so in summary: Paramount fired its CEO, then hosted an earnings call for only 9 minutes, refused to take any questions, and played the mission impossible song on a loop
the FT editorial board calls for a ceasefire:
“Israel’s collective punishment of the 2.3mn people trapped in Gaza — almost half of them children — must stop”
music executives have spent the past several months talking about the shrinking power of "superstars" in the streaming era
it's hard to reconcile that with midnights, which is doing 90s-boyband levels of sales — beating her own records from a decade ago
context: Jay Sammons is the Carlyle executive who led the private equity group's backing of Scooter Braun in buying Taylor Swift's record label. which turned out to be... less than ideal when she started making a duplicate copy of the asset (aka the music) they bought
Introducing SKKY Partners, a private equity firm co-founded by Kim Kardashian and Jay Sammons that focuses on both control and minority investments in high-growth, market-leading consumer and media companies.
here's our story on the flood of sexual abuse claims filed under New York's Adult Survivors Act.
Drew Dixon, who alleges that music exec LA Reid sexual assaulted her twice in 2001, says this is a way to "reclaim some fraction of what I've lost".
new: failed crypto billionaire sam bankman-fried wanted to pay taylor swift more than $100mn for FTX to sponsor her tour. he also wanted taylor to endorse FTX on social media (she said no).
cringe details from
@nikasgari
&
@joshckoliver
:
more details here > the Swift catalogue earns about $15m a year, according to people who have seen its financials. Shamrock bought at a multiple of about 16 or 17x its historic income.
the $300m question is whether that $15m decreases as she re-records:
in the past 3 days, there have been more than 100 attacks on journalists in the US — roughly the number typically seen in an entire year. WSJ editor Matt Murray told staff he was “infuriated” by the NYPD's treatment of reporter Tyler Blint-Welsh.
scoop: Universal Music has told streaming services to block AI systems from scraping melodies and lyrics from their copyrighted songs.
UMG is concerned about generative AI training itself on popular music without permission/payment:
this would be her biggest first-week album sales ever, topping 1989, red, fearless etc
it's on par with sales the backstreet boys/britney/eminem were making in 2000, right before the music industry fell apart
.
@taylorswift13
's 'Midnights' now aiming for
#1
debut on the US albums chart with increased 1.4-1.6 million units first week.
It will mark her biggest debut, passing '1989' (via
@HITSDD
).
#TSmidnighTS
scoop: UMG is talking w/ streamers to redraw the royalty model — which would revolutionise how musicians get paid from streaming.
ideas on the table:
- "superfan" subscription
- banning 31-second songs
- extra pool of $ for artists driving fan engagement
scoop: Warner Bros is looking to sell its music library, which spans soundtracks to films like Batman. it's the latest move by Zaslav to make Warner leaner/squeeze money out of its IP.
sources say the catalogue could be worth more than $1bn
new: in recent weeks Disney executives including CFO Christine McCarthy have been approaching the company's board with concerns about Chapek.
more details here w/
@JFK_America
@alexebarker
scoop: the new company would be valued at $150bn. AT&T's board is meeting today at noon to approve the deal. AT&T is expected to control most of the combined entity. w/
@JFK_America
unrelated to anything: I wrote about how investors value rap music lower than rock, and asked some smart people why.
Rap is the dominant genre in the US. but it trades at a 15x multiple to earnings, while rock & pop trade at 20x
the widening Covid gap between the US & the rest of the world means big Hollywood movies could, for the first time, premiere outside America. movie studios that a month ago would never premiere a film with NY/LA closed are rethinking that now:
Scoop: Financial Times U.S. journalists are organizing and seeking voluntary recognition from management, saying they have over two-thirds support for unionization
@newsguild
@CWAUnion
scoop: David Bowie’s estate is in advanced talks to sell his entire publishing catalogue for $200m. A deal could be announced in the next couple weeks.
spent time with Lucian ahead of the UMG listing. He was candid about nearly dying from covid, bouncing back from trauma & the industry comeback he helped shape.
ft appearances by
@taylorswift13
,
@theweeknd
& Elton John:
this week is 5 years since the weinstein story, brad pitt is the producer of new Hollywood Movie about the weinstein story, there aren't enough ellipses for this..............................
