Music Business Worldwide

Welcome to the latest MBW Podcast – this time a special podcast entry in our long-running World's Greatest Producers series.

Salaam Remi is, by any measure, a World's Greatest Producer. A Grammy winner, he's worked closely – and made timeless hits – with musical legends from Nas to Amy Winehouse, Alicia Keys, The Fugees, and many more. He's also an accomplished music biz executive and entrepreneur. 

On this podcast, Salaam joins MBW founder, Tim Ingham, to discuss topics including techniques for staying creatively hungry, why he decided to stop actively producing records on his 50th birthday, and what he's learned working with some of the most important artists of all time.

Salaam also discusses his own music rights management company, Analog Metaverse, and its new partnership with Warner Chappell Music. (WCM's CEO is Remi's long-time friend, Guy Moot.)

MBW's World's Greatest Producers series is supported by Hipgnosis.

On the latest Music Business Worldwide Podcast, Tim Ingham, founder of MBW, is joined by the founder and CEO of Harbourview Equity Partners, Sherrese Clarke Soares (pictured).

Since being established in 2021, Harbourview has acquired premium music assets associated with stars such as Wiz Khalifa Nelly, Lady A, Florida Georgia Line and Christine McVie. 

One of Harbourview's biggest deals to date was its reported $325 million purchase of Sound House Acquisitions LLC in 2022. 

The company has since expanded into other entertainment verticals, investing in assets in film/TV.

Founded with backing from Apollo Global Management, Harbourview has more recently inked a deal to secure $500 million in debt from KKR via a private securitization of its catalog of music royalties.

On this podcast, Ingham asks Soares about Harbourview's ambitions to keep on buying in the music and entertainment space, streaming trends, and much more.

On the latest Music Business Worldwide Podcast, Tim Ingham, founder of MBW, is joined by the CEO of Amra, Tomas Ericsson (pictured).

Amra is a global digital collection society that happens to be owned by Kobalt Music Group. 

Since Kobalt acquired and relaunched Amra in 2015, the collection society has become a fast-growing business in its own right: in the 12 months to the end of June 2022 – the last year for which public financial information is available – Amra generated over USD $110 million in revenue. 

Amra's clients today include Kobalt's global publishing business, plus other significant independent music publishers, including Anthem Entertainment and Armada Music Publishing. 

Prior to joining Amra and Kobalt, Tomas Ericsson was Deputy CEO of Swedish collection society STIM, and he was the Managing Director of ICE until 2009. (At that time, ICE was a joint venture between STIM and the UK's PRS For Music; it would later welcome Germany's GEMA as a third stakeholder.)

On this podcast, Ingham asks Ericsson about the changing landscape for songwriter royalty collection, the opportunity ahead – and the fact that Amra has, to date, invested more than $50 million upgrading and expanding its core technology...

On the latest Music Business Worldwide podcast, MBW founder Tim Ingham is joined by Eliah Seton, the CEO of SoundCloud.

Seton (pictured) joined SoundCloud as the company’s President in 2021 after over a decade at Warner Music Group/ADA. Seton then became CEO of SoundCloud last year.

During his time at SoundCloud he has steered the company beyond major milestones – including SoundCloud's first ever annual profit, posted last year.

The biggest headline surrounding SoundCloud in 2024, however, has been the news that the company is headed towards a financial event: either a sale, an IPO, or some kind of raise, following investments in the firm in recent years from Sirius XM, Raine Group, and Temasek.

Meanwhile, Seton confirms that SoundCloud hosts 400 million tracks today - making it significantly bigger as a streaming platform for listeners than other audio services. At the same time, it's a powerful partner for millions of creators, offering distribution and additional services to accelerate their careers.

On the latest Music Business Worldwide podcast, MBW founder Tim Ingham is joined by Emmanuel Zunz, founder of ONErpm, one of the recorded music industry's most interesting companies and something of a quiet giant.

