Universal Music Group: Catalog Acquisition, DSP's & New Talent

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There's a lot to unpack there, and I'm sure you have many anecdotes from your experiences. I'd like to start with the catalog part. Looking back all these years, what was the attitude towards catalog investments from the major labels?

They were very passive. Owning the catalog was crucial for them. I recall being in the room when we signed Mick Jagger, Rolling Stones with only four people present. There has always been this question, are you a Beatles guy or Rolling Stones? Meaning are you Sony or are you Universal? And funny enough, now they're all at Universal. Catalog is a foundation of your business. But by then, it was a 50 50 business, 50% catalog, 50% new release. It was all about the latest Keane album. All this new talent coming in and making a lot of money for the company.

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There's a lot to unpack there, and I'm sure you have many anecdotes from your experiences. I'd like to start with the catalog part. Looking back all these years, what was the attitude towards catalog investments from the major labels?

If you consider that in the last three years, none of the labels have broken new artists, they're all coming from TikTok. The discovery of artists has changed. Now, it's a software that follows social media. I've been in meetings where A&R, which stands for Artists and Repertoire, the department responsible for talent scouting and artist development, and people in charge of signing artists, have based their decisions on social media following. I remember people saying, "I listen to this artist. It's amazing. I think it's good." These were all music-based discussions. Then, the head of a label would ask, "How many followers on Instagram? 20,000? No, not interested." But if an artist had one good song and 200,000 followers, they'd say, "Okay, sign her." So, the discovery of new talent became a business of better communication. If you already have a base of followers, you can create exponential growth in your following. And with AI assistance, you can even improve the singing. If the artist doesn't know how to sing, it's not a problem.

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You mentioned that 10 years ago, the split was about 50-50 between new releases and the catalog. How has that changed, say, right before Covid?

Before Covid, we were on a progression of 60-40. Then Covid happened and it changed a lot more. It was 70-30 and now we're at 80-20, or even more. Right now, it's 80%.

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