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Verve Label Group, the jazz and classical specialists at Universal Music, has promoted Jamie Krents to CEO and president, and Dawn Olejar to chief operating officer, effective immediately. They will now lead the strategy for the entire group, comprised of storied labels like Verve Records, Impulse! Records and Decca Records US, along with international label partners Decca Classics, Deutsche Grammophon and others.
They’ll continue to report to Krents’ predecessor in the top job at VLG, Dickon Stainer, who was recently elevated to chairman and CEO of Universal Music UK and is keeping his title of chairman of Verve. Both Krents and Olejar are based out of the label group’s New York City offices.
Stainer congratulated Krents and Olejar on their promotions, highlighting Krents’ “long-standing reputation and commitment to nurturing and breaking artists globally,” and Olejar’s strategic leadership. He expressed confidence in their ability to lead VLG’s roster of legendary labels into the future.
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Krents started at Verve in 1998 as a temp and worked his way up to become executive vp in 2019 and later president of the group in 2022. He was crucial in finding and acquiring the tapes for the John Coltrane album Both Directions at Once and has been instrumental in expanding Verve’s artist roster beyond jazz, signing talents like Jon Batiste, Kurt Vile, Arooj Aftab, Joy Oladokun, Shabaka Hutchings and Samara Joy.
“For someone who grew up literally treasuring and studying Verve, Impulse! and Decca recordings, this appointment is beyond thrilling,” said Krents. “Getting to work with artists of the caliber that we have on the Verve Label Group roster is such an honor and it’s particularly exciting to get to take on this role alongside Dawn and the rest of the Verve Label Group team.”
Olejar, who has served as executive vp at VLG for the last seven years and added general manager duties two years ago, has played a key role in cementing Decca Records US as the leading label on the Billboard Classical Chart, and in recent years has led high-profile domestic campaigns for Verve artists including Andrea Bocelli, Ludovico Einaudi, Diana Ross, Lang Lang and Chad Lawson, among others. In this new role as COO, Olejar will have the continued responsibility of overseeing the team at Verve Label Group. Prior to joining Verve, she was general manager at RPM Music Productions.
“I’m thrilled to continue working with Jamie and our amazing team to build upon the great work that we’ve been doing at VLG,” Olejar said. “A very big thank you to Dickon for his endless guidance and support. We work with the most talented artists in the world and I’m excited for what’s next.”
Narcís Rebollo has been appointed CEO and president of Global Talent Services, Universal Music Group’s full-service company for Latin artists spanning management, booking, live events, promotion and brand partnerships.
In line with Rebollo’s appointment, which was announced by Universal Music on Tuesday (Oct. 1) and is effective immediately, Global Talent Services (GTS) becomes a standalone company, with its management and operation now handled independently from UMG’s local music labels.
In the newly created role of GTS CEO and president, Rebollo — who is based in Madrid — will oversee the company’s operations in the U.S., Latin America, Spain and Portugal, reporting to Jesús López, chairman and CEO of Universal Music Latin America and Iberian Peninsula. Further details of leadership appointments within Universal Music Iberian Peninsula will follow shortly, said UMG in a statement announcing the structural changes.
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Launched in 2007, Global Talent Services provides a full suite of artist services for Latin artists and operates offices in eight countries, including the U.S., Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Mexico and Columbia.
Artists signed to GTS’ management roster in Spain include Antonio José, Salma, Natalia Lacunza and Mala Rodriguez with the company’s live events team booking over 500 shows in the country last year, according to Universal Music.
Other markets where UMG says Global Talent Services is experiencing solid growth include Mexico, where it booked 175 shows for 25 artists in 2023; and Brazil, where the company has had strong success as a booking agency and managing partner for artists projects by Maneva, Leo Santana, Atitude 67, Felipe Araújo and Paula Fernandes.
One of GTS’s biggest campaigns to date has been establishing Colombian band Morat as one of the leading Spanish-speaking pop-rock acts in the world with its “Si Ayer Fuera Hoy” 2023-2024 global tour — which included a sold-out show at New York City’s Madison Square Garden Theater in January — selling more than one million tickets across 125 concerts and over 15 countries, according to the company. GTS also operates the multi-date Universal Music Festival, which takes place every year in the Spanish capital city of Madrid.