When it was founded in 2010, ONErpm quickly gained ground in Brazil, where it continues to challenge the major record companies for market share. Since finding success in Brazil, ONErpm has grown all over the planet, offering a range of partnerships to artists, from low-margin DIY distribution to higher-margin full-service deals.

Understood to turn over a substantial nine-figure sum each year, ONErpm is profitable because it has to be: One of the most remarkable things about the company, over and above the fact that it runs more than 40 offices globally, is that Zunz continues to fully own the business.

He's never taken a cent of private equity or venture capital money, and he's rebuffed a number of acquisition approaches from major music companies and other parties.

As he explains on this podcast, Zunz’s ambition is simple — to become the fifth largest record company in the world while maintaining a profitable, sustainable business controlled by its founder…

On this episode of Music Business Worldwide's Talking Trends, MBW founder, Tim Ingham, is once again joined by Charlie D'Atri, to discuss two key recent headlines from the world of entertainment.

This week's duo of topical picks get our hosts more irritated than usual:

(1) The US Department of Justice suing Live Nation and Ticketmaster in a bid to break up what it describes as an "unlawful monopoly".

(2) Generative AI Suno raising $125 million, as its prime investor – venture capital firm Lightspeed Partners – claims that the app can spit out music "worthy of Top 40 radio".

People and companies mentioned on this Talking Trends podcast include: Live Nation, Ticketmaster, Michael Rapino, Lightspeed Partners, Suno, Olivia Rodrigo, and more.

Music Business Worldwide's Podcasts are supported by Voly Entertainment (previously known as Voly Music).

On the latest Music Business Worldwide podcast, MBW founder Tim Ingham is joined by Temi Adeniji, Managing Director of Warner Music Africa and SVP of Sub-Saharan Africa at Warner.

Africa, especially Sub-Saharan Africa, is already a major global music industry story with huge potential for the future. On the music-making side of things, the continent has produced global hits and superstars in recent years including the likes of Burna Boy from Nigeria, Tyla from South Africa, and many others.

Based in Johannesburg, Adeniji has been instrumental in a number of initiatives from Warner Music Group in Africa in recent years, including its partnership in Nigeria with Chocolate City, signed in 2019, as well as its acquisition of distributor Africori in 2022.

Adeniji was born in Nigeria before moving to the US as a child, where she later graduated from Princeton University and then Columbia University, before building a successful career in law. She then joined Warner Music Group in New York in 2016, working across international strategy and operations, before relocating for her current job in Johannesburg in 2021.

On this podcast, Temi discusses the potential of various African markets, plus Warner’s own strategy in the region, and the general commercial excitement in the music biz surrounding the continent.

On this episode of Music Business Worldwide's Talking Trends, MBW founder, Tim Ingham, is once again joined by Charlie D'Atri, to discuss two key recent headlines from the world of entertainment: 

(1) Universal Music Group's kiss-and-make-up announcement with TikTok over the two companies' new deal, via which UMG says it's being paid more handsome compensation than it was previously; 

(2) Spotify quietly moving access to lyrics behind a 'paywall' – i.e. making lyrics a Premium-only perk.

People and companies mentioned on this Talking Trends podcast include: Spotify, Universal Music Group, TikTok, Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, Sir Lucian Grainge, MySpace, Musixmatch, RIAA, SiriusXM, Michael Nash, WimP, TIDAL, and more.

On this Music Business Worldwide podcast, MBW founder Tim Ingham is joined by David Israelite, the President and CEO of the National Music Publishers' Association.

We probably don't need to ask you to guess which particular controversial topic Israelite and Ingham discuss.

Earlier this month, Spotify announced that it was changing the way it calculates mechanical royalty payments for songwriters and publishers in the US.

Spotify has re-categorized its Premium subscription tiers in the States as 'bundles,' enabling it to pay out a lesser mechanical royalty rate to songwriters than it would if said Premium tiers were classified as pure music services.

Spotify believes it is entitled to re-categorize these tiers as 'bundles' due to the fact that SPOT now offers access to music plus audiobooks.

