Business news
Apple Music Taking Over as Super Bowl Halftime Sponsor
The NFL has found the next presenting sponsor of the Super Bowl halftime show. Apple Music has been named the official sponsor of the annual music and pop culture event, succeeding Pepsi, which announced earlier this year that it would give up its role in presenting the show. Pepsi had been the lead sponsor of the halftime show for the past decade. Apple Music’s first Super Bowl halftime show will take place Feb. 12, 2023 in Arizona, with performers still to be announced. This past year’s show featured Dr. Dre, Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, 50 Cent and Mary J. Blige perform. Previous shows have seen some of the biggest names in music perform, from Beyonce and Prince to Justin Timberlake and Jennifer Lopez. In fact, the show has become a much bi...
Streaming Is Growing — Just Not Like It Used To: 5 Takeaways From the RIAA Mid-Year Report
The music subscription market, the driving force behind the U.S. recorded music industry’s six-year growth streak, posted another gain in the first half of 2022, according to RIAA midyear figures released Wednesday (Sept. 21). But revenue from paid services such as Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube Music have slowed from earlier break-neck paces. After rising at double-digit growth rates in recent years, subscription revenue grew by only 9.4% in the first half of 2022, down from 11.3% at the mid-point of 2021 and 13.7% at the mid-point of 2020. The $387.6 million increase, to $4.5 billion, was less than half of the $823.5 million reported a year earlier, a period in which streaming services surged during the early pandemic’s lock-down periods and strict restrictions. Still, subscription rev...
As Music Stocks Keep Slipping, This One K-Pop Company Is Bucking the Trend
South Korean music company SM Entertainment, home to such groups as NCT 127 and SuperM, stands apart in a competitive music business for withstanding stock market downturns that have hit all other publicly-traded music companies. Since December, stocks have been on a downward trend, sparked by the Federal Reserve’s intention to raise the federal funds rate to prevent the economy from overheating and rein in inflation. And while music is often said to be recession-proof, music companies’ stocks are not immune from larger economic trends and investors’ desires for safer options during chaotic times. Even though the global music industry is posting double-digit revenue growth, the share prices of publicly traded music companies have followed the broader trends and stumbled in the face ...
Believe Is ‘Maintaining All Its Operations’ in Russia — And Some Claim ‘Aggressively’ Growing Market Share
LONDON — Six months after Believe announced it had “suspended activities” in Russia following the country’s invasion of Ukraine, the French music company now says it is “maintaining all its operations” in the isolated nation. At best, that means recruiting staff to fill vacated roles and making multi-million dollar deals to renew contracts with label partners. At worst, sources say, Believe is taking advantage of the moment, “aggressively” signing Russian record labels and artists to gain market share in the region while major labels have committed to cease all new business there. In one Aug. 30 email reviewed by Billboard, a senior Believe executive in Russia offered a Russian record label 3 million euros ($3 million) for rights to its catalog and future releases. The email, which was wri...
Executive Turntable: iHeartRadio Appoints New Product Chief; Warner Names Legal Head for Catalog
iHeartMedia named Uta Knablein chief product officer at iHeartRadio; she was previously executive vp of iHeartRadio’s flagship products and user experience. Knablein succeeds Chris Williams in the role and will report to iHeartMedia Digital Audio Group CEO Conal Byrne. Tracie Parry was named senior vp, head of business & legal affairs at Warner Recorded Music‘s global catalog division; she was previously senior vp/head of U.S. legal shared services for Warner Music Group’s Center of Excellence. Based in Nashville, Parry will continue much of her previous oversight in the shared services role, with those responsibilities now shifting to the global catalog team. She will additionally bring several members of her current legal team to the global catalog team, including vp of legal affairs...
Def Jam Names Mike Hamilton SVP of Streaming & Commerce
Def Jam has named Mike Hamilton as its new senior vp of streaming and commerce, the label announced Thursday (Sept. 15). The music executive, who was named a 2021 Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Power Player, has helped guide the streaming success of artists like Giveon, Future, DJ Khaled, Travis Scott, 21 Savage and Cardi B. “Mike boasts some of the best relationships in the industry, and brings a deep, nuanced understanding of the streaming ecosystem and a keen eye for strategy,” said Tunji Balogun, Def Jam chairman and CEO. “Our company and our artists will immediately benefit from Mike’s experience and expertise, and I’m beyond excited to finally work alongside him in breaking new artists together under the Def Jam banner.” Prior to his new role, Hamilton served for three years as senio...
