Digital music sales soared in 2007 and the total number of units sold during the Atlantic, whose artists include the Southern rapper T I ,
25 fév 2021 · In the 24 hours following Daft Punk's breakup Monday, Dylan Thomas' Etsy storefront sold $22,000 worth of custom helmets made to look like
9 mar 2022 · sales revenue and vinyl album sales revenue grew in curred for R&B singer Big Mali, whose song 2020 and soared to 31 in 2021
9 déc 2020 · campaigns, global streams for 'Daisy' skyrocketed, increase in album sales of any shortlisted artist
album sales have tan ed, leaving musicians floundering for ways to ma e a living: music had soared to $27 3 billion (see Williamson and Cloonan 15),
because the data on the value of local sales of recorded music is “Los Ilegales” whose first CD sold over one million units in the US and through-
![[PDF] US Recorded Music Revenue Hit $15B in 2021, Topping - Billboard](https://pdfprof.com/EN_PDFV2/Docs/PDF_2/26393_2march_09_2022_billboard_bulletin_1.pdf.jpg "[PDF] US Recorded Music Revenue Hit $15B in 2021, Topping - Billboard")
26393_2march_09_2022_billboard_bulletin_1.pdf
Recorded-music revenues in the United States
reached $15 billion at retail in 2021, according to the
RIAA'sfiannual year-end report.
That towering figure, in a vacuum, exceeds the re- cord-high water mark of 1999, when revenues reached $14.6 billion at the height of the CD boom, though the optimism comes with a major caveat - inflation over the past 20-plus years has grown to the point that the $15 billion actually represents a figure 37% lower than the high-water mark, which would be around $24 bil- lion in today's dollars.Still, the figures are another welcome sign for a business that had bottomed out less than a decade ago. In 2021, revenues were up 23% overall over the $12.1 billion clocked in 2020, as streaming revenues alone surpassed that 2020 mark, having climbed 24% in the past year to account for $12.4 billion in 2021, or 83% of all recorded music revenues. That's being driven by a
23% growth in paid subscription streaming revenue,
which now accounts for $9.5 billion of that figure, or
76% of streaming revenues (including $907 million
from limited-tier subscriptions, up 26% itself). For the year, the average number of paid subscribers in the U.S. reached 84 million, up 11% from last year's
75.5 million and 60.4 million in 2019. Meanwhile, ad-supported on-demand streaming revenue rebounded
to 47% growth in 2021, reaching $1.8 billion, and SoundExchange and other digital radio distributions totaled $1.2 billion, with the SoundExchange piece up
5% year over year from $993 million in 2020.
On the sales side, digital downloads continued to de- cline, down 12% to $587 million in 2021 - of that figure, digital album sales accounted for $282 million (down
12%) and digital track sales sunk to $256 million (down
16%). In total, digital sales was just 4% of total revenues
for the year, according to the RIAA's figures.
On the other hand, physical sales were up across
the board - the first time since 1996 that both CD
sales revenue and vinyl album sales revenue grew in the same year. Overall, physical sales reached $1.66
billion, a 42.3% increase over 2020's $1.16 billion, with big numbers on each side.
Vinyl, which has been growing for 15 solid years
US Recorded Music Revenue
Hit $15B in 2021, Topping
Record - With afiCatch:fiRIAA
BY DAN RYS
(continued)
YOUR DAILY ENTERTAINMENT NEWS UPDATEBulletin
MARCH 9, 2022 31
Five Takeaways
From RIAA's 2021
Report: Big Business,
Bigger Growth,
Biggest Vinyl
Shipments
T ikT ok Will N o w Market & Distribute
Your Music - To Any
Streaming Service
'Euphoria' Synchs
Drive Streaming
Gains 'Unlike Any
Other TV Show'
Music Earnings Q4
2021: Taking Stock
of Spotify, WMG,
SiriusXM & More
Companies
'Why Are We
Here?': Live Nation Asks Judge to End
Antitrust Case
CLICK
Page 3 of 31 now, reached the $1 billion revenue thresh- old for the first time since 1986, according to the RIAA, up 61% year over year and ac- counting for just over $1 billion in revenues and a whopping 7% of overall recorded music revenues, as well as 63% of physical revenues. CDs, meanwhile, saw the first year over year jump since the digital revolution started to sink CD sales in 2004, growing
21% to $584 million, just shy of the total
digital download revenue. "The incredible run of strong, industry- wide growth documented in this and prior reports speaks to the dynamic and vibrant creative and commercial relationships today's labels have built with their art- ist partners," RIAA chairman/CEO Mitch
Glazier said in a statement accompanying
the report. "Labels haven't simply reinvented themselves, they have helped transform the entire process of music creation, discovery and distribution to bolster creative freedom and artistic expression while seamlessly meeting fans everywhere and anywhere they want to be. The result has been an incredibly vibrant period delivering new opportunities, platforms and experiences - from music- powered fitness apps to gaming platform livestream concerts to must-have vinyl exclusives to global surprise digital album drops... No industry in history has embraced changing technologies and innovations faster than music over the last 10 years - taking streaming from novelty to ubiquitous in the blink of an eye and now working to drive a new generation of social apps, shared im- mersive experiences and blockchain/NFT opportunities going forward."
This story will be updated.
Five Takeaways
From RIAA's
2021 Report: Big
Business, Bigger
Growth, Biggest
Vinyl Shipments
BY?DAN RYS
T he RIAA's 2021 year-end re- port on the U.S. recorded music business showcased plenty of significant numbers: $15 billion in revenues, 23% growth, eye-popping figures and plenty of optimism ahead. But digging deeper into the numbers reveals a few more subtle trends, in such areas as inflation, percentage growth, vinyl shipments, ad- supported on-demand streams and digital revenue share, to name a few.
Here are five takeaways from the new
year-end report.
Explosive Growth
At this point, the return to growth of
the U.S. recorded music business is noth- ing new - revenues have been up for six straight years now after more than a decade of decline. But the rate of growth in the past year is still eye-opening: 23% is a huge jump compared to years prior, when growth was still high, but not anywhere near those figures. Consider, since bottoming out in 2014 and remaining essentially flat in
2015 ($6.9 billion apiece), growth has been
relatively steady in the low-double-digit range: up 11.4% in 2016 ($7.7 billion), 16.5% in 2017 ($8.7 billion), 12% in 2018 ($9.8 bil- lion), 13% in 2019 ($11.1 billion) and 9.2% in a pandemic-a?ected 2020 ($12.2 billion).
