22 dead in bomb blast at Ariana Grande show in Manchester
A suicide bomb attack at the conclusion of an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester last night has left at least 22 people dead and 59 injured. Police have said that the bomb was detonated by a man who also died in the blast.

The blast occurred in the foyer area of the Manchester Arena just before 10.35pm, shortly after Grande had left the stage. Eye-witnesses interviewed by the BBC have spoken of a blast and flash of fire, causing glass to shatter and the whole building to shake.

One man, who had just arrived at the arena to pick up his wife and daughter, spoke about how the blast threw him about 30 feet, from one set of doors to another. "When I got up I saw bodies lying on the ground", he added. "My first thought was to go into the arena to try to find my family".

Panic ensued as audience members rushed to exit the building in the wake of the blast. The Manchester Arena has a capacity of 21,000 and, with Grande playing there last night, there was a particularly high number of teenagers and children in the audience. Emergency services told reporters that they had taken 59 casualties from the incident to local hospitals, while treating others onsite, including for "shrapnel-like injuries".

The Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, Ian Hopkins, said in a statement: "This has been the most horrific incident we have had to face in Greater Manchester and one that we all hoped we would never see. Families and many young people were out to enjoy a concert at the Manchester Arena and have lost their lives. Our thoughts are with those 22 victims that we now know have died, the 59 people who have been injured and their loved ones. We continue to do all we can to support them".

On the investigation his force has now launched, he added: "We have been treating this as a terrorist incident and we believe, at this stage, the attack last night was conducted by one man. The priority is to establish whether he was acting alone or as part of a network. The attacker, I can confirm, died at the arena. We believe the attacker was carrying an improvised explosive device which he detonated causing this atrocity. We would ask people not to speculate on his details or to share names".

Hopkins added: "There is a complex and wide ranging investigation underway. Our priority is to work with the National Counter Terrorist Policing Network and UK intelligence services to establish more details about the individual who carried out this attack. We have received tremendous support from across the police services and partner agencies throughout the night".

Both the music and political communities expressed their shock and condolences last night and this morning, the latter group confirming that general election campaigning would be suspended for today following the attack.

The recently elected mayor of Greater Manchester, former MP Andy Burnham, told reporters: "It is hard to believe what has happened here in the last few hours and to put into words the shock, anger and hurt that we feel today. These were children, young people and their families that those responsible chose to terrorise and kill. This was an evil act".

He added: "Our first thoughts are with the families of those killed and injured and we will do whatever we can to support them. We are grieving today but we are strong. Today it will be business as usual as far as possible in our great city. I want to thank the hundreds of police, fire and ambulance staff who worked through the night in the most difficult circumstances imaginable".

Grande wrote on Twitter after the attack: "Broken. From the bottom of my heart, I am so so sorry. I don't have words". Her management subsequently issued a statement stating that "words cannot express our sorrow for the victims and families harmed in this senseless attack".

The statement went on: "We mourn the lives of children and loved ones taken by this cowardly act. We are thankful for the selfless service tonight of Manchester's first responders who rushed towards danger to help save lives. We ask all of you to hold the victims, their families, and all those affected in your hearts and prayers".

Among the music industry organisations to comment this morning was cross-sector trade group UK Music. Its new CEO Michael Dugher said: "Our thoughts and prayers go out to all those affected by this horrific attack. It is even more distressing that children and teenagers have been targeted. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to our brave emergency services and the venue staff. We know venues take security very seriously and do all they can to minimise risks, including training staff how to deal with major incidents. As a result of police investigations there will no doubt be a further review of these measures".

The live music industry has long known that its venues and events could be targets for those considering terrorist attacks, and even more so since the attack on the Bataclan venue in Paris in November 2015. Security measures are therefore already in place, and even more so at bigger venues, though those will no doubt be heightened in the wake of last night's bombing.

Despite that knowledge, and seeing regular reports of terrorist attacks around the world, incidents like this one - on home turf, in a popular venue, at a setting as familiar as a pop concert - seem particularly shocking from a UK and music community perspective. Supporting those directly affected is obviously everyone's top priority, beyond which the music community, like the people of Manchester, will endeavour to continue as normal.

As Dugher concluded in his statement: "Music has the power to bring people together and is so often a celebration of peace and love. We will not let terrorism and the politics of violence, hatred and division conquer that spirit".

BACK TO THE TOP OF THE BULLETIN

Paypal sues Pandora over logo
Paypal is suing Pandora over the new logo the streaming service unveiled back in October last year. The online payments company says that similarities to its own logo, especially on its smartphone app, are causing confusion for customers.

According to the New York Post, a lawsuit filed by Paypal in New York last week claims that the similarity between the two company's smartphone app icons "has interfered dramatically with PayPal users' experience".

As part of the legal filing, the company has included 20 tweets from apparently confused customers, including one who wrote: "I was a little confused when I opened PayPal and Barenaked Ladies started playing".

Pandora's logo "not only resembles, but openly mimics the PayPal logo", says the lawsuit. And Pandora must be aware of the similarities, it adds, because "the PayPal logo is on the checkout page of Pandora.com".

