Publishing
BTS Co-Writer Ryan Lawrie Signs Publishing Deal With Peermusic UK
As BTS make history by notching the top two slots on the Billboard Hot 100 this week, indie publishing company peermusic UK has signed one of the K-pop group’s collaborators — singer, songwriter and producer Ryan Lawrie — to an exclusive global music publishing deal. The Glasgow, UK, native has co-written several songs for BTS, including Map of the Soul: 7‘s “Inner Child” (which has 52 million Spotify streams) and Map of the Soul: Persona‘s “Mikrokosmos” (125 million Spotify streams). Lawrie is now working with BTS’ label Big Hit Entertainment on the K-pop band ENHYPEN, the winners of Big Hit’s reality television competition I-LAND. Lawrie will also release his own debut album under the moniker KOOLKID later th...
Executive of the Week: Nonstop Management Founder/President Jaime Zeluck Hindlin
How does a typical writing credit for one of your songwriters come to fruition? Jaime Zeluck Hindlin: It’s different for everyone, to be honest. No story is the same. For writers, it’s all about the people they meet, whether it’s another writer, an artist, or an A&R that believes in them and their song and helps bring it to life. It’s about finding the champions who believe in what they’re doing. For example, with our writer Ryann, we had been setting up sessions for her with newer artists since she was a young, new writer with not too many credits just yet. We paired her with Tate McRae, who was also not as known at the time, and they wrote Tate’s breakout single “you broke me first.” Connecting those dots and people resulted in a song that is ...
Round Hill Music Signs Rob Thomas to Worldwide Publishing Deal
Round Hill Music has signed multi-Grammy-winning singer and songwriter Rob Thomas to a long-term worldwide publishing deal, which will cover his full catalog, including past and future works. Best known as the frontman for Matchbox Twenty, Thomas has led the rock band through four studio albums beginning with debut Yourself or Someone Like You in 1996, which peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, was certified twelve-times platinum by the RIAA and included hit singles like “Push” and “3AM.” Other top-charting songs from the band include “If You’re Gone,” “Unwell” and “How Far We’ve Come.” Arguably Thomas’ biggest hit, however, came from outside of the band: “Smooth,” his 1999 col...
CISAC Completes Upgrade of Music Coding System
CISAC, the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers, has centralized the assignment and administration of International Standard Musical Work Codes (ISWC). Previously, those codes, which already have been assigned to 52 million song compositions, had been handled by a network of 54 registration agencies in 79 countries. The ISWC administration switchover began in July with over 100 collection management organizations now participating in the new system, according to CISAC which commissioned Spanish Point Technologies to develop the new registration scheme. The rest of the publishing community and digital music platforms are expected to roll over to the new ISWC system shortly. “The upgrade of the ISWC could not come at a more timely moment for songwriters and compo...
Warner Music CEO Stephen Cooper Discusses the ‘New Era in Music Entertainment’
“Music has gone way beyond singles, albums and videos,” he said during Goldman Sachs’ Communacopia conference, touching on TikTok, gaming, streaming expansion and more. Warner Music Group (WMG) CEO Stephen Cooper discussed the now publicly-traded company’s streaming-fueled growth and future outlook during Goldman Sachs’ virtual Communacopia conference Thursday, envisioning that music’s continued application to social media, fitness, TV and film and other businesses will ring in a “new era in music entertainment.” “Music has gone way beyond singles, albums and videos,” he said. “Subscription streaming is just the beginning.” Specifically, the executive pointed to Peloton, TikTok and video games (including in-game p...
Thomas Coesfeld to Succeed BMG’s Maximilian Dressendörfer as CFO
Thomas Coesfeld has been named deputy chief financial officer at BMG, effective Oct. 15. He will assume the role of CFO on April 1, 2021, succeeding Maximilian Dressendörfer, who is taking on new responsibilities at the company. Since June 2019, Coesfeld has served as chief strategy officer on the executive committee of the Bertelsmann Printing Group, a division of BMG’s parent company Bertelsmann. He also serves as CSO at Mohn Media. In his new role, he will report to BMG CEO Hartwig Masuch and Bertelsmann CFO Bernd Hirsch. Coesfeld began his career in 2014 as a management consultant at McKinsey in Munich, Germany, where he gained experience in sales and strategy with a focus on the insurance, logistics, and automotive industries. He joined Bertelsmann at the top of 2016 and spent a year ...