Prior to today’s appointment, Rebollo served as president of Universal Music Iberian Peninsula since 2015, where he was responsible for UMG’s recorded music and GTS operations in Spain and Portugal. Under his leadership, the company grew its operations to include concert booking and promotion, festivals, touring and live events with GTS clients including Latin artists David Bisbal, David Bustamante, Pablo López, Lola Indigo, Aitana and Camila Fernández.
Before joining Universal, Rebollo held senior roles at Spanish independent music company Divucsa, BMG, electronic dance music label Max Music and Spain’s biggest independent label, Vale Music, which Universal acquired in 2006.
“Narcís is one of the most experienced executives in Latin music,” said Jesús López in a statement. “His vision of the evolution of the business and the expansion of Latin music around the world in recent years, has led him to create a very successful team in Spain and Portugal in the areas of management, booking, promotion and brands.”
López went on to say that GTS was born “with the purpose of being a full-service agency for artists, and the time has come for it to become an independent business unit within UMG.” Rebollo, added López, is the “perfect leader” to lead the growth of GTS globally.
“Today more than ever, our artists need strategic support from a company that is both fully focused on management, but with the ability to deliver global services and support,” said Rebollo in a statement. “With the explosion of interest and influence of live music, and music driving social engagement and conversation more than ever, I strongly believe that GTS is perfectly positioned to provide the best support for Latin artists around the world.”
Universal Music Group hit enough right notes during its first Capital Markets Day (CMD) presentation since before going public in 2021, judging from Billboard’s review of a handful of equity analysts’ comments on Tuesday’s event.
Reviews of the presentation from London’s Abbey Road Studio, which featured talks by CEO Lucian Grainge and other top executives, varied from zealous to merely positive. JP Morgan analysts called UMG’s presentation “one of the best capital markets days we have attended in the past 30 years, and it further increased our already high conviction in the UMG story.” Barclays analysts didn’t believe there was enough new information to change investors’ minds about the company. Still, they wrote, “We viewed UMG’s arguments as convincing and their financial targets as achievable.”
As for the targets, UMG said revenue will grow at more than a 7% cumulative annual growth rate (CAGR) through 2028 — not including the impact of any mergers and acquisitions. As JP Morgan noted, UMG stuck with the “high single digit growth” it gave in its last CMD presentation before going public in September 2021. In other words, UMG believes it can achieve the same high single-digit growth rate that initially lured streaming-hungry investors when the company broke off from Vivendi three years ago. Had UMG downgraded to a lower revenue CAGR — say, in the mid-single digits — the post-presentation commentary wouldn’t have been as kind.
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Subscription music streaming’s role is so vital to UMG’s future that it crafted a narrative to explain how it can achieve CAGR of 8% to 10% in subscription revenue. It’s called Streaming 2.0 and it took center stage in the CMD presentation. In the initial Streaming 1.0 phase, services such as Spotify and Apple Music kept prices steady while prioritizing acquiring subscribers over maximizing revenue per user (ARPU). They paid the same royalty regardless of creator and quality of music. They built global presences but got most of their revenue from a relatively small number of Western markets.
Streaming 2.0 is about monetization and getting more from existing subscribers while signing up customers in developing markets. Not every stream will be worth the same and generic “functional music” will get paid less. Streaming platforms will use customer segmentation to offer premium experiences for customers willing to pay more. To that end, CFO Boyd Muir revealed that UMG is in “advanced talks” with Spotify about its planned “superfan” tier, which Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has said could be priced at $17 or $18 per month. Tencent Music Entertainment already offers such a product, Super VIP, that costs five times as much as a normal subscription.
