BMLG To Share in Entercom’s Broadcast Royalties

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Big Machine Label Group and Entercom Communications today announced an agreement to align their business interests and accelerate growth and innovation in digital radio. Through this mutually beneficial arrangement, Big Machine will become the first record company to directly participate, along with its artists, in Entercom’s terrestrial broadcast radio revenues. Entercom has a nationwide portfolio of 111 stations in 23 markets, including San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, Denver, Portland, Sacramento and Kansas City.

BMLG reached a similar agreement with Clear Channel in June. Terms of the deals have not been disclosed.

Artists signed to Big Machine’s wholly owned labels who will benefit from this agreement include Big Machine Records artists Taylor Swift, Tim McGraw, Rascal Flatts, Edens Edge and Ella Mae Bowen; and Valory Music Co. artists Reba McEntire, Justin Moore, Brantley Gilbert, The Mavericks and Thomas Rhett. The deal doesn’t include Universal Republic artists.

“This agreement represents a bold step forward to align our interests with those of Big Machine and their artists. While the deal comes with some significant costs and risks, we believe that by working with the labels and the artist community to establish a new business model, we will ultimately enhance the opportunities for all parties concerned,” said Entercom President and CEO David Field. “I also want to acknowledge Scott Borchetta, [and Clear Channel’s] Bob Pittman and John Hogan for their vision and leadership in blazing the trail that made this deal possible.”

“As great and leading visionaries in the broadcast world continue to look into the future, they are seeing where listeners are going in regards to how radio is being used now and where and how it will be used in the very near future. Among the many choices in the audio entertainment landscape, radio is now portable again thanks to smartphones and soon-to-be ubiquitous Internet streaming in the car,” said Scott Borchetta, President and CEO of the Big Machine Label Group. “David Field and his cutting edge team at Entercom Communications completely understand this vision. I’m honored that they have joined us as partners in growing digital radio as well as compensating the artists that provide great musical content for their terrestrial stations. They have chosen to lead and everyone in the artist and creative community applauds their bold leadership role.”

Agreements of this kind are important in two respects: 1) the Clear Channel deal marked the first time artists will be paid a performance royalty for radio airplay in the United States. Traditionally, only songwriters/copyright holders have received radio performance royalties. 2) It is designed to drive digital radio growth.

The new business model set forth in the agreement is designed to level the royalty payment playing field for all types of radio. The model has BMLG and its artists being paid terrestrial performance royalties in exchange for a lower rate on digital performance royalties, which will distribute the royalty cost more evenly between both kinds of radio.

Under current circumstances, which the new model aims to change, the growth of digital radio is stunted because a high percentage of each company’s income goes to pay artist and songwriter royalties. These royalty rates are often based on individual song plays, and though they are fractions of a cent, can add up very quickly to large sums. By comparison, a low percentage of terrestrial radio station revenue goes to royalties, which are exclusively paid to songwriters via the performing rights organizations. Additionally, terrestrial radio recently entered a different agreement to decrease the rates it pays to the P.R.O.s.

The Wall Street Journal said the Clear Channel agreement “represents a historic shift,” calling it “a major bet that radio’s future is online rather than over the air… With the growing ubiquity of smartphones and more cars that include Internet-radio options, consumers are spending more time listening to music online, escalating the royalty costs along the way.”

AEG For Sale

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AEG is on the auction block with analysts predicting a sale of $7 – 8 billion, according to Billboard. Its assets include powerhouse concert promoter AEG Live which has worked recent tours by Carrie Underwood, Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw, and Taylor Swift. Among its festivals are Stagecoach, Coachella, and the New Orleans Jazz Heritage Festival.

AEG also owns, operates or has exclusive booking rights to 35 key venues including L.A.’s Staples Center, L.A. Live, and London’s O2 Arena. It has stakes in sports teams including the L.A. Lakers, and L.A. Galaxy, and is seeking approval to build a stadium in L.A. to attract an NFL team.

AEG parent company Anschutz Co., run by Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz, is mostly an oil and gas business.

