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Music Business Worldwide: Newsletter

Believe generated $800m in annual revenues in 2022, up 31.8% YoY Paris-headquartered music company Believe generated annual revenues of €760.8 million in 2022. That annual revenue figure converts to USD $800 million (at average annual exchange rates as per the IRS). The company's full-year financial results (its second set of full-year results since floating on the Paris Euronext in 2021) were published on Wednesday (March 15). According to Believe, its annual revenues grew €183.6 million, from €577.2 million in 2021, reflecting an increase of 31.8% YoY. Believe's performance in 2022 marked an acceleration in growth versus the prior year, when the company grew its revenues by €135.8 million (30.7%) YoY, from €441.4 million in 2020....  (MBW)

MBW Newsletter Sponsors Primary Wave: The Home of Legends. The world's leading independent publisher of iconic music CMS, CRM, Playlists, Royalty Accounting, Analytics: your music business all in one place The next generation label transforming viral moments into long term music careers.  Centtrip: The award-winning account for music payments, royalties, foreign exchange and touring expenses Viberate: Get premium music data analytics at an unbeatable price. BandLab: Home to 60M creators making and sharing music without limits Voly Music The Bespoke Financial Management Platform for the Music Industry Rights & Royalties Done Right. Drive more revenue with Vistex Music Cloud. Technology + Infrastructure + Methodology ➡️ Execution = Results Want your brand here? Contact Rebecca through this link...   Why is Spotify copying TikTok? To cling on to power. Why is Spotify pursuing a new design that borrows heavily from time-sucking short-form video services like TikTok? That’s the question on the mind of Music Business Worldwide founder, Tim Ingham, on MBW’s latest Talking Trends podcast. As Ingham explains, Spotify’s motivations for its much-debated new home feed (as well as its new AI-powered DJ) aren’t likely to lie solely in its aid of artists. Instead, he suggests, Spotify has made the move because it knows the power of its key USP in the view of investors – algorithmic recommendation – has been deteriorating in recent years... (Talking Trends supported by Voly Music) Eric Levin, long-time Warner Music Group CFO, to retire later this year Eric Levin, EVP and Chief Financial Officer, Warner Music Group, has confirmed he will retire from the company by the end of 2023. Levin joined WMG in 2014, having held a number of senior executive posts in the US and Greater China. Levin was hired at Warner by former WMG CEO, Steve Cooper, three years after Access Industries acquired the major music company for $3.3 billion...  (MBW) SESAC Music Group acquires distribution and content delivery platform AudioSalad SESAC, the Nashville-headquartered music licensing/collection society, has acquired New York-based content management, analytics, delivery and distribution tech provider AudioSalad. AudioSalad will remain headquartered in New York under the leadership of CEO Iain Catling and CTO Deane Thomas and will continue to function as a standalone business within the SESAC Music Group... (MBW)

MBW'S QUOTE OF THE DAY “Deezer has long advocated for a re-evaluation of subscription’s economic model. We’re thrilled Jeronimo and his team are partnering with us to explore how we can evolve streaming for the benefit of the entire ecosystem of artists, labels, platforms and fans. Such collaboration is critical to the success of the Artist-Centric initiative. While there won’t be one uniform quick fix — subscriber acquisition and retention dynamics and metrics vary by platform — our partnership with Deezer will help accelerate this entire enterprise."   Michael Nash (pictured), Universal Music Group's EVP, Chief Digital Officer, comments on the news that UMG has confirmed an initiative with France-born music service Deezer to "investigate potential new economic models for music streaming". According to a press release, through this collaboration, "UMG and Deezer aim to develop new methods that holistically reward recording artists and songwriters for the value they creat". In January, UMG also announced an alliance with music streaming service TIDAL that will see the two companies work together to explore what they call “an innovative new economic model for music streaming that might better reward the value provided by artists...” (MBW)

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Don't miss: HYBE's not the only K-pop giant eyeing the US: SM Entertainment plans $150m Stateside acquisition to speed up global expansion Mark our words: Money from the South Korean music business is going to have a major impact on the US industry in 2023. Even more so than it already has. Over the weekend, you may have read the news that HYBE (the giant behind BTS) had pulled out of its attempt to buy a 40% stake in rival K-pop firm, SM Entertainment (see below for details). There will be knock-on effects from this outcome. The first obvious one: HYBE, keen to diversify its portfolio beyond K-pop in the wake of BTS being called up to the Korean military, will very possibly now spend more big checks buying music companies in the States Having already acquired Scooter Braun's Ithaca Holdings for over $1 billion in 2021, HYBE America (now run by Braun) announced last month it was buying Atlanta-born Quality Control for a sum worth approximately $300 million. What will HYBE buy next? Its Chairman, Bang Si-Hyuk, told CNN the other week: "Globally, [K-Pop] is not occupying much of the market. On the other hand, Latin music and afrobeats is very rapidly growing... I'm taking over labels and management companies in America to be able to build [our] infrastructure." This story won't all be about HYBE, though. SM Entertainment, whose management just fought off HYBE's takeover moves, has its own plans to globalize via acquisition. Those plans, according to SM investor documents shared by MBW this week, include a USD ≈$150 million spend on buying one or multiple foreign music companies – with North America its priority market...  (MBW) Don't miss: Spotify's mission statement is preposterous. Its latest announcements prove it. “Our mission is to unlock the potential of human creativity by giving a million creative artists the opportunity to live off their art and billions of fans the opportunity to enjoy and be inspired by it.” It’s been Spotify‘s mission statement, published in its annual financials, for the past five years. I’ve pointed out previously that it amounts to nothing more than a daft fantasy. But Spotify’s latest proclamations really hammer the point home... (MBW Reacts)

JOB OF THE WEEK Believe is hiring for a Retail Partnership Lead in London and Paris. Must have around 5 to 10 years' experience in Strategic Partnerships and a proven track record of negotiating and executing Partnership opportunities... [Click here to find out more]

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