And considering that actual growth is easier
to maintain than percentage growth, then that 23.4% figure over 2020 is even more impressive.
How Big Is the Business Really?
For decades, the high-water mark for the
U.S. recorded-music business was 1999's
$14.6 billion, a figure achieved at the peak of the CD boom and right before the likes of
Napster and Limewire (and iTunes) began
to push a reluctant business inexorably into the digital age. But while 2021's $15 billion is eye-catching in absolute numbers, it's not actually the best year ever for the business: the RIAA notes that with inflation, it's actu- ally still 37% lower than that 1999 bench- mark. So how big is the biz, really? Well,
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according to the U.S. Inflation Calculator, $14.6 billion in 1999 money would be about $23.75 billion in 2021 dollars, which would make 2021's $15 billion o? the pace. Put another way, the $15 billion put up in 2021 would equate to about $9.22 billion in 1999 dollars, give or take. So the gap is still big from the heyday of the turn of the century, but it's another step in the right direction.
Ad-Supported On-Demand Streaming
Roars Back
In the RIAA's 2020 year-end report,
ad-supported on-demand streaming took a noticeable hit in growth, both in absolute terms and by percentage, which was chalked up to the fluky ad market caused by the on- set of the pandemic. In reality, however, the growth - up 16.8% over 2019 - wasn't too out of line with the levels of the two years prior to that, when the sector grew 15.3% in
2018 and 19.6% in 2019. But that particular
revenue pot roared to much higher growth in 2021, up 46.7% to $1.76 billion - mak- ing it by far the second-largest source of revenue (behind paid subscriptions) for just the second year ever, after it nudged into that territory last year. And while it's still dwarfed by the revenues from paid stream- ing - a cumulative $9.5 billion in 2021 - the fact that ad-supported on-demand revenue has nearly doubled since just 2019 (when it was $908 million) certainly bodes well, and reflects the increasing importance of revenues from the likes of YouTube, TikTok,
Facebook and Spotify's ad-supported tier.
The Amount of Vinyl Units Shipped
Exploded
Another story that has been covered
extensively is the growth of vinyl, and for good reason - the RIAA report says that the format passed the $1 billion revenue mark for the first time since 1986. (This writer was born in 1989.) But another story that has, also rightfully, been covered extensively of late has been the pandemic-fueled supply chain issues that have contributed - not entirely caused, but contributed - to vinyl pressing-plant delays and industry-wide frustration at the lead time required to get vinyl pressed and shipped in the past year or so. Well, another way to assess this issue is to look at production capacities as a whole: not only did vinyl revenue grow 61% over
2020, but vinyl shipments grew 67% year
over year to 39.7 million units, far exceed- ing the 23.7 million units shipped in 2020.
So, the demand is there, the production is
keeping pace, but there are still issues in the industry - will we see more pressing plants begin to sprout up, or other solutions to this issue? Consider that just five years ago, in
2016, just 17.2 million units were shipped
- units shipped have more than doubled in that time span and things do not appear to be slowing down. Something, surely, has got to give.
Digital's Overall Revenue Share Actually
Declined
Obviously, the story of this half-decade of
growth has been a digital one: digital reve- nues passed physical revenues as a percent- age of the business all the way back in 2011, and the gap has only widened since. But, in another quirk of the numbers this past year, digital's percentage of overall revenues actually declined in 2021, from 90% in 2020 to 89% in 2021. That has a lot to do with the growth in vinyl and CD sales - the first time they both increased in the same year since
1996 - but is also just a factor of percent-
age growth: the higher you go, the harder it is to maintain those percentage growth numbers. It's not a hugely significant change - the percentage of physical revenue went from 9.6% in 2020 to 11% even in 2021 - but we're still talking about a couple hundred million dollars. Call it a fun trivia answer to a question that no one will ask one day. Page 5 of 31
IN BRIEF
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TikTok Will
Now Market &
Distribute Your
Music - To Any
Streaming Service
BYfiDAN RYS
T ikTok is launching a new tool aimed at helping independent emerging artists navigate its ser- vice, upload music and get paid for its use, market and promote themselves on the platform and distribute their music to outside DSPs. The tool, called SoundOn, has been in beta in several territories for some artists and live in Brazil and Indonesia for the past several months, but the company is rolling it out widely to creators in the U.S. and U.K. beginning Wednesday (March 9).
As TikTok has exploded into arguably
the most important social media app to the industry over the past several years, it has become an integral player in the rise of several artists and songs, notably Lil Nas
X's "Old Town Road,"?24kGoldn's "Mood"
and GAYLE's "abcdefu," to name a few. And it's grown into an indispensable marketing, promotion and A&R tool for record labels who are looking to sign and push acts to the app's 1 billion highly-engaged global users.
Often, however, TikTok's algorithm,
expressed in each individual user's For You feed, has seemed at times random or hard to navigate for creators, many of whom are try- ing to build a following and gain exposure for their own works on the platform. Help- ing them navigate the complex levers of the platform is what helped drive the company to create SoundOn, according to global head of music Ole Obermann. "We were hearing from a lot of artists that they loved being on TikTok and trying to build their community and hopefully reach really big audiences, but they were pretty overwhelmed, they didn't really understand how to get onto TikTok, get music onto
TikTok, get an account set up on TikTok,
figure out how to position themselves in the right way," Obermann tells Billboard. "So what we came up with was, let's have a spe- cial entrance into the platform that's only available to these new and undiscovered artists, and then we're gonna have a chance to work much more closely with them if this is the route they choose to come in. The goal is, really, that we find the promising artist and we walk them from the backstage door right onto the main stage and they're there, they're performing, it's an incredible show and they've found their audience. That's what we're trying to build."
Essentially, that means building a free
music-specific portal for creators on TikTok, which gives creators a dashboard of real- time analytics to view how their music is performing on the app, as well as access to a team of dozens of employees who are work- ing directly on SoundOn who can help iden- tify marketing and promotion opportunities within the app, recommend best practices and key in on what's working and not, and pair creators with others to cross-promote or collaborate on music. The service will also o?er artists exclusive deals on the plat- form, where creators can upload their music through SoundOn and get paid directly from the platform in the available territories, with what Obermann calls "a pretty flexible exit clause" in case an artist chooses to withdraw their rights in order to sign to a label or outside distributor, for example. (Obermann says the rates are "in line with our industry deals that we have in place with all of our label partners right now.")