With streaming growth slowing, it was important for UMG to prove it has a plan for the future of streaming. After all, subscription growth has an outsized impact on investors’ outlook. In July, UMG’s stock dropped 24% in a single day after UMG’s second-quarter earnings revealed a sudden, sharper-than-expected slowdown in streaming revenue. Streaming 2.0 neatly packages UMG’s various tactics into a simple, understandable concept.
UMG also leaned heavily into direct-to-consumer (D2C) sales of merch, vinyl and other items, and Muir gave a new data point: the company’s D2C sales are growing at a 33% CAGR and totaled 548 million euros ($612 million), or roughly 5% of total revenue, from about 1,300 online stores. That gives UMG a massive amount of data on its artists’ biggest fans. “The superfan/D2C opportunity is not just a complementary high growth revenue opportunity,” Muir said. “It’s also an important competitive advantage that is increasing our appeal to artists and giving us the capability to do more for them than our competitors.”
The music business has changed dramatically since UMG’s last CMD presentation in 2021. TikTok became the de facto way to break new artists. Vinyl sales exploded. Labels got better at selling directly to fans. Subscription services finally raised their prices. Artificial intelligence quickly became both public enemy No. 1 and the next big opportunity. Companies made a staggering number of investments in developing markets.
UMG’s task was to show it had a believable vision for the future. Given everything the company laid out, Grainge was able to do that when he told investors that “we are nowhere close to achieving the full potential of our business.”
Investors will want to see results first, though. In a week when stock markets rallied after the U.S. Federal Reserve chopped interest rates, UMG’s share price dropped 3.6%.
Universal Music Group opened up about how the company plans to keep growing in amid an evolving streaming landscape on Tuesday at the company’s capital markets day. Held in the storied Abbey Road studios in London, UMG’s c-suite and various executives from Republic, Interscope, Virgin Music Group and more described how they build a world around superstars like Taylor Swift, The Weeknd and Olivia Rodrigo, and how they’ve launched new acts like the Afrobeats star Rema.
The crowd of mostly financial industry analysts and investors also got an overview of the collectibles UMG hopes superfans will open their wallets for, its talks with Spotify about higher-priced premium subscription plans, and it’s new strategy to keep streaming revenues growing by an 8-10% compound average growth rate until fiscal year 2028.
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Streaming 2.0
Despite industry reports that new streaming subscribers are hard to find in developed markets and that streaming growth rates in smaller music markets like Brazil, Italy and Germany are besting major markets like the U.S., UMG Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Lucian Grainge gave an overview of UMG’s new strategy — dubbed Streaming 2.0 — to get more revenue out of streaming.
“The addressable market — in both established markets and fast-growing high potential music markets — is massive,” Grainge said, referring to streaming subscriptions. “We expect more than a billion subscribers by the end of the decade, and we constantly ask ourselves, ‘How long could it take us to get to 2 billion?’”
“While streaming has delivered robust growth to UMG for over a decade, Streaming 2.0 will deliver a new age of innovation, consumer segmentation, geographic expansion and greater value through both subscriber and [average revenue per user] growth,” Grainge said.
The strategy relies in part on increasing the number of streaming subscriptions in developing markets where UMG says subscribers meaningfully contribute to monthly trade average revenue per user. Less than half of people in established markets have streaming subscriptions, with less than 25% of the population in Japan holding subscriptions, UMG chief financial officer Boyd Muir said.
UMG said it also expects a new wave of subscribers in these markets to come from a second cohort of older listeners starting up subscriptions and younger, digitally native music fans getting older and spending more on their streaming subscriptions. They also expect to target audiobook listeners and satellite radio subscribers for music streaming subscriptions.
Super premium streaming subscriptions
UMG’s Streaming 2.0 strategy also relies on innovation in streaming, possibly like the development of high definition streaming plans like the one Spotify‘sDanielEk hinted in June is on the horizon. Ek said that “delux” subscription could cost around $17-$18 per month for a single account.
UMG is in advanced talks to partner with Spotify on the development of that higher-priced subscription plan, Muir said Tuesday. During his presentation, UMG chief digital officer Michael Nash compared it to “another exciting” example of higher priced subscription plans — Tencent Music Entertainment’s super VIP tier, which costs five times as much as the standard tier.