Anschutz wants to sell AEG as a whole, reports the Wall Street Journal. No suitor has emerged in the lead but the L.A. Times points to hometown billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, while Billboard foresees a purchase by a consortium.

Hall of Fame Launches Troubadour Society Membership Group

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The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville represents a history that we humble music industry servants are working to build upon and expand. We all like to think that long after we’re gone, something we touched will live on within those walls.

It’s partially true, at any rate. While most of us probably won’t Chesney our way into the history books, the Hall of Fame will at least do its part to beautifully and thoroughly preserve whatever history deems worthy.

That’s at least part of the idea behind the creation of the HoF’s Troubadour Society, a new membership level aimed at engaging younger professionals in the music industry. The group’s launch event was held at the HoF last night (9/18) and offered performances by Eric Paslay and Edens Edge as well as dance-friendly mashup country tunes spun by DeeJay Silver. Eden’s Edge also donated some stage clothing for the Museum’s collection. (Full disclosure: I was also part of the advisory committee tasked with creating the group).

Performers at the HoF's Troubadour Society kickoff included (L-R): DeeJay Silver, Edens Edge, and Eric Paslay

Over 400 guests showed up to drink, eat, schmooze and learn more. The Museum also graciously opened its galleries so guests could see the exhibits currently on display (like the newly opened Patsy Cline collection) and marvel at the meticulous work that goes into each.

Here’s how the Troubadour Society membership works: The $60 annual fee gets you free unlimited admission to the Museum for a year, an invitation to a private annual event for young members, free entrance to Hot Nights at the Hall summer concerts, invitations to exhibit openings, advance ticket purchase opportunities, an invitation to networking events with Nashville community leaders, and a 10 percent discount at the museum store, restaurant, and Hatch Show Print Retail.

More information on the group here.

Guests at the HoF's Troubadour Society kickoff event

‘Tie One On Tour’ Combines Pardi, Ballard and Miss Willie Brown

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Jon Pardi, Frankie Ballard

Capitol Records Nashville artist Jon Pardi and Warner Bros. Records’ Frankie Ballard have teamed up for the Tie One On Tour, which kicks off on Oct. 4 in San Diego, CA. The tour runs through December and will feature special guest Miss Willie Brown.

“I’ve had a blast visiting radio this year promoting my first single ‘Missin’ You Crazy,’ and seeing the fans respond,” says Pardi. “I can’t wait to get back on the road, especially with great live acts like Frankie Ballard and Miss Willie Brown. It’s gonna be a rowdy, beer-drinkin’ good time!”

“I have always wanted to do an old school package tour,” adds Frankie Ballard. “That’s what all my musical heroes did back in the day. Piled into two Cadillacs and hit the highway! At least we get to do it on a bus. Jon and the Miss Willie Brown clan are great people and I’m honored to share these dates with them…there’ll be no shortage of fun, hell, we’re tyin’ one on right?!”

Tickets for the west coast dates are now available for purchase at www.jonpardi.com or www.frankieballard.com.

Miss Willie Brown

Tie One On Tour Dates:
THU: 10/4: SAN DIEGO, CA: Block No. 16
FRI: 10/5: SAN MIGUEL, CA: The Ranch*
SAT: 10/6: HENDERSON, NV: Henderson Events Plaza
SUN: 10/7: SAN BERNARDINO: Brandon’ Iron
TUE: 10/9: ANAHEIM, CA: The Ranch Restaurant & Saloon
THU: 10/11: FOLSOM, CA: Powerhouse Pub**
FRI: 11/2: AUBURN HILLS, MI: Toby Keith’s Bar & Grill
SAT: 11/3: SOUTH BEND, IN: Toby Keith’s Bar & Grill
FRI: 11/9: GULFPORT, MS: Jones Park
THU: 11/29: SAINT LOUIS PARK, MN: Toby Keith’s Bar & Grill
FRI: 11/30: KANSAS CITY, MO: Beaumont Club
SAT: 12/1: FORT WAYNE, IN: Neon Armadillo
* Jon Pardi & Frankie Ballard Only
** Frankie Ballard & Miss Willie Brown Only