But SoundOn is also a distribution tool
that will allow creators to upload their music to any digital service provider, like
Spotify or Apple Music, in partnership
with a third-party distributor that TikTok declined to identify. That positions the com- pany in a similar space to what SoundCloud announced?at the beginning of this year: that it would build a suite of artist and label services tools on top of its existing broad content streaming platform in a bid to help support artists and creators at all levels of their career, not just in the early incubation period. TikTok says that it doesn't currently have all the capabilities that SoundCloud has on o?er, but that it's working towards adding more services in the future depend- ing on an artist's needs, as it grows closer to becoming an integral member of the traditional music industry's evolution in the digital space. "We're just trying to figure out, how do we make this better for the musical cre- ator so that we, ideally, have every aspiring musician in the world thinking, 'I want to start my musical career and journey and I'm gonna do it on TikTok'?" Obermann says. "That is really the strategy, that is the goal and we think SoundOn is the entry point to get them all to come in as we continue to roll this out around the world."
Already, TikTok has identified a few
success stories from its beta launch, most notably Muni Long's "Hrs & Hrs." Long, currently unsigned, uploaded her track through SoundOn's beta program and saw it pick up in TikTok tra?c at the end of 2021, eventually exploding on the app to reach more than 1 million video creations and
1.6 billion views of the song, according to
TikTok's metrics, on its way to a No. 16 peak
on the Billboard Hot 100. Similarly, British singer-songwriter Chloe Adams?released her song "Dirty Thoughts" in November through SoundOn and racked up just shy of 20,000 video creations in one week after its debut on the platform, on the way to
440,000 to date. Bay Area-based singer-
songwriter Ashley Mehta, meanwhile, released her song "When I Ride" through
SoundOn in mid-October; by January it was
seeing 25,000 video creations per day, total- ing more than 1 million video creations to date, according to the company.
Moving forward, TikTok will be o?ering
access to analytics dashboards to manag- ers and labels with multiple artists in a bid to "make this into a hub for more services to the artist, but also the wider industry,"
Obermann explains. And TikTok also has a
creator marketplace, currently still in beta itself, which will facilitate the matching of creators with promotional partners inside
SoundOn's suite of o?erings. It's a big step
towards an embrace of the music business for an app that, prior to the pandemic, did not even have long-term licensing deals with the major labels in place. "I think in the last year, as we've come in Page 7 of 31
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o the back of [securing those deals], we"ve actually been able to think about, 'Where do we want to go with this and how do we make music an even more important, more creative and more exciting part of where
TikTok is going?'" Obermann says. "And
that's what you're starting to see now - these are the first fruits of that labor now that we got through that first phase with the industry." 'Euphoria' Synchs
Drive Streaming
Gains 'Unlike Any
Other TV Show'
BY KRISTIN ROBINSON
S ince its debut in 2018, HBO"s high school drama Euphoria has been a sensation, but when the show came back for its long awaited second season on Jan. 9, 2022, it reached new heights - and helped a handful of hits ex- perience a second spike of popularity along the way. With a viewership doubling over the first three episodes, as Variety?reported in February, Euphorias new season quickly became an important vehicle for massive streaming bumps of older tracks.
For the show's music - which pivots
from Thelonius Monk or Judy Gar- land to Lil Xan and 100 Gecs" Laura Les within a single hour-long episode, all cu- rated by music supervisor Jen Malone and featuring an original score by producer- artist Labrinth there was a measurable spike in listenership after each episode aired for nearly every song licensed. Secretly
Group's digital marketing director Ste-
ven Pardo says it"s unlike any other TV show" today. "No other synchs we have get anywhere near this kind of growth. The only thing I've seen that causes bigger spikes in streaming are from TikTok trends."
Why has the show been such a trendsetter
with songs? Apart from its overall cultural cache, the episodes, which are released week-by-week instead of the current popular format of dropping a full season at once, may be part of it. "With a lot of Netflix and streaming shows which put up a full season at once, we don't see that really giant spike up front because people get through episodes at di?erent rates," says Pardo. "Eu- phoria synchs seem to have the spike more typical to traditional television."
The season's two biggest stand-out songs
- Gerry Ra erty"s Right Down the Line" and Steely Dan"s Dirty Work" bene tted from a combination of Euphoria buzz and
TikTok trends to push back into cultural
ubiquity decades after their initial release dates. The 1978 track "Right Down the
Line," which was featured in the season's
first and second episodes, has over 62,000 videos made to the song on TikTok, while "Dirty Work," featured in episode two, boasts over 10,000 videos. "Right Down the Line" earned 532,574
U.S. on-demand streams the week before
its Euphoria?synchs, according to MRC data, but the song grew to 1,027,300 weekly U.S. on-demand streams after its first placement. (Note: MRC Data tracks weekly data on a
Friday to Thursday schedule, and since Eu-
phoriafipremiered on Sundays the week-after numbers do not represent a complete week.)
After its second synch, it neared the 2 mil-
lion mark. Eventually, the song plateaued at 2,651,546 streams for the week of Jan.
21-Jan. 27 and has consistently earned about
2 million every week since. Similarly, "
Dirty Work" earned 341,972 U.S. based on-
demand streams the week prior to its synch and nearly tripled the week afterwards. It now holds steady around 800,000 streams per week.
American standards, like Mahalia
Jackson"s Summertime/Sometimes I Feel
Like a Motherless Child," also soared after
its Euphoria placement in episode four. The song had only garnered 3,818 U.S. based on- demand streams the week prior to the epi- sode's Jan. 30 air date but jumped by 2,316% the week it appeared on the show. (Though growth slowed the week after its airdate, the song, like most other songs researched for this story, has maintained a streaming uptick several weeks after its initial synch. "Summertime/Sometimes," for instance, has maintained around 64,000 U.S. on-demand streams per week since its episode aired, a far cry from the 3,818 it earned prior).
The show has proven especially valuable
for more emerging artists, some of whom saw experienced the greatest uplifts in consumption. Country artist Orville Peck"s song "Dead of Night" went from garnering
65,267 U.S. on-demand streams, according
to MRC Data, in the week prior to its epi- sode one placement on Euphoria to an 812% increase, reaching 595,221 streams the week of Jan. 9, when it played from a radio as characters Nate Jacobs and Cassie Howard are drunkenly speeding in a truck, en route to a New Years' party. According to Shazam, searches were up over 10,000% for "Dead of Night" from before the episode's airdate.
