awards shows, such as the Grammys and Academy Awards, the Brits are being forced to radically reinvent themselves to combat falling TV ratings and retain relevance with young music fans. Last year’s ceremony was watched by 2.7 million television viewers in the U.K., down from 2.9 million in 2021 — the Brit’s lowest-ever TV audience, according to industry publication Broadcast.
To try to arrest that slide, this year’s show at London’s O2 Arena takes place on a Saturday night for the first time in the Brit Awards’ 46-year history.
Organizers are hoping the move will breathe new life into the iconic ceremony, which this year has weathered controversy over a lack of female nominees; it will feature performances by Lizzo, Harry Styles, Lewis Capaldi, Stormzy, Sam Smith and Kim Petras.
“There’s been a desire [within the industry] for the Brits to be on a Saturday night for some time,” says Sophie Jones, chief strategy officer and interim CEO of labels body BPI, which runs the Brit Awards. “This year the pieces of the jigsaw fell into place, and it feels like a very exciting premium place for us to be.”
As in previous years, the two-hour show will be broadcast live on ITV in the U.K. The U.K. version of The Masked Singer, which is broadcast in the slot that precedes this year’s Brit Awards show, attracted 6.3 million viewers to last year’s season finale, according to ITV.
Outside the U.K., the 43rd edition of the show (The first ceremony took place in 1977, though the Brit Awards didn’t become an annual event until 1982) will be livestreamed internationally on YouTube for the 10th consecutive year, while a 60-minute red carpet show hosted by Nella Rose and Michelle Visage will be streamed on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. The Brit Awards’ other digital partners include TikTok, YouTube Kids, Vevo and fan engagement platform Filmily.
Social media and digital platforms have enabled the Brit Awards to reach a far larger and younger global audience than it has ever reached on terrestrial television, says Jones. She points to 44 million views on the Brit Awards’ official YouTube channel for 2022’s performances and highlights, with more than 1 million people watching the accompanying red carpet show — marking a 25% jump from the previous year. Last year also saw 1.6 million visitors to BRITs World on Roblox.
The show’s continued importance to the U.K. record industry is illustrated by the spike in sales that winning acts and performers often experience. In the four days following 2022’s event, audio streams of songs performed on the night collectively increased 55% with 3.3 million additional streams, according to BPI data tracking. The highest uplift was for Ed Sheeran’s “The Joker and the Queen,” which saw a 699% increase in post-show streams.
“The shared experience moments that awards shows create are really special and the Brits still does that,” says Jones. “It’s a really important calling card for how much talent there is in the U.K.”
Lack Of Female Artists Sparks Backlash
In addition to battling falling TV viewership, the Brit Awards have increasingly found themselves caught up in controversies of their own making. This year’s nominations provoked a fierce backlash from artists and fans when they were announced on Jan. 12 because no female artists were named in the gender-neutral best artist category.
BPI says the lack of female nominations is a result of the strict eligibility criteria and relative shortage of high-profile British female stars putting out new music in 2022. The Brit Awards scrapped best male and best female awards last year in favor of gender-neutral prizes.
To be eligible for the best artist prize, an artist must have achieved at least one top 40 album or two top 20 singles in the U.K. over a 12-month period. Out of the 71 U.K. stars eligible for the award, only 12 were women — a list that includes Charli XCX and Florence + the Machine.
From that 71, a panel of around 1,200 voters — made up of artists, industry executives, journalists and retailers — pick their top five in order of preference. This year’s five nominees are Harry Styles, George Ezra, Stormzy, Central Cee and Fred Again.
“Clearly, it’s disappointing not to see any women nominated in the new gender-neutral category [but] it’s important we recognize the process by which those decisions are made,” Jones tells Billboard. She says that compared to 2022, when Adele won best artist and women or female-fronted acts won 10 out of 15 awards, the past 12 months have “seen fewer high-profile female artists within the release cycle and that has played itself through in the qualification list.”
In the wake of this year’s backlash, Jones says BPI will conduct a post-show review of its nominations criteria, eligibility thresholds and voting processes “looking at different potential approaches… to make sure that the awards are fully representative and celebrate success.” She says there are no plans to return to male and female categories for the best artist award but adds that nothing is “off the table.”