AmericanaFest Celebrates Successful Year, Announces 2013 Dates

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Performing at the 2012 Americana Honors & Awards are (L-R): Sam Bush, John Hiatt, Brittany Howard, Emmylou Harris, Bonnie Raitt, Don Was, Buddy Miller, Amy Helm, Teresa Williams and Larry Campbell – Photo by Stacie Huckeba

Following its most successful year to date, the 2013 Americana Music Association Festival and Conference will be held September 18-22 in Nashville.

The 2012 Festival and Conference ran Sept. 12-16 and boasted a sold out Honors & Awards show that was broadcast live nationally on AXS TV, Sirius XM, WSM radio, and NPR.org. Segments of the show will be repurposed for the special presentation “ACL Presents: Americana Music Festival 2012” which will begin airing November 10 in the Austin City Limits time slot on PBS.

Anchored by exciting appearances and performances by Bonnie Raitt, Booker T. Jones, Richard Thompson, The Alabama Shakes, Punch Brothers, and more, the Festival–presented by Nissan–saw over 15,000 fans, 300 artist performances, and more than 1100 music industry professionals.

“I have never been more optimistic about the future in my 20 years in the music industry,” said Jed Hilly, Executive Director of the Americana Music Association, “The passion for this music and the community spirit we experienced last week was mind blowing.”

Attendance for the conference portion of the event saw an 8 percent increase, and registration for the event is up 40 percent over the last two years. Membership is up 18 percent over 2011, and 37 percent since 2010. Next, AMA will conduct its annual Board of Directors elections for membership for 2013.

Southern Ground Music & Food Festival Descends on Nashville

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Zac Brown Band’s Southern Ground Music & Food Festival will take place with newly announced headliner John Mayer joining Sheryl Crow, Gregg Allman, and ZBB on Nashville’s Lawn at Riverfront Park this weekend (9/21-22). In Addition, Alan Jackson will play exclusively on Friday evening, while Dwight Yoakam will play exclusively on Saturday (full lineup and schedule below).

The festival, which debuted in 2011 in Charleston, SC, is curated by the band and combines eclectic music with a fine dining experience directed by Southern Ground Executive Chef Rusty Hamlin. Additional Chefs, RJ Cooper (Rogue 24, Washington, DC), Matthew Lackey (Flyte, Nashville, TN), and Bob Waggoner (Watermark, Nashville, TN) will prepare a custom four-course menu for ticket-holders in the sold-out Front Porch Stage Boxes. Food trucks including Cookie (Zac Brown Band’s mobile kitchen) will join local Nashville outfits Biscuit Love, Riff’s Fine Street Food, Bistro Truck, and Delta Bound to feed additional ticket holders.

VIP upgrades are available for event ticket holders including access to a shaded backstage VIP hospitality area with couches and TVs, complimentary beverages including wine, LandShark beer, Jack Daniel’s cocktails and non-alcoholic selections, dinner buffet and snacks throughout the day and more.

The festival has released a free smartphone app outlining a full schedule, map, news and more. For more information, visit www.southerngroundfestival.com.

Friday:
4:00 – The Jerry Douglas Band (Jack Daniels Stage)
4:45 – John Driskell Hopkins & Brighter Shade (LandShark Stage)
5:15 – Michael Franti & Spearhead (Jack Daniels Stage)
6:15 – Nic Cowan (LandShark Stage)
6:45 – Amos Lee (Jack Daniels Stage)
8:00 – Sonia Leigh (LandShark Stage)
8:30 – Gregg Allman, Alan Jackson, Sheryl Crow, John Mayer, Zac Brown Band