The following week, the song hit 1.4 million
streams in a single week. A similar result oc- curred for R&B singer Big Mali, whose song "4,5,6" was streamed 28,282 times in the week before its placement. The song surged
730% over the following two weeks, after its
episode one placement.
Scott Cresto, Reservoir Media"s head
of synch, says context is also an important part of whether a song will spike - and is one of the reasons why he believes Sinead
O'Connors Drink Before the War" per-
formed so well. (It had earned just 4,159
U.S. on-demand streams the week before it
was featured on the season's fourth episode and jumped to 786,569 U.S. on-demand streams the week after its Jan. 30, according to MRC Data). "Sinead's song was in a very important scene for the show," he says. In the episode, "Drink Before the War" played from a jukebox in a gay bar as picture-per- fect husband and father Cal Jacobs reckons with his sexual identity while singing along.
Cutaways show Cassie also singing along to
the tune at a birthday party as she similarly reaches a breaking point.
This reasoning holds up in other cases of
the show, in which songs appeared in less notable moments and as a result saw little to no change in consumption. "seaside_demo" by SEB, which was featured quietly in the background of episode two, acts as an apt example of this. With no real uplift in U.S. based on-demand streaming, the track held steady around its prior streaming average.
Classical tunes like Debussey's "Reverie"
Page 9 of 31
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and Piero Piccioni"s E"vero, Ogni Mondo
E'Felice" also did not experience a signifi-
cant uptick in listenership.
When it comes to judging just how sturdy
these U.S. streaming boosts are, though, Mo- ses Sumney"s Me in 20 Years," which was placed on the Dec. 3, 2020, Euphoria spe- cial, may be the best indicator of the lasting impact season two's song selections could have. The week prior to its synch, Sum- ney's track received 12,608 U.S. on-demand streams. It jumped by 2,103% the week of the special's airdate to 270,044 streams.
Over a year since the synch, the song's worst
performing week was still nearly quadruple its pre-Euphoria level, earning 46,079 streams in its lowest point (the week of Nov.
19-Nov. 25).
When season two premiered, spark-
ing viewers to re-watch or catch up on old episodes, "Me in 20 Years" spiked again, jumping more than 73% from 60,752 U.S. based on-demand streams for the week before season two aired to 105,379 streams the week-of the season two premiere on
Jan. 9. "It's now consistently listed as Moses'
top song on Spotify now," says Pardo. "That wasn't the case before the synch."
Music Earnings
Q4 2021: Taking
Stock of Spotify,
WMG, SiriusXM &
More Companies
BY?GLENN PEOPLES
M ost public music companies continued hot streaks by turn- ing in good or excellent num- bers for the quarter ended Dec.
31, 2021. For the majority of them, however,
it would have been di?cult not to impress in 2021 compared to 2020. COVID-19 shut down the touring business for three quar- ters of 2020, hampered brick-and-mortar retail for much of the year and hammered advertising spending, which a?ected radio broadcasters as well as streaming services.
By the end of 2021, businesses's main
problems were rising costs and labor short- ages, not unemployment and unpredictable consumer spending.
Each component of the music ecosystem
had encouraging results. The three majors - Universal Music Group, Sony's music di- vision and Warner Music Group - had com- bined revenues of about $25.4 billion, up
19.8% from 2020. Live Nation revenues more
than tripled. SiriusXM revenues and self- pay subscribers both grew about 4% despite a sluggish auto sales market that drives con- sumer adoption. Radio broadcaster iHeart-
Media came within 3% of 2019 revenue and
improved 20.7% on 2020 revenue. Spotify, a vital cog for record labels' and publishers' growth, grew nearly 23%.
Looking forward, some companies'
growth and margins have raised some ana- lysts' concerns. Investors, too, are less than impressed if share price performances are any indication. But the signs are pointed in the right direction. These public companies have little exposure to the political crisis in
Ukraine that is shutting o? Russia to West-
ern markets and disrupting energy prices throughout North America and Europe. And all companies are enjoying the tailwinds of falling COVID-19 infection rates, lifted mask mandates and a return to public life.
This list of financial results for the fourth
quarter and 2021 will be updated as compa- nies release earnings.
SPOTIFY
(NYSE: SPOT)
Billboard coverage
Summary: Spotify"s revenue grew nearly
23% in 2021 and slightly surpassed the high
end of guidance. The company expects first quarter of 2022 revenue to be 2.6 billion euros ($2.94 billion), slightly lower than the recent quarter's tally. Its forecast of 183 mil- lion subscribers for the first quarter would represent a three million-subscriber gain, on par with the prior-year period.
2021 overall results
Revenue: $10.9 billion (9.67 billion euros),
+22.7% y/y
Operating income: $104 million (94 mil-
lion euros)
Net loss: $38 million (34 million euros)
Q4 overall results
Revenue: $3 billion (2.69 billion euros),
+24% y/y
Operating loss: $7.8 million (7 million
euros)
Net loss: $43.5 million (39 million euros)
Q4 listener metrics
Total listeners: 381 million million, +25
million q/q
Subscribers: 180 million, 25 million y/y, +8
million q/q
Ad-supported listeners: 236 million, +37
million y/y, +16 million q/q
Q4 ARPU
$4.84 (4.34 euros), +3.6% y/y, +1.2% q/q
Analyst reactions
Mark Zgutowicz of Rosenblatt Securi-
ties lowered the price target from $350 to $220: "While we view the lack of annual guidance and associated gross margin un- certainty negatively, we are encouraged by management's confidence to add incre- mental investments (beyond core which is already seeing strong leverage) to better position SAN (Spotify Audience Network) for future growth."
Steven Cahall of Wells Fargo Securi-
ties lowed the price target from $200 to $153. "For 2022, we think margin progress is slowing (or moving backwards) on more content and advertising R&D, which pushes out the long-term margin targets. We think patience is thinning for a profitability inflec- tion."