Muir said “a double digit percentage” of TME’s subscriber base signed up for the super VIP plan. UMG’s own research tells it that 23% of current streaming subscribers would pay more for a “better music experience.”
Monetizing superfans
UMG execs spoke admiringly of the good old days when superfans lined up outside stores to spend gobs of money on Michael Jackson and Shania Twain CDs. The reason why? Devotees of artists in prior decades spent more per capita on music, merchandise, concert tickets and collectibles than streaming-era fans.
“Superfans, the most avid 20-30% of all music listeners, once drove over 70% of recorded music spending,” Muir said. “Streaming monetizes them, but not nearly as well in the past. This is an enormous opportunity. We are seeing dramatic growth in revenues that are complimentary to spending.”
He was referring to premium music — vinyl, collectible CDs and cassettes — and merchandise collectibles. UMG has seen its revenues from products sold directly to consumers through some 1,300 odd online stores grow at a 33% compound annual growth rate in recent years.
When something like a $55-Olivia Rodrigo Stanley Cup gets sold, UMG collects as much information as it can, and the purchaser becomes one of the 100 million fans in what Muir referred to as “our owned audience.”
Universal Music Group is revving up its Use Your Voice voter education campaign to mobilize eligible voters ahead of election day on Nov. 5. This year’s efforts range from a digital content series outlining important issues, an outreach program targeting HBCU’s and a get-out-the-vote initiative aimed at driving voting registration — and then ensuring people can get to the polls.
Use Your Voice, which launched its first campaign in 2020, is supported by three UMG entities: All Together Now Foundation, the Task Force for Meaningful Change and °1824, the company’s creative marketing division. For this election season, UYV will provide information and resources to help power the work of partners including the ACLU, BallotReady, HeadCount, the NAACP, National Coalition of Black Civic Participation, the National Council for Negro Women (NCNW), the Voto Latino Foundation, When We All Vote and Xceleader.
Susan Mazo, evp and chief impact officer of UMG, said that “since we started the program in 2020, it has helped tens of thousands of voters get to the polls and vote with confidence. This year, it will do so again through the work of our colleagues, our passionate artists, songwriters and labels, and our incredible voter resource partner organizations.”
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One such partner, HeadCount, will work alongside UMG for Use Your Voice and Vote About It, a short-form digital content series taking a much-need look at issues that voters may see on their local ballots. The initiative includes a voter hub with information, resources and digital tools, plus there’s a corresponding tote bag sold by Social Goods benefiting HeadCount. UMG is also supporting HeadCount’s Vote HBCU ‘Say It Louder’ Tour of 10 campuses with the goal of registering more than 10,000 students to vote. The program, built in partnership with Xceleader, and will collaborate with UMG to amplify messaging around National Voter Registration Day, coming up on Sept 17.
This year, HeadCount has also partnered with artists from UMG’s labels including AJR, Ariana Grande, Barenaked Ladies, Billie Eilish, Clairo, Chappell Roan, Chelsea Cutler, Em Beihold, Glass Animals, Gracie Abrams, Hootie & the Blowfish, Maggie Rogers, Mt. Joy, Noah Kahan, Olivia Rodrigo, Rapsody and Remi Wolf, among others.
“As we head into this pivotal election, our partnership with Universal Music Group through the ‘Use Your Voice’ campaign is about more than just registering voters,” said HeadCount executive director Lucille Wenegieme. “Together, we’re making sure that every voice is not just heard, but impossible to ignore. At HeadCount, we partner with organizations that see the value of a multi-pronged approach to civic engagement to ensure we are reaching as many voters as possible – this is no different. We are so grateful for UMG’s strategic support during this election cycle. Together, we’re inspiring a new generation to actively participate in shaping their future.”
Additionally, UMG’s °1824 is producing a digital content series called By the Numbers targeting young people and possible first-time voters to check their registration status and inform them on their potential impact on election results. BallotReady and UYV are also jamming on a series of co-branded assets urging users to make a fully-informed voting plan.