“Everything is in the mix, and it would be right and proper of us to think about this from all angles and make sure that we are making the right decision, whatever that might be,” says Jones.
Despite the all-male best artist list, organizers point to the high number of female artists in the running for other prizes on Saturday night. They include alternative rock band Wet Leg, who received four nominations; Beyoncé and Taylor Swift, both nominated in the international artist and international song categories; and Nova Twins, who are competing against Arctic Monkeys, The 1975, Bad Boy Chiller Crew and Wet Leg for best group. In total, 42% of this year’s nominations went to female artists or female-fronted bands, compared to 46% last year, says BPI.
The London-based organization previously became embroiled in controversy in 2016 when no Black artists were nominated in any major categories, provoking the viral hashtag #BritsSoWhite. Since then, BPI says there have been widespread changes to its voting academy, which this year was made up of 52% women and 31% from Black, Asian or minority ethnic backgrounds.
A nine-person Brits Committee — made up of two-thirds women, highlights BPI — oversees the Brit Awards. This year, Damian Christian, managing director of Atlantic Records U.K., makes his bow as committee chair, replacing Polydor’s Tom March who held the role in 2022. (Each of the three major labels takes turns leading the committee, rotating every three years.)
Those structural reforms have helped make the event far more representative of the U.K. music scene, say organizers, with recent editions seeing hip-hop stars Stormzy, Dave and Little Simz take home major prizes and deliver some of the event’s most-talked-about live performances.
LONDON — Madison Square Garden’s plan for a “next generation” 21,500-capacity concert venue in London won another key endorsement this week when a planning committee approved the development, despite strong objections from residents and rival live events company AEG.
On Tuesday, the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) granted MSG a 25-year advertising license subject to a five-year review. Now, London Mayor Sadiq Khan needs to approve the project — called MSG Sphere London — before work can begin. In rare instances, government ministers can also intervene and suspend planning applications.
New York-based Madison Square Garden Entertainment (MSG) first submitted plans for the venue in March of 2019. Since then, the company has encountered sustained opposition from councilors and residents who are concerned it will blight the area with noise and light pollution.
MSG is proposing to build the arena on a five-acre plot of land in Stratford, East London, adjacent to the Olympic Park and would be located just five miles away from the 20,000-capacity The O2 arena, the U.K.’s top grossing venue, which is operated by AEG.
The MSG Sphere in Las Vegas, under construction.
Courtesy Photo
The design of the MSG Sphere London mirrors the spherical crystal ball design of the MSG Sphere at The Venetian in Las Vegas — due to open later this year at a cost of $1.8 billion — and measures 90 meters (295 feet) tall by 120 meters (394 feet) wide. Its exterior will be covered in a programmable skin of more than one million LED lights, which will primarily be used for showing videos and advertising.
The LLDC had provisionally approved the venue last March, but the committee still needed to sign off on several aspects of the planning process, including MSG’s strategy for managing the Sphere’s controversial advertising display.
The proposed arena still doesn’t have a price tag, and MSG said in its most-recent quarterly earnings, filed in November, that there is no “definitive timeline” for its construction.
Opponents of the venue are calling on Khan to block the development. AEG says it was “dismayed” by the committee’s decision to give MSG Sphere London the go ahead.
“We call on the Mayor of London to uphold his election promise to do what’s best for Londoners, including the residents of [the London Borough of] Newham who are having this huge development forced on them, by directing refusal of the planning application,” AEG says in a statement.
AEG says MSG Sphere London’s LED illuminated exterior “was conceived for the heart of Las Vegas” and is “at a wholly unprecedented scale for London and totally out of keeping with the surrounding area.”
Campaign group StopMSGSphere, who spoke at Tuesday’s meeting, and several local councilors have urged the Khan to quash the development, which would be MSG’s first venue outside of the United States.
Following the ruling, a spokesperson for MSG — whose portfolio includes New York’s Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall and the Forum in California — said the company ”remains committed to bringing MSG Sphere to London” and promised the venue would create “thousands of jobs and [generate] billions of pounds for the local, London and U.K. economy.”
MSG says it will provide blackout blinds to homes located within 150 meters (492 feet) of the new London arena and will run a telephone line for residents to register any complaints.