The idea that 'bundled' services should be entitled to a lower mechanical royalty rate (vs. standard music subscription services) was enshrined in the so-called 'CRB IV' agreement/settlement between publishers and Spotify in the States, signed in 2022, and covering the years 2023-2027.

As David Israelite explains on this podcast, the NMPA is currently considering legal action against Spotify that would seek to undo the newly-lowered 'bundle' mechanical royalty rate on the service.

This isn't the first time that Spotify and songwriters have butted heads, of course: In 2019, the US Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) decreed that Spotify and other streaming services needed to increase the headline mechanical royalty rates they paid publishers and songwriters in the US for the period covering 2018-2022.

That decision from the CRB (in the so-called 'CRB III' process) followed a campaign of lobbying and general legal cajoling from the NMPA, on behalf of songwriters and publishers.

Spotify (and Amazon) subsequently appealed this ('CRB III') ruling, attempting to drive down the mechanical royalty rate they paid songwriters under US law.

The CRB, though, stood firm – and told the streamers they must increase their rate.

Now, with its 'bundle' reclassification under 'CRB IV', Spotify is once again attempting to push down the percentage of its revenue that it must, by law, pay to songwriters and publishers in its biggest market.

Will Spotify ultimately get away with it? Stay tuned.

As Israelite confirms on this podcast: "This will likely end up in a legal conflict..."

On this episode of Music Business Worldwide's Talking Trends, MBW founder, Tim Ingham, is once again joined by Charlie D'Atri, to discuss two key recent headlines from the world of entertainment: 

(1) A battle between Concord and financial giant Blackstone to acquire Hipgnosis Songs Fund – the UK-listed bundle of music rights accumulated by Merck Mercuriadis; 

(2) Spotify's decision to re-categorize its Premium subscription tiers as 'bundles' – including audiobooks – that will materially lessen the royalty rate paid to songwriters in the US.

People and companies mentioned on this Talking Trends podcast include: Spotify, Daniel Ek, Blackstone, Merck Mercuriadis, Concord, NMPA, David Israelite, EQT, Shot Tower Capital, BMG, Citrin Cooperman, and more. 

On this episode of Music Business Worldwide's Talking Trends, MBW founder, Tim Ingham, is joined by Charlie D'Atri, to discuss two key recent headlines from the world of entertainment: 

(1) Criticism of Spotify from non-superstar artists who say the platform isn't paying them a fair amount in royalties; (2) Taylor Swift unilaterally putting her recorded music back on TikTok despite her record company, Universal Music Group, continuing to refuse to license the service.

People and companies mentioned on this Talking Trends podcast include: Universal Music Group, Spotify, Daniel Ek, Sir Lucian Grainge, Stem, Milana Rabkin-Lewis, Virgin Music Group, Beggars Group, Bad Bunny, TikTok, HYBE, Scooter Braun, WeVerse, Meta.

Music Business Worldwide's Podcasts are supported by Voly Entertainment (previously known as Voly Music).

On the latest Music Business Worldwide podcast, MBW founder Tim Ingham is joined by Milana Rabkin Lewis, the founder and CEO of Los Angeles-based Stem, a distribution and services company, including financial services for independent artists.

Stem has had a big 12 months. A major highlight arrived last summer when the company announced it had secured a $250 million credit agreement with Victory Park Capital, which has transformed the size and scope of artist advances that Stem can offer.

For a firm that has grown used to seeing some of its biggest independent artists jump to major label deals, that $250 million raise is something of a game changer for Stem and Milana.

Long-term listeners to MBW's podcasts may remember that this isn't Milana’s first time speaking to us. She last appeared on this podcast four years ago, just at the tip of the pandemic, and she volunteered a number of predictions about the music businesses in the years ahead, many of which have already come true, or at least partly come true.

On this podcast, Milana and Tim discuss – with some agreement, but not always – several crucial topics in the music business right now, from TikTok versus Universal Music Group to artist-centric streaming royalties to artificial intelligence, and of course Stem, and why Milana truly believes she is building a music company fit for the future.