Lightshed Partners initiated coverage
at a $260 price target. "With the podcast investment phase for Spotify starting to bear fruit in advertising and the overall ad-supported music business starting to scale meaningfully, margin improvement is set to drive rapid EBITDA growth; we have
EBITDA growth still over 40% in 2024...By
any metric, Spotify no longer looks expen- sive relative to the growth potential we see over the next few years, creating a compel- ling buying opportunity at these levels."
From the earnings call
CEO Daniel Ek on Joe Rogan controversy:
"I think the important part here is we don't change our policies based on one creator, nor do we change it based on any media cycles, or calls from anyone else. Our poli- cies have been carefully written with the Page 10 of 31
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input from numbers of internal and external experts in this space."
CFO Paul Vogel on the Spotify Audience
Network: "Across the platform, particularly
in podcasting, we're seeing consumption increasing. So all that is leading to more inventory. We're seeing more publishers up double digits, quarter over quarter. So that's allowing us to see more inventory...And be- cause we're monetizing, giving people good returns, they're opting more inventory into the platform for us."
From the 10-K ?ling
We learned the price of two key acquisi-
tions in 2021. Spotify acquired live stream- ing company Betty Labs for 57 million euros ($65 million) and Podz, a podcast discovery platform, for 45 million euros ($51 million).
In 2021, value in Spotify's stake in
Chinese music streamer Tencent Music En-
tertainment fell from 2.3 billion euros ($2.6 billion) to 852 million euros ($974 million).
Guidance for Q1 2022
418 million monthly active users
183 subscribers
Total revenue of 2.6 billion euros
Gross margin of 25.0%
Recent developments
Read the Neil Young vs. Joe Rogan
story arc at Billboard
Spotify's Car Thing is now available to
anyone in the U.S.
Spotify closed Russia o?ce inde?nitely
in response to invasion of Ukraine.
UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP
(AMS: UMG)
Billboard coverage
Summary: Big streaming gains and a
rebound in merchandise sales. UMG became the first label/publisher to reach $10 billion revenue in a year (depending on which exchange rate is used since the company reports in euros, not U.S. dollars).
Q4 financial results
Total revenue: $2.98 billion, up 19% y/y
(or 16% in constant currency)
Recorded music revenue: $2.3 billion, up
15.2% y/y
Streaming + Subscriptions: $1.4 billion, up
18.7% y/y
Physical: $448 million, up 11.1% y/y
Licensing: $340 million, up 11.6% y/y
Music publishing revenue: $482 million,
up 31.6% y/y
Merchandising revenue: $167 million, up
45.4% y/y
EBITDA: $512 million, down 4.2% y/y
Operating income: $1.58 billion, up 14.6%
y/y
2021 financial results
Total revenue: $10.12 billion, up 14.4% y/y
(or 17.0% in constant currency)
Recorded music revenue: $8.12 billion, up
14.3% y/y
Streaming + Subscriptions: $5.33 billion,
up 16.9% y/y
Physical: $1.33 billion, up 18.6% y/y
Licensing: $1.07 billion, up 15.5% y/y
Music publishing revenue: $1.59 billion,
up 12.6% y/y
Merchandising revenue: $432.2 million,
up 24.3% y/y
EBITDA: $2.01 billion, up 13.4% y/y
Operating income: $1.58 billion, up 14.6%
y/y
Analyst comment
Julian Roche of Barclays lowered
price target from 21.25 euros to 21.00 euros: We leave our forecasts more or less unchanged. Our Underweight thesis is not a short-term call. We see some risks to the investment story (more money flowing to artists, new competitors) that a universally bullish investor base might not fully ap- preciate and valuation is rich, in our view, at
2.3% eFCF yield in 2022E (looks better on
EV/EBITDA but cash flow matters more)."
Recent developments
UMG's Sir Lucian Grainge tops 2022
Billboard Power 100 list.
UMG acquires Neil Diamond's song-
writing and master recording catalog (2/28/22).
UMG acquires Sting's songwriting
catalog (2/10/22).
SONY MUSIC
(NYSE, Nasdaq for corporate parent: SONY)
Billboard coverage
Summary: Revenues for Sony Music
Entertainment, Sony Music Publishing and
Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) grew
11.7% in the third fiscal quarter ended Dec.
31. Excluding the visual media and platform
segment, revenue grew 26% to about $2 billion.
Fiscal Q3 overall results
Revenue: $2.6 billion, +11.7% y/y
Operating income: $502 million, -8.1% y/y
Fiscal Q3 recorded music
Revenue: $1.62 billion, +29.3% y/y
Streaming revenue: $1.05 billion, +35.7%
y/y
Physical: $209 million, -5.9% y/y
Downloads: $61 million, +4.3% y/y
Other (including synchronization): $214
million, +97.4% y/y
Fiscal Q3 publishing
Revenue: $456 million, +15.3 y/y
Streaming revenue: $229 million, +26.9%
Fiscal Q1-Q3
Revenue: $7.5 billion, +22.3% y/y
Operating income: $1.5 billion, up 8.1% y/y
Recent developments
SME acquired Bruce Springsteen's
masters and music publishing for $500 million (12/15/21)
SME acquired Bob Dylan's master
recordings, now worth more than $200 million (1/24/22)
Sony Music Middle East partnered
with music streamer Anghami to form an
Arabic record label (12/15/21)
WARNER MUSIC GROUP
(Nasdaq: WMG)
Billboard coverage
Summary: Streaming gains lived up
to expectations while artist services and expanded rights nearly doubled after artists returned to touring. New segments such as social, gaming and fitness is worth $325 million on an annualized basis for WMG's labels and publisher, up from $310 million in the previous quarter.
Fiscal Q1 overall results
Revenue: $1.6 billion, +20.9% y/y
Adjusted EBITDA: $389 million, +31% y/y
Net income: $188 million, +90% y/y
Fiscal Q1 recorded music
Revenue: $1.39 billion, +30.9% y/y
Streaming: $836 million, +20.8% y/y
Downloads: $34 million, unchanged
Physical: $195 million, +65% y/y
Licensing: $89 million, +32.8% y/y
Artist services & expanded rights: $232
million, +96.6% y/y
Fiscal Q1 publishing
Revenue: $456 million, +15.3 y/y
Performance: $38 million, +27% y/y
Page 11 of 31
IN BRIEF
Mechanical: $14 million, +27% y/y
Sync: $42 million, +27% y/y
Earnings call highlights
CEO Stephen Cooper: streaming services
"will continue to enjoy very nice growth for the foreseeable future."