Breaking News: A new court filing by Angelina Jolie details allegations that Brad Pitt abused her and their children on a plane in 2016. Pitt "grabbed Jolie by the head and shook her," choked one child and struck another in the face, the filing says.
in order to get a patent for mRNA, Katalin Kariko had to tell a bald man it would help grow hair back. fascinating read on the money, drama and science behind the vaccines, from
@bydavidcrow
Fox fired Tucker after an accumulation of offences over several years, including clashes w/ senior execs. He believed he was untouchable.
former Rupert staffer: “Anytime somebody starts acting like they’re bigger than the platform, they go"
combined, big name investors - the Murdochs, Disney, Martin Sorrell - lost $1.5bn on Vice.
some investors blame TPG for Vice's demise, including James Murdoch who was "very disappointed".
details on the loan sharks & financial troubles here:
w/
@sindap
same morning: Buzzfeed reports revenue is 31% lower than it promised to investors last year.
Buzzfeed told investors it would make $520m in 2021, and this would soar to $1.1bn in 2024.
actual 2021 revenue: $398m.
🚨 Breaking: Three of the most senior editors at Buzzfeed News, including the publication’s editor-in-chief Mark Schoofs, are resigning as further job cuts hit the organisation.
working on this story w/
@JFK_America
was one of the things that kept me almost sane last year. We wrote about the Hartford Courant, America's oldest newspaper, the hedge fund trying to take it over, and what it all means:
some details from our deep dive on disney:
- Disney considered selling A&E and Freeform in 2019. now, bankers say, it's too late
- There was a time when Bob Iger & Kevin Mayer discussed moving ESPN content over to ESPN+ as soon as 2022
-
best detail from this story: just after laying off THOUSANDS of people Peleton introduced a new CEO on a company-wide zoom call to the soundtrack of WHO LET THE DOGS OUT. our late stage capitalism is alive & well
looking back at this story i apparently wrote last week, it's striking how the polls were so wrong, but the statisticians who actually call the races were...completely correct
last weekend, the top 10 movies in the US made $7m combined. this weekend, one movie alone is expected to make $400m in China.
we dug into why China = the box office now, and what it means for Hollywood. w/
@cdcshepherd
I've spent the past few months reporting w/ the incredible
@kayewiggins
on how songs became a financial asset class. for anyone who cares about music, Wall Street, Steve Schwarzman or Leonard Cohen, here's our 30,000 foot view:
disney is saving >$400m a month by furloughing 100,000+ workers at its (closed) theme parks. the decision helped maintain its credit rating, but sits uneasily w/ some shareholders as bob iger's bonus programme stays in place.
disney had this to say about it:
Disney and the unequal reality of coronavirus America - this fantastic
@FT
Big Read by
@alexebarker
@annaknicolaou
says a lot about capitalism and the crisis
While Lewis’s words rattled the WaPo newsroom, the tone will be familiar to anyone who has worked at a British paper. Blunt words & savage autopsies over the day’s coverage were common when Lewis and Winnett were forging their careers on Fleet St
nearly all investors in Buzzfeed's spac asked for their money back. a finance professor calls it "the kiss of death".
Jonah Peretti told the FT: "It doesn't change our strategy" and "I'm not an expert on spacs"
update from BBG spokesperson:
"We've updated that function to go to the bio page just like anyone else. Thanks for pointing out what was clearly an oversight when the site became a campaign site."
searching “Mike” or “Mike Bloomberg” on BBG terminals directs users to...his campaign site. (a perk not afforded to the other candidates!).
w/
@adamsamson
@Philgeorgiadis
scoop: Youtube is offering music labels lump sums of cash to get more artists to allow their songs to train AI.
currently, only a handful of artists have signed on to an earlier test phase, including Charli XCX. Youtube wants to expand this to dozens of artists.
more here:
Microsoft is paying Semafor to use its AI tech for a breaking news feed called Signals. It'll be written entirely by journalists; chatgpt helping w/ research.
@semaforben
says it's the most important product launch since Semafor's founding.
more details:
new: Spotify has struck deals with the biggest book publishers - PRH, Hachette, S&S, HarperCollins & Macmillan - to give Spotify subscribers 15 hours of audiobook listening a month.
in the UK this goes live now, in the US in a couple of months
it's official: Vice has bought Refinery29 in a mostly stock deal — the new company is valued at $4bn. chief Nancy Dubuc says Vice is on track to be profitable by early next year.