Saturday:
12:45 – The Wheeler Boys (LandShark Stage)
1:15 – Vintage Trouble (Jack Daniels Stage)
2:00 – Holly Williams (LandShark Stage)
2:30 – Los Lonely Boys (Jack Daniels Stage)
3:30 – Dugas (LandShark Stage)
4:00 – The Lumineers (Jack Daniels Stage)
5:00 – Levi Lowrey (LandShark Stage)
5:30 – Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros (Jack Daniels Stage)
6:30 – Clay Cook (LandShark Stage)
7:00 – David Gray (Jack Daniels Stage)
8:00 – Blackberry Smoke (LandShark Stage)
8:30 – Gregg Allman, Sheryl Crow, Dwight Yoakam, John Mayer, Zac Brown Band

Little Big Town Scores Career-High Debut

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Capitol Records Nashville’s Little Big Town tops today’s Soundscan album chart as Tornado takes the No.1 spot for Country and No. 2 all-genre with 112,758 units sold in its first week. Tornado, the fifth studio album from LBT, more than doubles the first week sales of previous release The Reason Why, and is the highest-selling debut of the band’s career to date.

Additionally, the album’s Platinum-certified lead single “Pontoon,” spent two weeks at No. 1 on the country radio charts; another career first for the band.

The band promoted the release with appearances on ABC’s Good Morning America, CMT Unplugged, CMA Music Festival: Country’s Night to Rock and Ellen. Little Big Town will perform the title track Sept. 26 on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

At the upcoming 46th Annual CMA Awards the band is nominated for Vocal Group, Single for “Pontoon,” and Music Video for “Pontoon.”

For an in-depth analysis of today’s Soundscan report, check out MusicRow’s exclusive column, “Weekly Register.”

No. 1 Party: Luke Bryan’s “Boom Boom” Song

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(L-R) Front: Producer Jeff Stevens, Co-writer Josh Kear, Luke Bryan, and Co-writers Rodney Clawson and Chris Tompkins; Back: Big Red Toe Music's Craig Wiseman and Seth England, Big Yellow Dog Music's Carla Wallace, ASCAP's Mike Sistad, Red Light Management's Kerri Edwards, Capitol Nashville's Steve Hodges, and BMI's Jody Williams.

Luke Bryan celebrated his latest No. 1 song “Drunk on You” on Sept. 17 at the CMA offices on Music Row. The BMI and ASCAP-hosted event honored Bryan’s fifth career No. 1 song, which was produced by Jeff Stevens and co-written by Rodney Clawson (George Strait’s “I Saw God Today”) and Chris Tompkins and Josh Kear, (co-writers of Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats”).

Presentations were made by BMI’s Jody Williams, ASCAP’s Mike Sistad, Big Red Toe Music’s Craig Wiseman, Big Yellow Dog Music’s Kerry O’Neil and Capitol Nashville’s Steve Hodges. The accolades continued with presentations from producer Jeff Stevens, Red Light Management’s Kerri Edwards, Avenue Bank’s Ron Cox, CRB’s Michelle Kammerer and CMA’s Brandi Simms.

Clawson said, “These songs are like little babies. We hand them off and we pray they turn out the way we want them to.” He then quickly added, “It turned out the way we wanted it to!” Tompkins recalled thinking about Luke when he first came to town, “Dude, you’ve got dollar signs floating above your head,” and admitted Bryan is “still the same as he was back then.”

Kear thanked everyone involved in the “entire chain” explaining, “This is a perfect scenario. Sit around with your friends you like to hang out with anyway. Write a song and laugh your ass off while you’re writing it. The perfect artist finds it. The perfect producer makes it. You hand it off to the label and they turn it into a bigger hit than you could ever hope for.”

Luke Bryan took the stage and called the song the “crown jewel” on the album and added this is a “career-changing, life altering song that I will thankfully have the privilege to sing the rest of my life.” Luke admitted he didn’t know what to think about the “Boom Boom” line in the song at first, but then realized fans would be calling radio stations asking for “that Boom Boom song.” “That’s what historically the big songs have, that line the fans can gravitate to.” He added, “These are the days we look back and pinch ourselves as we remember the truly remarkable moments in our life.”