On this episode of Music Business Worldwide's Talking Trends, MBW founder, Tim Ingham, is joined once again by Charlie D'Atri, to discuss two key recent headlines from the world of entertainment: (1) BMI's $100 million payout to songwriters following its acquisition by New Mountain Capital; (2) Universal Music Group's investment into HYBE's 'superfan' app, WeVerse.

People and companies mentioned on this Talking Trends podcast include: BMI, ASCAP, Google, Spotify, New Mountain Capital, BMG, Kobalt, Sony Music, Universal Music Group, Sir Lucian Grainge, HYBE, Scooter Braun, Shopify,  David Bianchi, Goldman Sachs, Live Nation, Ticketmaster, Vivendi, SeeTickets, WeVerse, and more.

On this episode of Music Business Worldwide's Talking Trends, MBW founder, Tim Ingham, is joined once again by Charlie D'Atri, to discuss two key recent headlines from the world of entertainment: (1) Fortnite's 'Festival', built by music gaming experts Harmonix, in which players can purchase music tracks via in-game store; (2) A stat from Spotify showing that over half the 66,000 artists who generated $10k+ on the platform in 2023 were based in countries where English is not the first language.

People and companies mentioned on this Talking Trends podcast include: Epic Games, Harmonix, Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, Universal Music Group, Gabe Newell, Valve, Sony Music Group, Warner Music Group, Daniel Ek, Spotify, Luminate, Mavin Records, Believe, and Denis Ladegaillerie.

Welcome to the latest Music Business Worldwide Podcast, supported by Voly Entertainment.

Joining MBW founder, Tim Ingham, on this podcast is Julius Erving III, better known as J. Erving.

Erving is the founder of Los Angeles-based Human Re Sources, a distribution and services company working with premium independent artists. Its successful clients since launch have included Brent Faiyiz, Pinks Sweats, Ant Clemons, and YBN Nahmir.

Right now, though, people are focusing on Human Re Sources for one artist more than any other: RAYE. 

In February 2024, two years after that signing to Human Re Sources, RAYE swept the UK’s BRIT Awards, with a record-breaking six wins including Album Of The Year.

There is, then, lots to ask J Erving about the success of independent artists like RAYE – and what that reflects about the wider music business.

On this podcast, we also ask him about his previous life as an artist manager, his personal motivations, and his decision in 2020 to sell Human Re Sources to Sony Music and The Orchard.

On this episode of Music Business Worldwide's Talking Trends (supported by Voly Entertainment): MBW founder, Tim Ingham, is joined by Los Angeles-based music biz seer, Charlie D'Atri, to discuss two recent headlines from the world of entertainment: 

(1) Deezer's decision to remove 26 million music tracks from its library of content; and (2) The amount of 'manipulated audio' that continues to thrive on TikTok today - even when it's a Universal Music Group recording being 'manipulated'. (Also discussed Skibidi Toilet – a cultural phenomenon driven by a 'manipulated' Timbaland track.)

People and companies mentioned on this Talking Trends podcast include: Deezer, Bob Roback, Ingrooves, Epidemic Sound, Calm, Amazon, Windham Hill Records, Universal Music Group, Endel, Oleg Stavinksy, Pex, TikTok, JP Morgan, YouTube, Rasty Turek, Neil Young, and more.

Music Business Worldwide's Podcasts are supported by Voly Entertainment (previously known as Voly Music).

On this episode of Music Business Worldwide's Talking Trends, MBW founder, Tim Ingham, is once again joined by US-based music biz veteran, Charlie D'Atri, to discuss two specific recent headlines from the world of entertainment: (1) A tough time on the public markets for private members' chain – and music industry favorite – Soho House; and (2) The increasing prospect of a battle between Denis Ladegaillerie and Warner Music Group to acquire control of Believe.

