Business news
Netease Cloud Village Stock Slips 2.5% Following Hong Kong IPO
Chinese music streaming company Cloud Village finally had its initial public stock offering on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Thursday (Dec. 2) after postponing its plans in August amid a Chinese regulatory crackdown. Investors’ initial reaction was underwhelming as Cloud Village’s share price closed at 199.90 Hong Kong dollars ($25.66), about 2.5% below the 205.00 Hong Kong dollars ($26.31) IPO price. Tech giant Netease spun off the company, which runs NetEase Cloud Music, in an offering of 16 million shares — 7.7% of the outstanding shares — that raised 41.5 billion Hong Kong dollars ($421 million). NetEase gained approval for the spin-off on Aug. 2 but delayed the listing indefinitely about a week later after Beijing’s tightening regulations brought attention to publicly traded Chinese...
John Mulaney, Mike Birbiglia & More Comedians Pulled Off Spotify Over Licensing Dispute
Spotify hosts a large offering of spoken word content on its platform these days, including comedy, podcasts, and poetry along with the music the platform has always been known for. Last week, however, on Nov. 24, the day before Thanksgiving, the streaming service quietly took down a broad swath of its spoken comedy recordings, including some of major comedy stars like Mike Birbiglia, John Mulaney and Jeff Foxworthy. Sparking confusion and outrage among these affected comedians and their fans, as of Wednesday (Dec. 1), a full week later, the Spotify takedowns remain in place. So why did this happen in the first place? Like music, there are two copyrights for a spoken-word comedy routine. First, the copyright for sound recording itself — for which many comedians collect royalties via SoundE...
ASM Global Taps Jason Oberlander as Chief Commercial Officer
Venue management company ASM Global is expanding its partnership division with Jason Oberlander, who has been hired as chief commercial officer. Oberlander will be tasked with expanding ASM’s naming rights and marketing partnerships for the company’s arenas, stadiums, theaters and convention centers. “We have the scale, consumer touchpoints and ability to integrate brands in—to music, sports, business, tech and more—that will drive value for the brands, content providers, venue partners and guests,” said ASM President and CEO Ron Bension in a release. “Jason’s extensive experience, particularly with IMG in forging new national partnerships with Fortune 1000 brands, will provide far and away the most diverse and enriching opportunities the industry has ever seen.” Oberlande...
UK Watchdog Orders Meta/Facebook to Sell GIF Platform Giphy
The United Kingdom’s antitrust watchdog has blocked Facebook’s acquisition of Giphy and ordered the social network to sell off the GIF-sharing platform, saying the deal hurts social media users and advertisers by stifling competition for animated images. The Competition and Markets Authority said Tuesday that the deal would let Facebook “increase its already significant market power” by denying or limiting other platforms’ access to Giphy GIFs and driving traffic to Facebook-owned sites. It has noted previously that there’s only one other big provider of GIFs, Google’s Tenor. The regulator also was concerned that the deal removed potential competition from the U.K.’s 7 billion pound ($9.3 billion) display advertising market, of which Facebook controls half. It’s the first time the watchdog...
Canadians Are Now Hitting 2 Billion Weekly Audio Streams
Canadian consumers are now streaming more than two billion on-demand audio streams per week — a new benchmark for the country’s music industry. For the third consecutive week, Canada hit the two billion-streams mark in the week ending Nov. 25, according to MRC Data. The total 2.047 billion streams were up 15.9% from the same period last year. Two billion on-demand streams in Canada are worth about 777,500 Canadian dollars ($610,000), according to an estimate by performing rights organization SOCAN provided to Billboard based on a quarterly average earnings of 0.000389 Canadian dollars ($0.000305) per stream. (“Keep in mind this is an average that considers many platforms each with their own variables,” a SOCAN representative stated. “This n...
Twitter Co-Founder Jack Dorsey Announces He Is Stepping Down as CEO
Twitter CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey will step down as the tech company’s chief executive. Parag Agrawal, Twitter’s CTO, will succeed Dorsey as the company’s new CEO, effective immediately. Twitter announced the news Monday, with the company’s board unanimously approving of Agrawal as Dorsey’s replacement. Dorsey will remain on Twitter’s board of directors through his current term, which runs into 2022. Once his term ends, Dorsey told staff in an email (with the subject line “Fly”) that he will leave the company entirely. Current board member Bret Taylor will become the company’s chairman. “I’ve decided to leave Twitter because I believe the company is ready to move on from its founders. My trust in Parag as Twitter’s CEO is deep. His work over the past 10 years ...