Cooper on Web3: "We think there are
going to be more opportunities than we can even imagine."
Recent developments
Acquired 300 Entertainment for $400
million (12/16/21)
Acquired David Bowie's publishing
catalog (1/3/22)
Access Industries sold $351 million of
WMG stock (1/5/22)
LIVE NATION
(NYSE: LYV)
Billboard coverage
Summary: Annual results improved
mightily from a nearly moribund 2020 tour- ing season. The concert pipeline appears strong well into 2023 and management insisted no-show rates are at or near pre- pandemic levels.
Q4 financial results
Total revenue: $2.7 billion, +$2.47 billion
y/y
Adjusted operating income: $160.3 mil-
lion, +$405 million y/y
Concerts revenue: $2.04 billion, +$1.87
billion y/y
Ticketing revenue: $487.7 million, +477
million y/y
Sponsorship & advertising revenue: $170.3
million, +262% y/y
2021 financial results
Total revenue: $6.27 billion, +237% y/y
Adjusted operating income: $323.9 mil-
lion, +$1.34 billion y/y
Concerts revenue: $4.72 billion, +3.3 bil-
lion y/y
Ticketing revenue: $1.13 billion, +946 mil-
lion y/y
Sponsorship & advertising revenue: $411.9
million, +102% y/y
Concert and ticketing metrics
Estimated events: 17,234, +112% y/y
Estimated fans: 35.1 million, +215% y/y
Estimated fee-bearing tickets: 131.7 mil-
lion, +323% y/y
Misc. metrics
Total cash and cash equivalents: $4.9 bil-
lion (includes $1.3 billion in ticketing client cash and $1.5 billion in free cash).
Liquidity: $2.1 billion (includes $570 mil-
lion of available debt capacity)
Event-related deferred revenue: $2.3 bil-
lion, up 53% y/y
Q4 transacted ticket gross transaction
value: $6.6 billion, up 20% from Q4 2019.
Year-to-date through mid-February ticket
sales: 45 million, up 45% from the same period in 2019.
From the earnings call
President and CFO Joe Berchtold: "I
have in front of me a list of 40-some tours for 2023 that are either confirmed or in our pipeline. Normally, at this point...we'd have a list of five to ten."
Berchtold on inflation: "We don't think
it's material to the business."
SIRIUSXM
(Nasdaq: SIRI)
Summary
10-K ?ling
Q4 nancial results
Total revenue: $2.28 billion, +4.2% y/y
SiriusXM revenue: $1.7 billion, +4.4% y/y
Pandora revenue: $575 million, +3.6% y/y
Operating income: $476 million, +$979
million y/y
Adjusted EBITDA: $672 million, +1.8 y/y
Net income: $318 million, +$995 million
y/y
2021 financial results
Total revenue: $8.7 billion, +8.2% y/y
SiriusXM revenue: $6.62 billion, +4.3%
y/y
Pandora revenue: $2.07 billion, +22% y/y
Operating income: $2.02 billion, +134.8%
y/y
Adjusted EBITDA: $2.78 billion, +7.6 y/y
Net income: $1.31 billion, +10x y/y
Q4 listener metrics
SiriusXM self-pay subscribers: 32 million,
+3.7% y/y
Pandora self-pay subscribers: 6.3 million,
+0.7% y/y
Pandora monthly active users: 52.3 mil-
lion, -11.2% y/y
Q4 ARPU
SiriusXM: $15.34, +7% y/y
Pandora subscription: $6.70, +0.5% y/y
2022 Guidance
SiriusXM self-pay net additions of about
500,000
Total revenue of about $9.0 billion
Adjusted EBITDA of about $2.8
Free cash flow of approximately $1.55
billion
From the earnings call
Jennifer Witz, CEO, on Pandora: "[A]
dvertising growth will clearly become more challenged. We've been able to o?set the declines in listener hours with significant improvements in monetization."
Witz: "On conversion rates, things have
been pretty consistent. We're in about the mid-30s on the new car side and kind of the low to mid-20s on the used car side...[W]e are focused on using 360L as a mechanism in the new car side to improve conversion because when we see people using these features, we do see improvements in conver- sion rates."
Recent developments
SiriusXM acquired Cloud Cover Music,
a B2B music service (1/14/22)
SiriusXM brought back Neil Young
Radio for a one-week run (1/24/22)
IHEARTMEDIA
(Nasdaq: IHRT)
Earnings release, investor presentation
Q4 nancial results
Total revenue: $1.06 billion, +13.5% y/y
(+17.1% excluding political revenue)
Multiplatform group revenue: $762.3 mil-
lion, +9.2% y/y
Digital revenue ex. podcast: $176.6 mil-
lion, +35.7%
Podcast revenue: $96.6 million, +130.2%
Adjusted EBITDA: $294.2 million, +10.8%
y/y
2021 financial results
Total revenue: $3.56 billion, +20.7% y/y
(+25.1% excluding political revenue)
Multiplatform group revenue: $2.5 billion,
+12.8% y/y
Digital revenue ex. podcast: $581.9 mil-
lion, +56.1%
Podcast revenue: $252.6 million, +148.4%
Adjusted EBITDA: $811.1 million, +50.6%
y/y
Misc. metrics
Monthly podcast audience: 30.3 million
Net debt: $5.39 billion, +1.7% y/y
2022 guidance
January consolidated revenue: +18.3% y/y
Page 12 of 31
IN BRIEF
Q1 consolidated revenue: +17-19% y/y
CUMULUS MEDIA
(Nasdaq: CMLS)
Earnings release
Q4 nancial results
Total revenue: $252.3 million, +2.6% y/y
Broadcast radio revenue: $193.1 million,
-3.8% y/y
Digital revenue: $35.0 million, +47.3%
Other revenue: $24.1 million, +12.8%
Adjusted EBITDA: $43.2 million, +9.3%
y/y
2021 financial results
Total revenue: $916.5 million, +12.3% y/y
roadcast radio revenue: $790.2 million, +6.9% y/y
Digital revenue: $126.9 million, +47.6%
Other revenue: $79.4 million, +20%
Adjusted EBITDA: $134.9 million, +66%
y/y
RESERVOIR MEDIA
(Nasdaq: RSVR)
Billboard coverage
Fiscal Q3 overall results
Revenue: $27.1 million, +26% y/y
Operating income: $4 milllion, -18.7% y/y
Net income: $2.4 million, no change
Adjusted EBITDA: $10.2 million, +26%
y/y
Fiscal Q3 segment results
Recorded music: $8.1 million, +147% y/y
Music publishing: $18.4 milllion, +4% y/y
Fiscal 2022 guidance
Revenue: $103-105 million
Adjusted EBITDA: $40-41 million
Recent developments
Acquired publishing catalog of DJ,
songwriter and producer Fred Rister (collaborator of David Guetta) (1/13/22).