UMG’s Task Force for Meaningful Change unveiled its Pull Up to the Polls initiative providing resources including a plan to provide 15,000 ride share codes to voters through NAACP, NCNW and When We All Vote. TFMC is also working with Voto Latino Foundation with the goal of registering over 7,200 eligible voters, and will work with Black Voters Matter, the National Coalition of Black Civic Engagement/Black Women’s Roundtable and others to mobilize and educate voters ahead of Nov. 5.
“The NAACP is proud to work with UMG in ensuring that democracy works, for everybody. Black voices matter, and we know that when our communities Pull up to the Polls, we’re heard,” said Dominik Whitehead, NAACP svp of campaigns and mobilization. “That’s why partnerships like these are so important in bringing the resources and tools necessary to ensure that every vote is counted, and every voice is heard. Let’s make this an election to remember!”
A federal judge says Universal Music Group and Playboi Carti didn’t abuse the Digital Millennium Copyright Act when they issued a takedown notice – erroneously, it turns out – against another rapper’s song that used the same beat.
A rapper named G-Baby (Jordan White) sued the label and artist last year after they red-flagged his song “Oi!” for using the same underlying beat as Carti’s “Right Now.” The takedown turned out to be wrong — G-Baby had legally licensed the same beat that Carti had, and he had actually released his song first.
The lawsuit claimed that the move violated the DMCA’s safeguards against improper takedowns, but a judge dismissed those claims Tuesday – citing previous decisions that such restrictions only prohibit intentionally false use of the takedown system.
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“Because the DMCA requires only a good faith belief that material is infringing, a copyright holder is not liable for misrepresentation under the DMCA if they subjectively believe the identified material infringes their copyright, even if that belief is ultimately mistaken,” Judge Analisa Torres wrote.
In G-Baby’s case, the judge noted that he had effectively conceded that the UMG employee who flagged “Oi!” as a copyright infringement did not know that the rapper had properly licensed the beat: “This admission alone dooms White’s claim against UMG,” Torres wrote.
According to Tuesday’s decision, G-Baby paid $250 to producer Pi’erre Bourne (Jordan Timothy Jenks) in 2017 for a non-exclusive license to an instrumental track, which he later used as the basis for “Oi!” The next year, Carti (Jordan Terrell Carter) used the same beat in “Right Now,” a track on the album Die Lit, which reached Number 3 on the Billboard 200.
Shortly after Carti’s song was released, a UMG “content protection specialist” flagged two posts on Twitter in which G-Baby had shared his song. Eventually, the Recording Industry Association of America filed a DMCA takedown, which succeeded in getting the track pulled down from Twitter.
In his lawsuit, G-Baby claimed that UMG had intentionally sought out his song because of animosity from Carti, who he claimed was unhappy that the same beat had been used by someone else.
“Carter and Jenks knew that ‘Oi!’ was properly licensed and not infringing, yet decided to conspire with Universal,” the rapper wrote in his complaint. “Carter, Jenks, and Universal sought the take-down of White’s song with the specific intent of harming White.”
But in Tuesday’s ruling, Judge Torres ruled that even if Carti and Jenks knew that G-Baby’s song was properly licensed, there is no evidence that this information was ever communicated to the UMG staffer who flagged the song for removal.
“White cites no caselaw for the proposition that one employee’s knowledge that a use may be non-infringing should be imputed to another employee who independently issues a takedown notice on behalf of the company,” the judge wrote.
As for Carti himself, Judge Torres ruled that there was no evidence that the rapper had any involvement in or knowledge of the takedown process – meaning he, too, could not have violated the DMCA’s rules.
“Although Carter may well have been aware of (and displeased with) White’s license to use the beat, White has failed to establish that Carter had any part in the takedown notices,” the judge wrote.
Attorneys for both sides did not immediately return requests for comment.
The shine on the music industry, a darling of Wall Street in recent years, appears to have lost a bit of its luster.