People and companies mentioned on this Talking Trends podcast include: Soho House, Hipgnosis Songs Fund, Merck Mercuriadis, Warren Buffett, Denis Ladegaillerie, Warner Music Group, Believe, Robert Kyncl, Ingrooves/Virgin Music Group, The Orchard, Willard Ahdritz, SoundCloud, and AWAL.

On this Music Business Worldwide Podcast, MBW founder, Tim Ingham, interviews Aaron Bay-Schuck, the CEO and co-Chairman of Warner Records in Los Angeles.

Right now, Warner Records is on fire like no other time in its recent history. It's seeing blockbuster success from several artists who, according to Bay-Schuck, are all true artist propositions – in this industry for the long-term, rather than just a quick streaming or TikTok hit.

These artists include the likes of Teddy Swims, Benson Boone, Dua Lipa, and – not least – country star Zach Bryan, whose No.1 US single, I Remember Everything (feat. Kacey Musgraves), continues to bounce around the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100... despite being released last summer.

Alongside his fellow co-Chairman, Tom Corson, Aaron Bay-Schuck last year led Warner Records to become the fourth biggest frontline record company in the US. According to Billboard, Warner Records 'current' US market share jumped by 110 basis points in 2023, up to 5.96% from 4.86% in 2022.

Bay-Schuck's industry story before Warner was an interesting journey – from being a junior at the A&R team of Atlantic Records, where he signed Bruno Mars, through to becoming President of A&R at Interscope, where he worked with the likes of Imagine Dragons, Lady Gaga, Gwen Stefani, and Selena Gomez.

For Bay-Schuck, his more recent success with Zach Bryan and co. isn't evidence of Warner Records suddenly becoming a ‘hot’ label. 

In his eyes, it’s evidence of a patient, long-term, and consistent A&R strategy…

MBW's Talking Trends is back!

On this episode, Music Business Worldwide founder, Tim Ingham, is joined by US-based industry expert, Charlie D'Atri, to discuss two specific topics that have made headlines in recent weeks: (1) A recent wave of lay-off announcements at major music companies, and (2) Universal Music Group's new $240 million investment into Chord Music.

People and companies mentioned on this Talking Trends podcast include: Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Robert Kyncl, Julie Greenwald, Chance The Rapper, Peter Mensch, Cliff Burnstein, Roc Nation, John Janick, Monte Lipman, Irving Azoff, Jeffrey Azoff,  Stephen Hendel, Sam Hendel, AWAL, In2une, Sir Lucian Grainge, Boyd Muir, Mubadala, Sony Corp, EMI Music Publishing, Golnar Khosrowshahi, Reservoir, Blackstone, KKR, and Hipgnosis.

Hello and welcome to the latest Music Business Worldwide Podcast, supported by Voly Music – now known as Voly Entertainment.

On this podcast, MBW founder Tim Ingham discusses a crisis that's rapidly deteriorating the UK live music scene.

The Music Venue Trust is a trade body representing the interests of a vital collective of British live music venues. It’s just released a bunch of shocking statistics in its annual report – including the fact that in 2023, an average of two of the UK’s live music venues were shutting their doors every WEEK.

Amongst the venues that Music Venue Trust represents are what it calls Grassroots Music Venues, or GMVs. It surveyed 835 of these GMVs for its 2023 annual report.

These venues have an average capacity of 309 people, though that can range to a capacity over 650 people.  As mentioned, the Music Venue Trust’s latest report shows that two GMVs are shutting down per week in the UK. 

But perhaps the most shocking data point in the new report is that 38.5% of GMVs reported an annual financial loss in 2023. To repeat that: Over a third of ‘club’-sized music venues in the UK are currently operating at a loss.

On this podcast, Tim Ingham is joined by Mark Davyd, founder and CEO of the Music Venue Trust. Davyd explains how his organization intends to solve this issue – likely via a levy placed on ticket sales in larger venues like arenas and stadiums.

He also explains why this is a more complicated scenario than merely being the free market in action – and suggests that it’s only a matter of time before the UK’s live music venue crisis reaches a similar point of desperation in the United States…