Record Labels
5 Things Warner Music Group’s Earnings Say About the Industry’s Future
“There are tens of thousands of tracks that are uploaded every day to streaming services around the world,” said Cooper. A label such as Warner, he said, helps artists “separate their music and their careers from literally all of this noise.” As for Warner’s finances, looking at trailing 12-month revenue, which removes the effect of any one quarter, Warner improved by 13.2%. Physical sales returned to normalcy, climbing from $51 million in a pandemic-stricken quarter a year earlier to $130 million; the quarter included Record Store Day on June 12, which led to record one-week vinyl sales in the U.S., according to MRC Data (next quarter’s earnings will benefit from the July 22 Record Store Day, the second-highest ever). Growth in streaming revenue was adequate at 22.5% for recorded mu...
Dan Goldberg, Former Warner Music Vet, Tapped to Lead Music Merch Expansion at Fanatics
Dan Goldberg, the Warner Music Group veteran who recently exited the music major after more than a decade, is taking his talents to Fanatics, the leading seller of licensed sportwear. At Fanatics, Goldberg will continue to play in the music world in a role that sees him focusing his attention on shirts, caps and other merch sold at concerts and music festivals, according to Sportico, which broke the news. Goldberg has expertise in the space. Prior to his departure from Warner Music in June, he served as senior VP of the company’s Artist Services division, with responsibilities for the group’s e-commerce, tour merchandising, VIP experiences, ticketing, and fan club businesses. You Deserve to Make Money Even When you are looking for Dates Online. So we reimagined what a dating should be. It ...
Sylvan Esso Teams With Secretly For Psychic Hotline Label
Though the label has quietly released music since 2018 from artists in and around the group’s North Carolina community, Psychic Hotline now has a distribution partner in Secretly Distribution, part of the Secretly Group, and a vision for expansion that involves artist-centric deals. “We’ve always been really lucky to have a management that has negotiated really aggressive, very artist-centric deals for us, which I think is one of the reasons why our experience with labels has been relatively less painful,” Meath says. Those artist-friendly negotiations involved securing short-term deals with labels, which is why, for example, the band already fully owns its 2014 self-titled debut album. Meath and Sanborn plan on offering similar short-term, flexible deals to artists who sign with them. “We...
Johnny Marr Signs With BMG Ahead of ‘Outstanding’ New Release
“The fact that he has decided to expand and deepen his relationship with BMG shows how well our holistic, artist-centric approach works,” comments Alistair Norbury, BMG President Repertoire & Marketing U.K. “We are delighted to be the releasing partner for this outstanding new body of work.” Marr is, of course, a founding member of seminal ‘80s Manchester band The Smiths, who were nominated for the Rock Hall for the first time in 2014. His distinctive guitar playing is said to be ground zero for the “indie” sound. Over time he has worked with the likes of Talking Heads, Electronic, Modest Mouse, The Cribs, The Avalanches, Hans Zimmer, Neil Finn and Billie Eilish, and recently worked on the score and soundtrack for the forthcoming James Bond film, No Time To Die. He’s ...
MusiCares & The Onsite Foundation Partner for Workshop to Help Music Professionals Affected by Pandemic
“The music industry was greatly affected by COVID, as individuals lost their sense of security and identity, experienced tremendous loss and grief, and struggled to cope with the loss of control over their own destiny,” said Laura Hutfless, FlyteVu co-founder and president of the Onsite Foundation board of directors in a statement. “We are so thankful that MusiCares has stepped up to help us meet this overwhelming need with financial resources.” The workshop will provide tools, resources and educational sessions to guide individuals back to a place of wellness. “As the leading music charity, MusiCares is dedicated to supporting music people in times of crisis and beyond,” says Laura Segura, MusiCares executive director. “We’re excited to partner with The Onsite Foundation and create these ...
Executive Turntable: New Hires at Obama’s Media Company & Warner’s Social Justice Fund
Dan Fierman most recently served as president of Epic Media in Los Angeles, leading the media start-up to acquisition by Vox Media in 2019. Prior to that, he led news coverage at MTV, was the Editorial Director of the pop culture site Grantland and oversaw culture and special packages at GQ. He and Holmes oversaw the launch of The Michelle Obama Podcast and Renegades: Born in the USA, the podcast hosted by President Obama and Bruce Springsteen. Mark R. Wright was an executive at MACRO, where he developed and produced Juel Taylor’s directorial debut, They Cloned Tyrone (Netflix). His slate of projects also includes the Oscar-winning film Judas and the Black Messiah, Alan Yang’s Tigertail and Birth of Cool. He has produced several short films, including an award-winning science fiction film,...