Executive Turntable: WMG Names Head of Investor Relations, FUGA Makes Key Leadership Hires
Warner Music Group has hired Kareem Chin as senior vp head of investor relations effective immediately. Chin arrives at WMG from iHeartMedia, where he served in the same role. Chin, whose appointment follows WMG’s recent IPO, will lead the company’s investor relations efforts and work closely with the company’s finance and corporate communications teams. He will also oversee key events, including quarterly earnings calls and attendance at investor conferences. At iHeartMedia, which he joined as it was emerging from bankruptcy, Chin developed and built out the company’s investor relations function as it explored listing options and later made its debut on the Nasdaq exchange. Prior to that, he was vp investor relations at Viacom, a role that followed over a decade in investment banking. Mus...
U.S. Recorded Music Business Still Growing (A Bit) Amid Pandemic: RIAA 2020 Mid-Year Report
The good news: The U.S. recorded-music business was still in an upswing in the first half of 2020, growing 5.6% at retail to $5.7 billion, up from $5.4 billion, continuing a trend of growth that extends back to the industry’s nadir in 2015. The less-good news: That growth, like most everything else in the music business and beyond so far this year, took a pandemic-related hit, ending a short streak of double-digit gains after a 17% boost at mid-year 2017, 10% at mid-year 2018 and 18% at mid-year 2019. Of course, percentage-based growth, by its nature, is always increasingly-difficult to improve upon, and once-in-a-generation pandemics were never going to help keep that streak alive. And within that context there’s still plenty of good news for the industry in its continued recovery amid th...
Hipgnosis Songs Buys Big Deal Music
Merck Mercuriadis‘ Hipgnosis Songs has acquired independent publisher Big Deal Music, Billboard has learned. A formal announcement is expected as soon as Thursday. Under the deal, Big Deal will keep its Los Angeles-area office and staff, rebrand under the Hipgnosis banner and operate as Hipgnosis’ full-service U.S. office, a source familiar with the situation tells Billboard. Big Deal’s catalog includes songwriters Teddy Geiger (Shawn Mendes, Niall Horan), Kamasi Washington, Gary Numan, Ross Golan (Selena Gomez, Ariana Grande), and Sleater-Kinney, among others, as well as joint venture deals with Ricky Reed (Lizzo, Jason Derulo) and Diplo‘s Mad Decent. The company was founded by publishing vet Kenny MacPherson, whose resume includes founding Redhead Music Publishing...
BMI Posts Record Revenue Despite Pandemic Hit to Licensing
Collections from April to June fell by an estimated $60 million, but a digital boost helped make up the difference. BMI generated $1.311 billion in revenue in the year ended June 30, 2020, a 2.2% increase over the $1.283 billion it reported in the year earlier period. Distributions were up too, totaling $1.233 billion — a 3.1% increase from the $1.196 billion paid out to songwriters and publishers in the prior fiscal year. Domestically, the performance rights organization collected $961 million, increasing 1.9% from the year-earlier period. Foreign receipts grew 2.9% to $350 million. As a percentage of revenue, that breaks out to 73.3% domestic and 26.7% foreign, a 0.2% shift in favor of international collections compared to the prior year. BMI estimates that its fourth quarter reven...
Craig David Signs Worldwide Publishing Deal With Round Hill Music
British R&B star Craig David has signed a global publishing deal with Round Hill Music. The new arrangement, announced Wednesday (Sept. 9), includes all of David’s catalog, including his U.K. chart-topping debut album Born to Do It, and a futures agreement that will see all his new music administered by the independent music publisher. The 39-year-old singer is one of Britain’s most successful male solo artists of the millennium, with 23 U.K. top 40 singles, including two No. 1s (“Fill Me In” and “7 Days”), and a pair of No. 1 albums. In the U.S., David has twice cracked the Top 40 on the Billboard 200 and he has landed three songs on the Hot 100 chart, including a career-best No. 10 with “7 Days”. His trophy cabinet includes three Ivor Novello Awards and a brace of MTV Europe Mu...
Ted Cockle, Amy Thomson Join Hipgnosis Songs
Ted Cockle, the Universal Music Group stalwart who most recently served as Virgin EMI president, has joined Merck Mercuriadis’ Hipgnosis Songs. Three months after announcing his departure from the U.K. label, Cockle is today (Aug. 8) unveiled as president of Hipgnosis Songs. Also joining the company is Amy Thomson, a management and marketing veteran who takes the role as chief catalog officer. The incoming executives will be expected to help “grow and care for songs and their legacy” within the expanding Hipgnosis Songs catalog, reads a statement announcing their arrival. “It’s a testament to the iconic song catalog that we have assembled over the last two plus years, and our songwriters, that we have been able to attract executives with the extraordinary talent, pedigree and success of Te...