Closing the event, Bryan presented Jack Daniels Single Barrel whiskey donned with commemorative medal tags for the writers and team behind the success of the song.

Craig Wiseman shed a tear.

 

Weekly Register: ‘Tornado’ Triumphs While YTD Sales Dip

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Little Big Town’s Tornado easily blows onto the top spot of the country album charts this week with scans of almost 113k according to Nielsen Soundscan. Artistically, Tornado may be the vocal quartet’s best work since its remarkable 2008 Equity Records outing, The Road To Here. For comparison purposes, the group’s previous disc The Reason Why debuted 8-29-2010 with scans of 42k. By all measures, this week’s showing is a tour de force. And based upon the music, which these ears have been enjoying for a few weeks now, this new LBT set should benefit from WOM (word of mouth) throughout the holiday season.

But alas, LBT’s triumph was not enough to brace country YTD album sales from heading into negative territory, -1.4%! Exactly one year ago Lady A unleashed Own The Night with scans of (348k), more scans than this week’s entire Top Current 75 chart (327k), even including the LBT debut.

Kix Brooks landed inside the Top 10 with his debut this week, New To This Town (No. 10; 6.5k). Other debuts included Chris Knight (No. 25; 2.7k) and Idol alum Bucky Covington (No. 30; 2k).

Expect country’s YTD album numbers to head deeper into negative territory for the next few weeks. (Last year we also had a 197k debut from Scotty McCreery on 10/9/2011). However, the 2012 release schedule starts to shift gears soon with upcoming projects from power hitters Jason Aldean (10/16) and Taylor Swift (10/22), plus stocking stuffer holiday sets from Blake Shelton, Scotty McCreery and Lady Antebellum. For a full listing click here.

For those year-end prediction junkies, you can either read the tea leaves or wait and see how the Aldean and Swift CDs fare. As for this prognosticator, I’m seeing a positive finish shaping up…

Tracking The Sales
Tackling tracks is once again mostly about Ms. Swift who owns the No. 1 and No. 2 titles on this week’s Digital Genre Country tracks list. “We Are Never Ever…” was downloaded over 226k times for a RTD total of almost 1.7 million in five weeks! “Ronan” earned 116k credit card clicks for two-week RTD total of 327k. Very impressive. Those two Swift tracks equal 22% of the entire 100 track list. And lest we get called out by the affable Big Machine sales department, please note, that 22% doesn’t even include Swift’s six additional tracks included on the list.

Tracks are a bright spot this year, up 6% for all-genre and up 12.3% for country and the trend is expected to continue through the holiday season.

So as the year draws to a close, we’ll cross our fingers for the album numbers and good showings from the new offerings, while cheering as we break new records for  country track sales. However, when the bean counters hunker down to assess the year-end financial results, they will be less concerned with units sold and pay more attention to total revenue and profits. SoundScan numbers and percentages up and down tend to camouflage those dollar metrics because they don’t take into account pricing and margin.

Stay tuned...

Average Joes Management Announces Promotion

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President of Average Joes Management Ken Madson has announced the promotion of 20 year music industry veteran Rusty Harmon to Sr. VP of Management Services. The promotion is effective immediately.

“We have always prided ourselves building artist careers from the ground up,” says Madson. “Rusty’s experience developing Hootie and The Blowfish and Jason Michael Carroll will be invaluable to us as we continue to grow.”

Harmon says, “In one short year I’ve seen our team have No. 1 singles, No. 1 records, get artists signed to major labels, and grow at a rapid rate. We have a great group of artists, managers, and staff. I am proud to call Average Joes home, and I look forward to growing with the company as we continue to set trends others follow.”

Average Joes Management originated in 2007 with two employees and one client. Today, the company has grown to house 16 employees, 8 artist managers, and artists across a multitude of genres including Colt Ford, The Lacs, John Michael Montgomery, Bo Bice, Ira Dean, Scarletta, JB and the Moonshine Band, Rehab, Moonshine Bandits, Johnny T, Jesse Lee and others.