Business news
Forex reserves at 88-month low as debt repayments fall due
Kenya’s foreign-exchange reserves have dropped to the lowest level in 88 months.
Car & General adds 711 more jobs to its workforce after expansion
Diversified trading firm Car & General added 711 jobs across its operations in the year...
Multi-genre artiste sets career on right trajectory with record deal
The last one year has been a whirlwind in the career of singer, songwriter and producer Seroney...
Robi Njoroge: Anti-counterfeit boss on Kenya’s plan to combat fakes at the source
Instead of relying on brick and mortar chasing lose cargo into the country, we are implementing...
Warner Bros. Discovery Exploring Sale of Music Assets
Warner Bros. Discovery is exploring a sale of its music assets that could be worth upwards of $1 billion, according to a source familiar with the matter. The catalog is being shopped by famed entertainment attorney Allen Grubman. While the potential sale — which was first reported by The Financial Times — is still in the very early stages, some of Warner Bros. Discovery’s current music partners could be potential buyers. Universal Music Group (UMG) already administers the publishing assets, which are likely the largest part of the deal, and Warner Music Group (WMG) distributes WaterTower Music, Warner Bros. Discovery’s in-house record label. The assets being shopped, including music and production music from the company’s television and film projects, are not the kinds of music rights...
Billboard’s Power Players’ Choice Award: Vote for Music’s Most Impactful Executive (Semifinalists)
The second round of voting is now open for Billboard‘s first-ever Power Players’ Choice Award, featuring the top 20 nominees voted by their peers. Voting is open to all Billboard Pro members, both existing and new, with one vote per member. Vote below. As previously announced, for the first time ever, Billboard is introducing a peer-voted award to its annual Power 100 ranking of the music industry’s most influential executives. This new Power Players’ Choice Award will honor the executive whose peers believe has the most impact across the music business over the past year, from recording and publishing to touring. The second round of voting featuring the top 20 nominees is now open and will end at 11:59 p.m. EST on Jan. 12. The top five vote-getters will proceed to the third round, beginni...
Nick Jonas, RZA and Blxst Join Speaker Roster at SXSW
Nick Jonas, Blxst and Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA are among the music stars set to speak at this year’s South By Southwest, organizers announced today (Jan. 10). The pop and hip-hop artists are among the third batch of speakers for SXSW, which takes place March 10 – 19, 2023 in Austin, Texas. Jonas, a solo artist and member of the chart-topping sibling act Jonas Brothers, will speak on the health-focused panel, Crushing: The Burden of Diabetes on Patients; Blxst will tackle a session entitled, How Music, Entrepreneurship & Independence Intersect, facilitated by Billboard’s R&B/Hip-Hop reporter Heran Mamo; while RZA, the producer, director, screenwriter, rapper and composer, will take the mic as a featured speaker. Also on board as featured speakers are Eric André, Josh D’Amaro, Tommy Dorfma...
UMusic Hotel Madrid, a 5-Star Lodging Alternative for Music Lovers, Is Now a Reality
Madrid is hosting the first UMusic Hotel, a venture that aims to become an entertainment hub in the heart of the capital of Spain. Co-created by Universal Music Group and Dakia Entertainment Hospitality Group, the hotel is located inside the historic Albéniz Theater building, just a few steps from downtown tourist sites such as Puerta del Sol and Plaza Mayor. The hotel opened on Nov. 14, 2022, at a 60% capacity and is now fully operating, with Antonio Banderas‘ take on the musical Company showing at the theater until Feb. 14. Next, Spanish singer-songwriter David Bisbal will take the stage for 20 days between March and April as part of the celebrations of his 20th music career anniversary. The Albéniz Theater was inaugurated in 1945 and was in operation for more than 60 ye...
Stanley Mills, Former Music Publisher, Dies at 91
Stanley Mills, a former music publisher who served on the boards of the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) and the Harry Fox Agency, has died at the age of 91. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news Mills, the son of Mills Music Publishing Company founder Jack Mills, died on Thursday (Dec. 29) at the Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, N.Y. A cause of death was not provided. Mills was born on Feb. 18, 1931. He began his career by working for his father at Mills Music. He remained with the company after it was sold to EMI Music Publishing in 1964. Two years later, he joined E.B. Marks (now Carlin America). In 1968, with the urging of his songwriter friends, Mills founded September Music and Galahad Music, representing...
How Pentatonix Became Today’s Most Popular Holiday Act
Mariah Carey may have had the most popular song of the 2022 holiday season, but Pentatonix was its most-listened-to act. The five-person vocal group had 92 recordings in the top 10,000 holiday tracks and total consumption of 2.58 million song units, based on sales and streams from Nov. 4 to Dec. 22, according to Luminate — more than any other artist. While Pentatonix doesn’t have the same kinds of smash singles as Christmas-time mainstays like Carey, Andy Williams and Burl Ives, the group uses a combination of quantity and popularity to drive its seasonal success. Pentatonix’s top holiday track, a cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” ranked No. 43 and accounted for about 10.5% of its total track consumption. Its cover of the David Foster-Jennifer Thompson-Jenner song “Grown Up Chr...
LiveOne Podcasting Division Files With SEC for Spinoff
Music streaming company LiveOne’s podcasting division, PodcastOne, filed an S-1 with the Securities Exchange Commission on Tuesday as a prelude to becoming a standalone, publicly traded company. LiveOne has set a record date of Jan. 16 for PodcastOne’s special dividend to LiveOne shareholders of record. The spinoff “will meaningfully enhance our industry market perception,” the company wrote in the filing, “thereby providing greater growth opportunities for us than our consolidated operation as a private subsidiary of LiveOne.” LiveOne will remain PodcastOne’s majority shareholder and will distribute approximately 6.2% of outstanding shares to LiveOne shareholders. LiveOne will retain 86.3% of outstanding shares. The remaining shares will be held by holders of bridge notes as well as...
How Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ Became a Christmas Hit Decades After Its Release
Since the business of Christmas music is growing so fast – it occupies five of the top 10 places on the Billboard Hot 100 this week – we are re-presenting some of our stories from Christmas past. This piece, about how Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” came to be considered a holiday song, originally ran in 2019. The story of the song is recounted in the recent documentary Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song. Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” with its ambiguous, imagistic lyrics about sex and spirituality, was once described by Jeff Buckley, perhaps the song’s most famous interpreter, as “the hallelujah of the orgasm.” So how did an a cappella version by Pentatonix get to No. 21 on the Billboard Holiday 100 in 2018 — after peaking on that chart at No. 2 in 2016...