Acquired the producer catalog of
Buddy Cannon (2/4/22).
Acquired a stake in the catalog of
producer and songwriter Larry Smith (2/24/22).
RYMAN HOSPITALITY
(NYSE: RHP)
8-K ?ling,fi10-K ?ling
Q4 nancial results
Revenue: $377.4 million, +198.3% y/y
Adjusted EBITDAre: $85.6 million,
+1,391% y/y
Entertainment segment: $54.2 million,
+275.7% y/y
Entertainment adjusted EBITDAre: $11.9
million, +378.3% y/y
2021 financial results
Revenue: $939.4 million, +79.1% y/y
Adjusted EBITDAre: $177.3 million,
+$217.6 million y/y
Entertainment segment: $152.8 million,
+161.5% y/y
Entertainment adjusted EBITDAre: $28.9
million, +218.4% y/y
From the annual report
The purchase of Block 21, a mix-used
entertainment property in Austin, TX, is expected to close in Q1 2022.
An Ole Red location is planned to open in
Las Vegas in 2023.
CLOUD VILLAGE
(HKSE: 9899)
Summary: The freshly minted public
company - China's second-largest music streamer behind Tencent Music Entertain- ment - spun o? from NetEase and debuted on the Hong Kong stock exchange on Dec.
1, 2021. But the encouraging Q4 revenue
growth has been overshadowed by a stun- ning 44% fall in the share price from a 205
HDK IPO price to 115 HKD on Feb. 24, the
day of the quarter's earnings release.
Earnings release
Q4 nancial results
Revenue: $296.5 million, +23.9% y/y
Gross profit: $12.1 million
Gross profit margin: 4.1%
2021 financial results
Revenue: $1.1 billion, +42.9% y/y
Gross profit: $22.4 million
Gross profit margin: 2.0%
Why Are We
Here?': Live
Nation Asks
Judge to End
Antitrust Case
BY BILL DONAHUE
L ive Nation wants a federal judge to reject a class action that claims that Ticketmaster is violating antitrust laws by monopolizing the market for concert tickets, calling it a "nearly word-for-word copy" of an unsuc- cessful earlier case.
In a motion filed Tuesday in California
federal court, Live Nation said those accusa- tions must be resolved via private arbitra- tion, not through federal litigation. That's the same fate that befell a similar case filed by similar lawyers over the same allegations - and Live Nation says it must apply to the new case, too. "This case is identical to another case that this Court sent to arbitration less than six months ago," the company's lawyers at the law firm Latham & Watkins wrote. "Why, then, are we here - yet again - and not in arbitration?"
The new lawsuit, ?led in January, did
include new claims. It said Live Nation was foisting newer, more draconian arbitration agreements on ticket buyers with the help of a di?erent arbitration service. But in
Tuesday's filing, the concert giant said that
was hardly enough to refile an entire new lawsuit. "This case - just like [the previous case] - must be sent to arbitration," Live Nation's lawyers wrote. "To say that plainti?s' counsel are wasting the court's time is an understatement."
Ticketmaster and Live Nation have long
been dogged by accusations that they exert an unfair dominance over the market for live concerts, particularly since they merged in 2010. But the current dispute kicked o? in April 2020, when attorneys at the firm Page 13 of 31
IN BRIEF
Quinn Emanuel led a class action accusing
the company of "predatory acts."
The case claimed that Ticketmaster's
dominant market share and Live Nation's huge influence over touring allowed the combined entity to bully venues and charge "extraordinarily high" prices to consumers. "The combined Live Nation/Ticketmaster behemoth has enormous, and unique, mar- ket power in primary ticketing and concert promotion services, and has shown it is un- afraid to use that power," the lawsuit read.
But the case was tossed out last year,
when a federal judge ruled that ticket buy- ers had agreed to resolve any disputes with
Ticketmaster via private arbitration rather
than in open court.
The updated lawsuit, filed in January,
included most of the same claims, but also added new accusations that take square aim at Ticketmaster's use of such arbitration agreements, including claims that the com- pany has recently begun using new language that's even more unfair to buyers. "The [new] agreement ... requires con- sumers to engage in a novel and one-sided process that is tailored to disadvantage con- sumers," wrote the Quinn Emanuel attor- neys. "The ... agreement skews the odds so egregiously in defendants' favor through its defense-biased provisions, and is imposed in such a procedurally unfair manner, that it is permeated with unconscionability to a far greater degree than the prior ... agreement."
In Tuesday's response, Live Nation's
lawyers called the updated claims an "im- probable gambit" to avoid the earlier ruling.
They said there was nothing "remotely
sub-standard for the industry, let alone unconscionable" about the new arbitration clauses.
Pop on Top for
2021: State of
the Billboard Hot
100, According
to Hit Songs
Deconstructed
BY GARY TRUST
W hat were some of the most notable trends on the Bill- board Hot 100 songs chart throughout 2021?
Hit Songs Deconstructed, which pro-
vides compositional analytics for top 10 Hot
100 hits, has released its 2021 State of the
Hot 100 Top 10 report.
Here are five takeaways from Hit Songs
Deconstructed's year-end research, from
pop reclaiming its status as the most popular primary genre among Hot 100 top 10s to the rise of retro and rock influences and more.
Pop over hip-hop: Pop was the most
popular primary genre in the Hot 100's top
10 in all of 2021, with a 39% share of all top
10 hits. Hip-hop ranked second, infusing
34% of all top 10s.
Pop and hip-hop have traded top honors
in the Hot 100's top 10 in each of the past three years, after hip-hop won back-to-back titles in 2017 and 2018:
2021: Pop, 39% / Hip-hop, 34%
2020: Hip-hop, 41% / Pop, 40%
2019: Pop, 48% / Hip-hop, 34%
2018: Hip-hop, 59% / Pop, 24% (a relative
landslide thanks in part to Drake's domi- nance that year)
2017: Hip-hop, 32% / Pop, 31%
Pop No. 1 ... at No. 1: Pop was even
more prominent among No. 1 Hot 100 hits than overall top 10s in 2021, at 56% - thanks to weekly leaders from acts including BTS (three No. 1s) and Olivia
Rodrigo (two) - and doubling hip-hop"s
second-place 28% share.