Record label and publisher stocks that boomed in 2023 are mostly down in 2024. Universal Music Group (UMG), riding high until two weeks ago, is down 14.0% through Thursday (Aug. 15). Warner Music Group (WMG) is off 21.0%. Reservoir Media is up 2%, although it has declined 15.0% since July 26. K-pop companies have fallen off a cliff.
Not that business is bad — far from it. But as companies released earnings results over the last couple weeks, good results have occasionally been overshadowed by a financial metric — namely, subscription growth — that either missed expectations or is headed in the wrong direction. In some cases, the results were simply disappointing.
Ever since UMG produced weaker-than-expected subscription growth in the second quarter, analysts and investors have been revisiting their forecasts, wondering if they set their expectations too high and trying to figure out if UMG’s results reflect the broader market. The company’s recorded music subscription revenue rose 6.5% in the quarter, about half of analysts’ expectations.
Although UMG executives warned against reading too much into the results from any one quarter, investors did exactly that. UMG’s share price, which had been among the better performers in its label-publisher peer group in 2024, dropped 24% in a single day despite UMG posting a 10% increase in revenue and better margins than a year earlier.
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Subscription growth isn’t the only facet of the modern music business, but it’s probably the main reason most investors bought into music companies. As Billboard wrote in March, the music business is increasingly reliant — perhaps too much so — on subscription revenue. In the U.S. in 2023, subscription revenue accounted for 59.3% of recorded music revenue, up from 57.8% in 2022 and far above 47.3% in 2018, according to the RIAA. With ad-supported streaming stagnant, subscriptions take on even greater importance.
Subscription revenue was on everybody’s mind when WMG released earnings a week later. The company’s streaming revenue didn’t show signs of UMG’s slippage, though, which suggested the reaction to UMG’s quarter may have been overblown. WMG’s recorded music subscription revenue was up 7% while ad-supported streaming revenue was unchanged. The streaming market, said CEO Robert Kyncl during the Aug. 7 earnings call, is “diverse,” “healthy’ and has more room for subscriber growth. While analysts’ opinions varied, investors seemed happy enough, as WMG’s share price gained 2% that day.
Sony Music had similarly positive streaming results in its latest fiscal quarter. Total recorded music streaming revenue improved 6%, suggesting subscription revenue exceeded 6% to compensate for a small decline in ad-supported streaming.
Often overshadowed by UMG and WMG, Reservoir Media has delivered consistent growth since going public in 2021. The company’s latest earnings results delivered more of the same: Revenue was up 8% and operating income before depreciation and amortization jumped 27%. While there was a decline in recorded music revenue, it couldn’t be attributed to a stubborn streaming market. Rather, Reservoir was riding high a year earlier from the reissue of De La Soul’s catalog, which it picked up in the 2021 acquisition of Tommy Boy Music. Even so, its share price is down 11.9% since its quarterly earnings release while the S&P 500 is up 2% over the same period.
K-pop is a different story altogether. While these South Korean companies are riding the genre’s success to aggressively expand globally through partnerships, joint ventures and acquisitions, they’re showing signs of growing pains. Year-to-date through Aug. 15, the four main K-pop companies’ share prices had dropped an average of 35.5%.
Second-quarter results explain part of the decline. Three of those K-pop companies had an average decline in net income of 84%, while the fourth saw its net profit turn into a net loss. At JYP Entertainment, home to Stray Kids and iTZY, revenue dropped 37% and net profit plummeted 95%. SM Entertainment managed a 6% increase in consolidated revenue — the main SM Entertainment segment fared far better than its subsidiaries — but net profit still dropped by 70%. HYBE’s revenue increased 6% and set a quarterly record, but its net profit slipped 86%.
The South Korean companies’ relatively small rosters and lack of diversity help explain a quarter-to-quarter shortfall. JYP Entertainment, for example, was missing its most popular artists from its second-quarter album release schedule — a problem for a K-pop label dependent on fans’ tendency to buy CDs. (albums accounted for 49% of total revenue a year earlier). With an 82% drop last quarter, albums’ share of revenue fell to just 14%.