Should it get the go ahead, MSG Sphere London will be one of the U.K.’s biggest indoor concert venues with a scalable capacity of up to 17,500 seated, or 21,500 with a mixture of seated and standing. That exceeds the U.K.’s two biggest existing arenas, London’s The O2, which has a maximum capacity of 20,000, and Manchester’s AO Arena, which holds up to 21,000 people.
Construction is currently underway in Manchester on what will be the U.K.’s biggest indoor music venue, the 23,500-capacity Co-op Live being developed by the Oak View Group, which counts Harry Styles as an investor. It is set to open in December.
LONDON — A U.K. Parliament committee is calling on the British government to address the “pitiful” returns that many artists and creators earn from music streaming and says it should develop and implement a “wide-ranging national strategy for music.”
A report from The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee published Friday (Jan. 13) urges the government to take a “more proactive strategic role” in the music industry to help ensure creators and performers receive a greater share of streaming revenue.
The report doesn’t go into detail about what form an overarching national music strategy would take. But it nevertheless recommends it be developed and overseen by the DCMS and looks at the impact of new digital technologies on musicians, songwriters and composers, as well as the U.K. industry’s potential for growth.
Taking such an approach could help address many of the issues caused by the government’s current approach to policymaking for the music business, which sees policy and trade negotiations handled by multiple different government departments and, says the report, is “too scatter-gun to be effective.”
The DCMS Committee’s recommendations come 18 months after it published a damning report in July 2021 on the economics of music streaming that called into question the major record labels’ dominance of the industry — and how they leverage that market power at the expense of artists, songwriters and independents. It concluded by saying that the global streaming model is unsustainable in its current form and “needs a complete reset.”
In response to that report, the U.K. competition regulator carried out a market study review of the record business. It ended in November with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) surmising that low returns from streaming “are not the result of ineffective competition” between the three major labels — Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group.
The British government has also set up a number of working groups — led by the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) and made up of industry stakeholders — to look at issues raised in the Parliament probe, including problems around transparency and metadata.
Reviewing the progress that has been made since July 2021, the DCMS committee commended the government and IPO for the work and research it has undertaken but said that more still needs to be done on core issues, such as creators’ share of streaming royalties.
In particular, the committee recommends the IPO establish working groups to look specifically at remuneration and performer rights, with greater involvement from government officials and ministers. It also says there needs to be greater transparency around membership of the working groups, agendas and deadlines, none of which are currently made publicly available.
“Over the last 18 months the Government has made some welcome moves towards restoring a proper balance in the music industry, but there is still much more to do to ensure the talent behind the music is properly rewarded,” Damian Green MP, acting chair of the DCMS Committee, said in a statement.
Green says too many musicians and songwriters are frustrated at receiving “pitiful returns” from streaming and says the government “now needs to make sure it follows through on the work done so far to fix the fundamental flaws in the market.”
The committee has also requested that the three major labels provide it with evidence of the royalties they have distributed to legacy artists under the various unrecouped advances programs introduced over the past two years.
Sony Music Group was the first to announce, in June 2021, that it would start paying royalties to artists with unrecouped advances from pre-2000 record deals. Warner Music Group followed in February 2022 and Universal Music Group in March 2022.
A spokesperson for the DCMS committee says that while it has no formal powers to compel businesses to provide them with information, businesses are expected to comply with the request. The government now has two months to respond to the committee’s recommendations and outline any actions it will be taking. (The DCMS committee, which is made up of 11 members of Parliament, is responsible for monitoring the policies and practices of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and its associated bodies, including the BBC.)
Responding to Friday’s report, David Martin, CEO of the Featured Artists Coalition, and Annabella Coldrick, chief executive of the Music Managers Forum, said they “wholeheartedly” welcomed Parliamentary support for improved remuneration and contractual rights.
“Our organizations are in complete alignment with other creator bodies on the need for greater fairness, transparency and remuneration.” Martin and Coldrick said in a joint statement. “These issues are not going away, and neither are we.”
A spokesperson for U.K. labels trade body BPI thanked the committee for highlighting “the positive steps that the industry has taken” since its original 2021 report but cautioned against any calls for sweeping government reforms.
“At a time when the global music market is more competitive than ever,” the spokesperson says, “public policies must be firmly rooted in driving sustainable growth across the entire U.K. music ecosystem.”