Utopia Music Buys Leading UK Physical Distributor Cinram Novum
LONDON — Swiss-based tech company Utopia Music is making further inroads into the record business with the acquisition of U.K. physical distributor Cinram Novum, which provides warehouse, fulfillment and distribution services to a number of labels, including Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and PIAS. Terms were not disclosed for the deal, which was done through Utopia’s U.K. subsidiary Utopia Distribution Services Limited. The acquisition marks a significant expansion of the company’s fast-growing music distribution business. In January, Utopia acquired Proper Music Group, the U.K.’s leading independent physical music distributor, which provides distribution services for 1,000-plus indie labels and service companies and counts Rough Trade, HMV and supermarkets Tesco, Mo...
The Ledger: How Do Music Executives’ Pay Compare to Other Entertainment Leaders?
The Ledger is a weekly newsletter about the economics of the music business sent to Billboard Pro subscribers. An abbreviated version of the newsletter is published online. Music industry executives at publicly traded companies are paid well – but they’re not the only ones. As Billboard reported in the inaugural Money Makers list of music’s highest-paid executives and stockholders at publicly traded companies, 10 business leaders earned nearly or more than $9 million in 2021. Of those, most of their compensation came from stock awards and stock options, not base salary or performance bonuses. For example, only 5% of SiriusXM CEO Jennifer Witz’s $32.6 million total compensation came from a guaranteed salary. As is common practice among publicly traded corporations, SiriusXM tied most of Wit...
Music’s Most Compensated: 5 Top Money Makers You May Not Know
Kang Hyo-won, Yoon Seok-jun (aka Yenzo Loon) and Kim Shin-gyu are hardly marquee names in the music business, but they accounted for three of its five largest paydays in 2021, according to Billboard Pro‘s inaugural Executive Money Makers ranking — a breakdown of executive compensation and stock ownership at publicly traded companies. All three are valued members of HYBE, the South Korean entertainment giant behind BTS, Tomorrow X Together, NewJeans and other K-pop acts, and in 2016, their efforts turning the company into a global success were rewarded with stock options that netted them the equivalent of tens of millions of dollars when the company went public last year. Stock options are often used to incentivize and reward employees when a company is privately held. In a statement to Bil...
Music’s Top Money Makers: The Highest-Paid Executives and Stockholders at Publicly Traded Companies
Kang Hyo-won is not a marquee name in the music industry. The South Korean producer is better known as Pdogg, the studio wizard behind hits by K-pop supergroup BTS and other acts on the roster of Korean entertainment company HYBE. Because Kang played a key role in HYBE’s global success, his employer gave him 128,000 stock options in 2016 that turned into about $35 million when Kang exercised them. (All currency conversions to U.S. dollars in this story are based on the average 2021 exchange rate.) That made Kang the second-highest-paid music industry executive last year among those whose earnings are publicly disclosed. Yoon Seok-jun (aka Lenzo Yoon) and Kim Shin-gyu, co-CEO of HYBE America and chief artist management officer, respectively, also benefited from HYBE going public. Yoon nette...
The Ledger: Buying Into the K-Pop Craze Just Got Less Risky for US Investors
The Ledger is a weekly newsletter about the economics of the music business sent to Billboard Pro subscribers. An abbreviated version of the newsletter is published online. An exchange-traded fund, or ETF, focused on Korean music started trading on the NYSE Arca exchange on Thursday, giving American investors a means to buy shares of companies that trade on exchanges in South Korea. But the ETF stands out for another reason: a bundle of K-pop stocks will carry less risk than standalone companies that rely on dozens of labels, each with a handful of top artists as well as deep catalogs. Trading under the aptly named ticker KPOP, the ETF includes the stocks of 30 corporations, including several music companies: HYBE, the home of K-pop megastars BTS and up-and-coming acts Tomorrow X Together ...
NFL’s First Head Of Music On Halftime Show Planning & Why They Don’t Pay Performers
Even before the National Football League announced that Dr. Dre, Mary J. Blige, Snoop Dogg, Kendrick Lamar and Eminem would perform during the Pepsi-sponsored halftime show at Super Bowl LVI on Feb. 13, Seth Dudowsky knew he had a crucial sound issue to solve. One of his many responsibilities as the point person for the production at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., which would be seen by 103.4 million television viewers (and rack up more than 121 million YouTube views), was keeping the set list under wraps. The problem, however, was the venue, which is next door to the NFL’s Los Angeles-area headquarters where he works and is anything but soundproof. “It’s technically an outdoor stadium with a roof,” Dudowsky says. “So sound blows out the [open] sides of the stadium.” Knowing that medi...
