Business news
Live Nation Finalizes $416 Million Acquisition of Mexican Promotion Giant OCESA
More than two years after it was first announced, Live Nation has finalized the acquisition of a 51% interest in Mexican concert promoter OCESA Entretenimiento, the company announced Monday. Live Nation bought its stake from CIE, a Latin American entertainment company, and media company Grupo Televisa, for MXN $8.84 billion – $416 million at Monday’s exchange rate but $444 million when the deal was announced in July 2019. OCESA significantly improves Live Nation’s presence in Latin America and further expands its international business. In 2019, OCESA’s holding company, Grupo Corporación Interamericana de Entretenimiento, reported $233.2 million in ticket sales to 936 events for 4.3 million fans from 3,400 shows spanning from the U.S. to Colombia, according to Billboard’s 2019 y...
UK Streaming Reform Bill Put On Ice After House of Commons Debate
LONDON – The British government said Friday that it recognizes there is a problem around the low rates of pay some artists and performers receive from music streaming — and refused to rule out legislating change if the industry can’t work together to find its own solutions. “We want a fair streaming environment in which the U.K. music industry can thrive and artists are properly rewarded,” George Freeman, a Conservative government minister, said during a four-hour debate in the House of Commons over a bill that seeks to reform music streaming payouts. The Copyright (Rights and Remuneration of Musicians) Bill failed Friday to progress to the next stage of the legislative process as proceedings overran. That means the bill remains on the agenda of Private Members’ bills to be debated by MPs ...
Red Rocks Amphitheatre is the Highest-Grossing and Most-Attended Venue of the Year Globally
In an unstable year for touring, an unlikely contender has risen to become the highest-grossing and most-attended venue of the year. According to data provided to Billboard Boxscore, Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Morrison, Colorado is not only the biggest moneymaking venue with a capacity between 5,001-10,000 of 2021 but the top-grossing venue of any size, in the world, for the year. With 134 shows reported to Boxscore, the beloved, 9,500-seat outdoor venue brought in more than $61.6 million. To further contextualize Red Rocks’ extraordinary performance, the amphitheater out-earned the next highest-grossing venue overall — Las Vegas’ 20,000-capacity T-Mobile Arena, which took in $37.2 million last year according to Billboard Boxscore — by more than $24 million. The next highest-reported ...
My Chemical Romance and Gerard Way Sign With CAA
My Chemical Romance and lead singer Gerard Way have signed with CAA for representation in all areas. Both the group and Way solo will be represented by the agency in North America, Australia, Mexico, Japan, the Middle East and Africa. The Grammy-nominated rock band originated in Newark, New Jersey and released their debut album I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love independently in 2002. One year later, the band signed to Reprise Records and released Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge in 2004, which has now reached 3x Certified Platinum. According to MRC Data, My Chemical Romance has six charting albums on the Billboard 200, including three top 10s (The Black Parade which hit No. 2; Danger Days...
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...
