Welcome to Music Enterprise Worldwide’s weekly round-up – the place we be sure that you caught the 5 greatest tales to hit our headlines over the previous seven days. MBW’s round-up is supported by Centtrip, which helps over 500 of the world’s best-selling artists maximize their earnings and cut back their touring prices.
One in 5 paid music subscribers can be keen to pay for a “super-premium” subscription tier, in keeping with analysis cited by Common Music Group‘s management workforce.
That perception into the considering on monetization of superfans is simply one of many issues we gleaned from the corporate’s newest earnings name, which got here scorching on the heels of the announcement that UMG had inked a contemporary licensing cope with TikTok.
We additionally realized this week that Harmony is bowing out of its bidding battle with Blackstone for possession of Hipgnosis Songs Fund‘s belongings.
In the meantime, Warner Music Group launched its fiscal Q2 (calendar Q1) earnings this week, posting complete revenues of USD $1.494 billion for the quarter.
The identical day as WMG’s earnings, Downtown Music introduced it had secured a further $500 million credit score capability from Financial institution of America, with which the corporate plans to pay advances to indie artists.
Lastly, TikTok sued the US authorities, asking a federal appeals court docket in DC to overview the constitutionality of the recently-passed regulation forcing guardian firm ByteDance to promote TikTok’s US operations or face a nationwide ban.
It’s no shock that TikTok was a key subject of dialogue on Common Music Group‘s Q1 earnings name on Thursday (Could 2).
Simply hours forward of UMG revealing that its revenues grew 7.9% YoY at fixed foreign money to USD $2.8 billion in Q1, the businesses ended a three-month-long licensing dispute with a shiny new deal.
However that’s not all that was on UMG management’s minds. Monetizing superfans continues to be an enormous precedence.
In response to an analyst’s query, UMG Chair and CEO Sir Lucian Grainge mentioned: “We all know that we may higher monetize higher-value clients, the analysis means that 1 in 5 paid music subscribers can be keen to pay for a premium tier. That’s engaging…”
The race to amass UK-listed Hipgnosis Songs Fund took a flip Thursday (Could 9) as Harmony introduced that it could not increase its newest provide – leaving international funding agency Blackstone because the frontrunner within the ongoing takeover battle.
Harmony’s newest announcement signifies its withdrawal from the competitors, leaving Blackstone in a powerful place.
“Harmony Bidco confirms that its provide of $1.25 per Hipgnosis Share is closing and won’t be elevated,” the corporate mentioned in an announcement obtained by MBW.
The Hipgnosis Songs Fund board had earlier really helpful Blackstone’s provide to its shareholders, whereas withdrawing its earlier advice of Harmony’s $1.25-per-share provide…
Warner Music Group has issued its monetary outcomes for the three months ended March 31, 2024 (calendar Q1 – the corporate’s fiscal Q2).
Based on the corporate’s outcomes, WMG noticed its quarterly international company-wide revenues attain USD $1.494 billion (throughout recorded music, music publishing, and different actions).
Warner Music Group’s recorded music revenues have been up 4.3% YoY at fixed foreign money to $1.189 billion.
That development was pushed, in keeping with WMG, by development in digital and licensing income, and was “partially offset by decrease bodily and artist providers and expanded-rights income”…
Downtown Music, a division of Downtown Music Holdings, simply secured one other $500 million of credit score capability from Financial institution of America to increase its providers for impartial artists and labels.
Downtown says that it initially established its partnership with Financial institution of America in 2022 with a $200 million credit score facility to supply artists and rightsholders with advances in alternate “for a short-term share of future royalties”.
The corporate has now expanded its credit score facility with BoA by a further $500 million to spice up its capability to pay advances to indie artists.
As famous by Bloomberg on Thursday (Could 9), Downtown gives advances “starting from tens of hundreds of {dollars} to a number of million {dollars}”.
At the moment, throughout its operations, Downtown Music Holdings claims to be the world’s largest impartial service supplier…
TikTok and guardian firm ByteDance have filed go well with towards the US authorities over its recently-passed regulation that requires ByteDance to promote the platform’s US operations or face a nationwide ban.
In a criticism that TikTok mentioned it filed on Tuesday (Could 7) with the US Courtroom of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the corporate described the regulation as “unconstitutional.”
“Congress has taken the unprecedented step of expressly singling out and banning TikTok: a vibrant on-line discussion board for protected speech and expression utilized by 170 million Individuals to create, share, and consider movies over the Web,” the criticism acknowledged.
“For the primary time in historical past, Congress has enacted a regulation that topics a single, named speech platform to a everlasting, nationwide ban, and bars each American from collaborating in a novel on-line group with greater than 1 billion individuals worldwide…”