Live Nation Among Stocks Down Amid Fears Over New COVID-19 Variant
Stock prices around the globe fell on Friday (Nov. 26) after the World Health Organization warned of a new, fast-spreading COVID-19 variant discovered in South Africa. One of the stocks affected most was Live Nation, which dropped 8.06% on Friday in a shortened day of trading. After rising from $67 a share a year ago to a 52-week high of $127.75 a share in early November, the stock closed at $112.66 Monday, then fell to $103.52 today. The Dow Industrial Average fell 905 points, or 2.5%, marking its largest one-day percentage drop since October 2020. The World Health Organization said on Friday that the new variant — called Omicron — “has a large number of mutations, some of which are concerning.” The organization added, “Preliminary evidence suggests an increased risk of reinfection w...
Executive Turntable: AWAL Restructures Global Team, Trio of WME Agents Move to UTA
AWAL has announced the launch of a newly structured global team that will focus on audience development. London based Aaron Bogucki is moving from his role as vp, marketing to the new position of global head of audience development to spearhead the department. Bogucki will report jointly to Paul Trueman, general manager, U.K. & international and president, North America Ron Cerrito. AWAL’s new audience development team will specialize in identifying, targeting and engaging artists’ audiences as well as developing and executing digital-focused strategies and fan-focused marketing initiatives. The team will work with AWAL’s frontline marketing, creative and catalog teams. Bogucki said, “Having been a part of AWAL’s incredible growth and success over the past four years, I can confidently...
The Deals: Anderson .Paak Signs with PPL for Neighboring Rights, Víctor Cárdenas Pacts with WCM
Anderson .Paak, the rapper, singer, producer and drummer who recently released the album An Evening With Silk Sonic alongside Bruno Mars, has signed with music licensing company PPL for the administration of his international neighboring rights collections. The deal will help .Paak collect performance royalties for the use of his sound recordings around the world. He joins a roster that includes George Ezra, Rita Ora and ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus. .Paak established himself as a prominent artist before forming Silk Sonic with Mars earlier in 2021. The duo’s first collaboration, “Leave The Door Open,” resulted in .Paak’s first No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, where it spent 18 consecutive weeks in the top 10. PPL CEO Peter Leathem said of the signing, “We are extremely pleased that Anderson .P...
BTS Brings Year’s Biggest Show Yet to L.A.’s Newest Venue SoFi Stadium
After a two-year absence, Global superstars BTS are returning to Southern California with a triple-play appearance at three venues in Inglewood for their Permission to Dance tour beginning this weekend. Jin, Suga, J-Hope, RM, Jimin, V, and Jungkook are opening their first of four concerts Saturday, Nov. 28 at SoFi Stadium (next shows are Nov. 29, Dec. 1-2), accompanied by special live broadcasts of the concerts each night from the YouTube Theater. Then On Dec. 3., the group will cap off their historic run with an appearance at the iHeartRadio Jingle Ball at the Forum. Explore Explore BTS See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The multi-show, multi-venue run is a first for Inglewood and SoFi Stadium at Hollywood Park, the new home of Stan Kroenke’s Los Angeles...
TikTok Hires Shavone Charles as Head of Diversity & Inclusion Communications
TikTok has tapped Shavone Charles to lead communications around the social platform’s diversity and inclusion initiatives. Charles joins TikTok next week in the newly formed role after serving as the director of communications and creative partnerships at VSCO, where she launched the #BlackJoyMatters campaign. Prior to joining VSCO, she oversaw global music and youth culture communications at Instagram and music and culture communications at Twitter, two positions that she created at both companies. Outside of her work with major tech companies, Charles is also the founder of two creative collectives, Future of Creatives and Magic In Her Melanin, focused on amplifying women of color and other underrepresented creators. “As a Black creator and advocate, I am thrilled to join the TikTok team...
How One of Live Nation’s Core Business Strategies Backfired at Astroworld
Travis Scott encourages his concert audiences to “rage,” so his Astroworld festival, which this year drew 50,000 fans on Nov. 5 to NRG Park in Houston, needs to be organized in a way that keeps attendees safe. But ScoreMore Shows, which produces and promotes the event, set it up in a way that several concert business sources say may have inadvertently contributed to the crowd surge that resulted in 10 deaths and hundreds of injuries, and that parent company Live Nation rarely exercises the kind of oversight over events organized by its subsidiaries that might have flagged these problems before it was too late. Explore See latest videos, charts and news The hands-off approach is by design. Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino runs the company with a decentralized management strategy that encourag...