In Demand: Why Justin Timberlake, Coldplay and More Call Federico Vindver For Cutting-Edge Production
The alienation he felt from his classmates during the day, however, was balanced somewhat by the acceptance he found playing nighttime gigs at Black churches and Latin clubs — gigs through which he learned to use technology to live-produce his one-man act (he had competed one year of computer science school back in Argentina when a hand injury prevented him from playing piano). “One day,” he says, “I realized I have more fun doing this than actually playing jazz.” Right after graduation, he signed on as a keyboardist and producer for Lauryn Hill and continued building up his portfolio with projects for Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin, Pitbull, Wisin, Marc Anthony, Leona Lewis and Joss Stone. Now, when artists like Kanye West, Mariah Carey and Nick Jonas “want to ge...
Warner Music Gets Upgrade From S&P on Strength of Streaming
Because of these and other factors, S&P lowered its risk assessment for WMG from fair to satisfactory and raised its credit rating from BB to BB+. BB is speculative grade, a notch below investment grade, meaning the company is “less vulnerable in the near-term but faces major ongoing uncertainties to adverse business, financial and economic conditions.” WMG’s share price rose 4.4% to $36.85 on Tuesday, valuing the company at $21.4 billion. Some of Tuesday’s gain can be attributed to the markets’ rebound from Monday’s pessimism about the surge in COVID-19 infections: the Nasdaq and Dow each rose 1.6%. After WMG’s May 2020 IPO, its share price peaked at $39.61 on Feb. 2, 2021. Even as music rights acquisitions remain a hot market with increased competition and companies paying higher mul...
Why Are We Still Measuring Artist Success With a Major Label Yardstick? (Guest Column)
Even with the years-long pattern of independent artists increasing their market share — MIDIA estimated that in 2020, artist direct revenues jumped by nearly 35%, made up more than 5% of the global market and broke the billion-dollar mark — the formula for artist success has been the same for practically a century. The top 1% of performers/entertainers are wealthy, powerful and famous stars and the remaining musicians, songwriters, performers and artists are considered failures. If the music of the 99% does not fit the mold of commercial radio or the hot new app, it doesn’t get past the major label or algorithm gatekeepers, so promoters, brands and marketers ignore it. This has an impact on the collective consciousness of what gets heard but also what is considered “good” or successful. Th...
Bill Ackman on Pivoting UMG Bid: ‘There’s No Business I Have More Confidence In’
In an interview with Billboard, Ackman emphasized that Pershing Square — the hedge fund with $13.7 billion under management, not the SPAC it founded — will step in and acquire a stake in UMG. “Our largest investment is going to be Universal Music Group, so that should tell you something,” he says. “There’s no business I have more confidence in the long-term trajectory of than this company — or the music industry in general. Piracy almost killed this business and streaming has made it better than it was with CDs and records in the ’90s.” Ackman likes that companies such as Apple, Google and Amazon shoulder the load of building the streaming services and acquiring customers, leaving record labels to develop, promote and license their music. “You have the most well capitaliz...
UK Parliamentary Probe Results In Calls for “Complete Reset” of the Streaming Industry
A Parliamentary probe into the current market dynamics of music streaming has yielded a bold call for a “complete reset” of the market by British MP’s. The topic of fair pay for artists has been a contentious one throughout the rise of the streaming era, but the results of this particular inquiry—published by Parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) wing—have led to a rare inflection point where new protectionist regulations might be on the horizon. The subject of this inquiry considered the economic relationship between artists and their record labels, and unsurprisingly, the results showed that labels are reaping a disproportionate amount of the financial benefits. “While streaming has brought significant profits to the recorded music indu...
Atlantic Records Announces Label Partnership With Management Teams of Faouzia, Royal & The Serpent: Exclusive
“We have worked with Atlantic for years on various projects and were always blown away by the label’s commitment, attention-to-detail, and passion,” Hernandez, Kosak and Jones said in a shared statement. “We just knew it was the right place for us because everyone shared our excitement to make it happen and release this incredible music. Craig Kallman, Julie Greenwald, Pete Ganbarg, and Paul Sinclair have only fortified Atlantic’s legacy in this era. They really believe in what we’re doing. It wasn’t just about one song or one artist for them; it was about everything. There wasn’t a question about signing. We wanted partners who believe in us and what we do. They do wholeheartedly.” While working with Kosak and NBD Management, Royal & the Serpent scored a top 10 alternative hit l...