There’s plenty of opportunity for companies to regain their luster. UMG CFO Boyd Muir insisted the company will consistently deliver high single-digit revenue growth. WMG’s Kyncl insisted that “streaming dynamics remain healthy” and the company sees “plenty of headroom for subscriber growth” globally. K-pop labels won’t go two successive quarters without priority releases to pad sales figures. Any single quarter may have a hiccup, but the long-term trend lines are still pointing in the right direction.
Universal Music Group and Facebook parent Meta have forged an expanded agreement that will “advance social music opportunities” for the music major’s roster of artists and songwriters across the tech giant’s platforms.
The new arrangement, announced Monday, Aug. 12, covers Meta’s platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Horizon, Threads and for the first time, WhatsApp.
Financial terms weren’t disclosed, although a joint statement indicates the partnership ensures that “artists and songwriters are compensated fairly.”
Also, Meta and UMG will continue working together to address, among other things, unauthorized AI-generated content that could affect artists and songwriters.
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UMG has been proactive on the issue of AI in music over the past year, and taken stands to protect against what it sees as harmful uses of AI. It was UMG that partnered with YouTube on a series of AI principles and an AI Music Incubator to help artists use AI responsibly, formed a strategic partnership with BandLab to create a set of ethical practices around music creation, and partnered with Endel on functional music, among other initiatives.
The origins of this arrangement can be traced back to 2017, when Facebook and Universal entered into what Billboard described at the time as an unprecedented and global licensing partnership that would shake-up the way people listen to and share music on the popular social platform.
With that deal, Facebook was finally on good terms with its content partners after a years-long relationship that was, for the most part, frosty.
This renewed partnership “builds on the recognition that music can help connect us and bring fans, artists, and songwriters closer together, not only on established platforms such as Instagram and Facebook,” says Tamara Hrivnak, VP music and content business Development at Meta, in a statement, “but also in new ways on WhatsApp, and more. “We’re extremely grateful to the Universal team, and look forward to growing our partnership in the future.”
Adds Michael Nash, chief digital officer & EVP, Universal Music Group: “Since our landmark 2017 agreement, Meta has consistently demonstrated its commitment to artists and songwriters by helping to amplify the importance music holds across its global network of engaged communities and platforms, creating new opportunities and applications where music amplifies and leads engagement and conversations.”
In recent months, both parties have collaborated on “landmark campaign rollouts” across the Meta ecosystem for artists including Billie Eilish, Karol G and Taylor Swift.
During a chaotic week for stock markets around the world, Universal Music Group (UMG) shares rose 3.3% to 22.15 euros ($24.20), enough to make the Amsterdam-listed company the top-performing music stock of the week.
Stocks were hammered on Monday (Aug. 5) as markets reacted to a disappointing U.S. jobs report the prior Friday (Aug. 2), leading to mounting concerns the economy could fall into a recession. The Billboard Global Music Index fell 2.0% on Monday, though it experienced a lighter decline than both the Nasdaq (down 3.4%) and the S&P 500 (down 3.0%). Investors didn’t panic, however, and markets made gains over the remainder of the week. On Friday (Aug. 9), the Nasdaq closed down 0.2% for the week while the S&P 500 broke even.
UMG received a boost on Wednesday (Aug. 7) from Warner Music Group’s quarterly earnings report — a welcome change after a second-quarter slowdown in UMG’s streaming growth so worried investors that the company’s shares fell 24% the following day. WMG’s latest earnings results, which showed that recorded music streaming revenue grew 8.7% after a few adjustments, may have convinced some UMG investors that they overreacted. In light of this new information, UMG shares jumped 6.6% to 22.74 euros ($24.85) on Wednesday. Notably, this Friday’s closing price is 14% above the lowest closing price — 21.12 euros ($23.08) — since the 24% decline occurred on July 25.
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WMG shares rose 0.3% to $28.34 this week after the company announced that quarterly revenue dropped 1% and net profit improved 14%. The third-largest major’s streaming gains satisfied some, but not all, analysts. Morgan Stanley analysts cited “lowered streaming growth outlook” in lowering their price target to $35 from $41. Guggenheim, encouraged by WMG’s subscription revenue growth acceleration and performance relative to UMG, maintained its $44 price target. JP Morgan, which sees WMG as “well positioned” to capture paid streaming adoption, left its $41 price target unchanged.