2023 culture is the tv channel that brought us cozy treasures like gossip girl and gilmore girls now airing golf that Saudi Arabia is funding to make it less bad that they kill journalists
“When a mayor has swagger, the city has swagger. We’ve allowed people to beat us down so much, that all we did was wallow in COVID.”
— NYC Mayor Eric Adams (D)
new: Sean Hannity is trying to avoid sharing some information in a billion-dollar lawsuit against Fox News, citing "reporter's privilege". but in the past, he has denied being a journalist.
a24 (the company behind Euphoria & Moonlight) has raised $225m from private equity, valued at $2.5bn.
first investment a24 has taken since founded a decade ago. a24 has been fielding acquisition offers for....awhile
new: this month, a 2-year restriction on asset sales lifts for Fox. the Murdoch inner circle is talking about another bold corporate gambit -- such as selling parts of the empire or reuniting others
w/ the team
@alexebarker
&
@JFK_America
strange twist: Disney won the rights to air cricket on television, but not to stream it on Disney+. Viacom18 won the streaming rights.
Disney+ subscribers in India (aka cricket fans) currently make up more than a third of Disney+ subscribers.
alex & I went long on HBO Max, the mad dash to launch a product during a pandemic, and the twists & turns at WarnerMedia over the last year.
@alexebarker
searching “Mike” or “Mike Bloomberg” on BBG terminals directs users to...his campaign site. (a perk not afforded to the other candidates!).
w/
@adamsamson
@Philgeorgiadis
personal news: I sat next to a coughing/sneezing unmasked delta variant for 3 hours, indoors, also unmasked. I did not get covid.
the vaccines are a MIRACLE; this is not an ad for
@pfizer
i'm just vv grateful. be safe🖤
wrote a hot take on why spotify is not the future of the music industry.
UMG's licensing deals for Facebook, Tiktok & YouTube shorts all expire at the end of the year. Social media royalties will be key to revenue growth as a public company:
a Chinese filmmaker won the most coveted prizes at the Oscars last night, quoting Confucius in her acceptance speech. but the Chinese govt has censored the news.
We dug into the state of the relationship between China and Hollywood:
new: a woman has accused longtime music executive Jimmy Iovine of sexual abuse, harassment and retaliation.
Iovine is the latest powerful music figure to be sued in recent weeks, as victims rush to meet a Thanksgiving deadline in New York to file historic claims.
i thought i had wework fatigue, but this brilliant piece by
@ericgplatt
&
@edgecliffe
is packed with fascinating details and is the clearest explanation i've seen yet of how it all fell apart. well worth a read: via
@financialtimes
SCOOP: Pimco, which has $2.2tn assets under management, has partnered with BMG to buy music copyrights. this is the biggest investor yet to enter the fray as the wall street storms the music industry
really worthwhile read, especially after listening to Disney talk for 5 hours about how they’re spending $15bn to make spinoffs of spinoffs of spinoffs of spinoffs of Star Wars
Disney laid off 32,000 workers as its stock price was soaring to an all time high on Friday. This is the story of one of those workers, who spent 14 years with the company, and her struggle to provide for her daughters and stay afloat.
i started writing this this months ago, after i had to stay home from work for weeks because of a migraine, and fell into a 2-week netflix k-hole. obviously things have changed but it seems relevant today too!
Spotify's content policies "do not entail what guests our podcasts invite on, it’s more about the content itself” said Daniel Ek. When I asked about the content, which included anti-vaccination conspiracies, Spotify's PR said we had run out of time.
lovely to wake up to this:
@Edgecliffe
and I won an LA Press Club award for our profile of Universal Music's Lucian Grainge. thank you to
@LAPressClub
and congrats to all the ace journalists honoured last night 🖤
there's been a lot of talk (internally and externally) about the price of HBO Max. last year, WarnerMedia & Discovery held talks about launching a joint service for $8 a month. it was foiled by Iger
new: Spotify removed tens of thousands of AI-generated songs over suspected "fake streaming"
~ about 7% of Spotify tracks from Boomy
AI has made it a lot easier to game the system. the record labels are not happy.
I've spent the past few months reporting w/
@kayewiggins
on Blackstone's music investments. Here's our first story, w/ details about how Steve Schwarzman himself got pulled into a fight between Hipgnosis and a songwriter you probably know
apple is spending more than $6bn on content for its upcoming streaming service (up from an initial $1bn commitment). they've spent more per episode on The Morning Show than Game of Thrones. scoop w/
@tim
(we are both good at being on vacation)