Pop has dominated as the top primary
genre among Hot 100 No. 1s in each of the last three years, though with extreme fluctuations between pop and hip-hop over the past five years (owed in part to a smaller sample size than all top 10s, given the nar- rower focus on No. 1s):
2021: Pop, 56% / Hip-hop, 28%
2020: Pop, 48% / Hip-hop, 38%
2019: Pop, 73% / Hip-hop, 20%
2018: Hip-hop, 67% / Pop, 33%
2017: Pop, 42% / Hip-hop, 33%
R&B on the rise: R&B/soul has ranked
as the third-most prominent primary genre in the Hot 100's top 10 every year from 2017 through 2021.
In 2021, however, R&B/soul logged a new
high share among Hot 100 top 10s over that span, at 18%. That's up after three straight years of decline, from 15% in 2017 to 11% in
2018, 10% in 2019 and 8% in 2020.
Among hits helping R&B/soul gain in
2021, Justin Biebers Peaches," featuring
Daniel Caesar and Giveon, led the Hot 100
for a week, followed by Silk Sonics Leave the Door Open," which ruled for two frames.
Major hits, minor keys: Songs in minor
keys were the most prominent among Hot
100 top 10s in 2021, as they have been each
year since 2017:
2021: Minor, 59% / Major, 39%
2020: Minor, 60% / Major, 40%
2019: Minor, 55% / Major, 43%
2018: Minor, 71% / Major, 28%
2017: Minor, 65% / Major, 35%
Hit Songs Deconstructed noted in its
year-end report, "This trajectory closely mirrors the rise and fall of hip-hop songs, which are most often in a minor key."
While the overall split among Hot 100 top
10s in 2021 was minor key at 59% and major
key at 39%, among No. 1s it swung 67% ma- jor and 33% minor, due to pop's dominance at No. 1, as noted above.
Retro, rock roar: Looking outside the
hip-hop genre, the 1980s skyrocketed" as an influence among Hot 100 top 10s," in
2021, Hit Songs Deconstructed highlights.
Sonically, the '80s impacted no Hot 100 top
10s in both 2018 and 2019, inched to 8% for
2020 and soared to 31% in 2021.
Hit Songs Deconstructed co-founder
Dave Penn defines an '80s influence as
leaning "more toward the earlier side of the decade" and is heard "mainly through Page 14 of 31
IN BRIEF
instrumentation [such as] "80s-sounding synths and drums." The Weeknd charted three Hot 100 top 10s in 2021 with an '80s influence: "Blinding Lights," "Save Your
Tears," with Ariana Grande (both No. 1s),
and "Take My Breath, "all of which possess an early-'80s new wave influence, as well."
Rock has also bounded as a notable influ-
ence among Hot 100 top 10s, up from no presence in 2017 to shares of 25% in 2018 and 2019, 38% in 2020 and 46% in 2021, helped by such as hits as Rodrigo's No. 1 "Good 4 U."
President
Biden Orders
Cryptocurrency
Review in Move
to Establish
Government
Oversight
BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESSfi
W
ASHINGTON (AP)
President Joe Biden on
Wednesday signed an
executive order on govern- ment oversight of cryptocurrency that urges the Federal Reserve to explore whether the central bank should jump in and create its own digital currency.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the
e?ort would "promote a fairer, more inclu- sive, and more e?cient financial system" while countering illicit finance and prevent- ing risks to financial stability and national security.
The Biden administration views the
explosive popularity of cryptocurrency as an opportunity to examine the risks and benefits of digital assets, said a senior administration o?cial who previewed the order Tuesday on the condition of anonym- ity, terms set by the White House.
Under the executive order, Biden also
directed the Treasury Department and other federal agencies to study the impact of cryptocurrency on financial stability and national security.
Brian Deese and Jake Sullivan, Biden's
top economic and national security advisers, respectively, said the order establishes the first comprehensive federal digital assets strategy for the United States. "That will help position the U.S. to keep playing a leading role in the innovation and governance of the digital assets ecosystem at home and abroad, in a way that protects consumers, is consistent with our democrat- ic values and advances U.S. global competi- tiveness," Deese and Sullivan said Wednes- day in a joint statement.
The action comes as lawmakers and
administration o?cials are increasingly voicing concern that Russia may be using cryptocurrency to avoid the impact of sanc- tions imposed on its banks, oligarchs and oil industry due to the invasion of Ukraine.
Last week, Democratic Sens. Elizabeth
Warren, Mark Warner, and Jack Reed asked
the Treasury Department to provide infor- mation on how it intends to inhibit crypto- currency use for sanctions evasion.
The Biden administration has argued that
Russia won't be able to make up for the loss
of U.S. and European business by turning to cryptocurrency. O?cials said the Democrat- ic president's order had been in the works for months before Russia's Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine last month.
Daleep Singh, a deputy national security
and economic adviser to Biden, told CNN on Wednesday that "crypto's really not a workaround for our sanctions."
The executive order had been widely
anticipated by the finance industry, crypto traders, speculators and lawmakers who have compared the cryptocurrency market to the Wild West.
Despite the risks, the government said,
surveys show that roughly 16% of adult
Americans - or 40 million people - have
invested in cryptocurrencies. And 43% of men age 18-29 have put their money into cryptocurrency.
Coinbase Global Inc., the largest crypto-
currency exchange in the United States, said the company had not seen a recent surge in sanctions evasion activity.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said
last week that "many participants in the cryptocurrency networks are subjected to anti-money laundering sanctions" and that the industry is not "completely one where things can be evaded."
As for the Federal Reserve getting in-
volved with digital assets, the central bank issued a paper in January that said a digital currency "would best serve the needs" of the country through a model in which banks or payment firms create accounts or digital wallets.
Some participants in digital currency wel-
come the idea of more government involve- ment with crypto.
Adam Zarazinski, CEO of Inca Digital, a
crypto data company that does work for sev- eral federal agencies, said the order presents the opportunity to provide "new approaches to finance." "The U.S. has an interest in growing fi