The Billboard Global Music Index, a float-adjusted measure of 20 companies’ market capitalizations, rose 3.1%, breaking a streak of four consecutive weeks with a loss. Spotify, the index’s largest component, gained 2.6% to $339.69. Tencent Music Entertainment, which will report earnings on Tuesday (Aug. 13), rose 2.8% to $12.97.
In the United Kingdom, the FTSE 100 declined 3.6% to 8,168.10. South Korea’s KOSPI composite index fell 3.3% to 2,588.43. China’s Shanghai composite index dropped 1.5% to 2,862.19.
iHeartMedia shares fell 10.7% to $1.33 following the company’s second-quarter earnings on Thursday (Aug. 8). The company reported a 1% increase in second-quarter revenue and sounded optimistic that political advertising will provide a boost to the full-year results. Both third-quarter and full-year revenue are expected to be up by mid-single digits.
Shares of radio broadcaster Townsquare Media dropped 5.8% following the company’s second-quarter results on Tuesday. Revenue fell 2.5% and net loss increased to $48.9 million from $2.7 million in the prior-year period. Its $0.14 earnings per share missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $0.42.
If your last name is Grainge, you probably oversee a large chunk of the U.S. music business.
Following Elliot Grainge’s promotion to CEO of Atlantic Music Group effective Oct. 1, the Grainge family— Elliot and his father, Lucian Grainge, chairman/CEO of Universal Music Group (UMG) — will control roughly 37.6% of the U.S. recorded music market, according to Billboard’s analysis of data from Luminate.
The younger Grainge, whose record label 10K Projects was acquired by UMG competitor Warner Music Group in 2023, will lead a record label group with about 7.9% of the U.S. market’s equivalent album units (EAUs). That includes Atlantic Records, which had a 5.3% share through Aug. 1, along with the remaining labels that comprise Atlantic Music Group — 300 Elektra Entertainment (which includes the labels 300, Elektra, Fueled By Ramen, Roadrunner, Low Country Sound, DTA and Public Consumption) and 10K Projects — with an estimated 2.6% share.
Led by Republic Records’ 10.5% share and Interscope/Geffen/A&M’s 10.0% share, UMG-owned record labels have a 29.8% share of the U.S. market’s EAUs. Other labels under UMG’s umbrella are Island Records, currently basking in a string of hits by Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan, and Universal Music Group Nashville, a collection of labels that are home to Chris Stapleton, Luke Bryan and Carrie Underwood, among others. UMG also distributes labels it does not own, although for these purposes, Billboard is comparing market share of owned labels only. Billboard estimates that UMG’s distributed labels have an aggregate market share of 8.8% of EAUs.
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The Grainge’s father-son CEO dynamic is unprecedented even for an industry that often sees the offspring of heavy hitters follow a parent into the business. There have been many family businesses run by successive generations — music publisher peermusic, for example — but never in modern history have a father and son been CEOs of a global music company and a major label music group simultaneously.
Grainge, age 30, will ascend to CEO of Atlantic Music Group as WMG restructures its organizational chart and Atlantic retools to market music to digital natives (a.k.a. young people). CEO Robert Kyncl is “excited by the prospect of taking Atlantic’s culture making capabilities and adding the 10K Projects founder’s digitally native approach into the mix,” he said during Wednesday’s earnings call.
As Billboard reported in February, Atlantic laid off about two dozen staffers with the intention of “bringing on new and additional skill sets in social media, content creation, community building and audience insights,” with the goal of “dial[ing] up our fan focus and help[ing] artists tell their stories in ways that resonate,” Julie Greenwald, the company’s chairman/CEO, said at the time. Greenwald was to assume the new role of chairman upon Grainge’s promotion but announced her resignation on Tuesday (Aug. 6). She will officially step down at the end of January 2025.