It goes on: "Even the slightest delay in locating and using PayPal's payments platform causes customers inconvenience, and degrades PayPal's standing with customers and merchants".

Paypal says that it has attempted to resolve this issue with Pandora directly, but unsuccessfully, and is now seeking unspecified damages and a court ruling to stop Pandora from using its current logo.

Pandora has not yet commented on the case.

BACK TO THE TOP OF THE BULLETIN

PRS and PPL name new joint venture, appoint MD
Bad news for all you suckers out there who put good money on PRS and PPL going with the obvious name of PRS PPL Ltd for their new licensing joint venture.

Though think about it for a second. Performing Right Society Phonographic Performance Limited Limited. Double limited see - that was never going to work. Apply some logic, and just a little bit of imagination, and you too would have reached the conclusion that the only possible name for the new licensing joint venture from PPL and PRS was: PPL PRS Ltd.

So yes, Phonographic Performance Limited Performing Right Society Limited has been officially named, and has an MD confirmed as well in the form of Suzanne Smith. Oh, and the combined public performance licence administered by the new entity will be known as TheMusicLicence. Now you are fully up to speed.

PPL - representing recording copyrights - and PRS - representing song copyrights - announced that they were launching a joint venture to handle public performance licensing last year. The new entity will take over licensing the public performance of sound recordings in the UK - where both recording and song rights are exploited at the same time - in a bid to simplify the licensing process for licensees.

Any business or organisation that operates a building or space where recorded music is played - which includes factories and offices - needs a licence for both the recording and song rights. However, such non-specialist licensees often don't understand the distinction between the two sets of music rights. In the past, many would have a PRS licence but wouldn't even know PPL existed, the record industry having only really started to proactively focus on public performance income after CD sales started to slide.

Having one organisation collecting monies for both PPL and PRS is more efficient, plus meets government objectives to make copyright licensing simpler. The New Zealand collecting societies did something similar in 2013 with their OneMusic initiative, something now being pursued in Australia too. Back in the UK, PPL and PRS have previously offered a handful of combined licences, which the new joint venture builds on.

Confirming her new role, Suzanne Smith, who joins Leicester-based PPL PRS Ltd from credit rating company Experian, said: "I am excited to be joining PPL and PRS For Music's new venture from day one. We will be building a business committed to delivering the best music licensing experience in the world. Through TheMusicLicence, PPL PRS will ensure that the creators of the music that brings so much value to those UK businesses that play music are fairly rewarded".

BACK TO THE TOP OF THE BULLETIN

Yes Please moves into radio promotions via hire of Olivia Whitton
Music publicity firm Yes Please is moving into radio promotions via the appointment of Olivia Whitton. The company originally focused on TV promotions, but now also has a press and online department, in addition to the new radio side of the business.

Whitton started her radio career at Xfm, while also working in radio promotions at companies Stellar PR and then Brace Yourself. Artist campaigns she has worked on include Royal Blood, Benjamin Clementine, Blaenavon, The Strokes, Alvvays and Karen O.

Confirming the new hire, Yes Please founder Ruth Emery said: "I'm super excited to be welcoming Liv into the Yes Please family. Her passion and dedication to music is second to none and she is a real asset to the team. When launching the company in 2012 the dream was to build the best 'out of house promo team around' and hiring Liv was the final piece of the puzzle".

BACK TO THE TOP OF THE BULLETIN

Music Glue announces partnership with merch firm Probity
Direct-to-fan platform Music Glue has announced an alliance with music merch company Probity, which will see the latter use the former's technology to power the online merchandise sales of the artists it works with. The tie-up comes as Music Glue launches a new version of its platform. Probity client Metallica were the first act to go live with an upgraded Music Glue store.

Confirming the new partnership, Music Glue boss Mark Meharry said: "It's now been ten years since we launched Music Glue and after enjoying a steep learning curve I can confidently say that we have built a platform that provides exactly what music fans want - the ability to buy anything, direct from an artist, from anywhere in the world, from any device, in any currency. Working with a globally respected merchandise company such as Probity, whose roster features legendary artists such as Metallica, Rage Against The Machine and Red Hot Chili Peppers, is humbling and testament to the hard work that the Music Glue team has put into building the platform over the last decade".

Confirming the deal from his side, Probity MD Mark Stredwick added: "Probity are running many artist webstores on Music Glue's platform and I have been massively impressed with Mark and his team. It doesn't matter whether it is our Metallica store or one of our smaller stores, we always receive the same levels of service. The client friendly approach that Music Glue adopts works perfectly with our own business and that ethos starts with the company's management and filters down".

BACK TO THE TOP OF THE BULLETIN

CMU@TGE 2017: New music media business models - DJ Mag
Look out for reports on all the key sessions at the CMU Insights conferences at The Great Escape over the next few weeks. Plus, from next Monday, we'll be publishing a series of CMU Trends reports providing more in depth versions of the insight presentations CMU Insights delivered during TGE this year - go premium to access CMU Trends. Today, the first of a series of interviews looking at new business models in music media, this one with DJ Mag's Martin Carvell.

As part of the CMU Insights Media Conference at The Great Escape this year, we looked at how a number of music media are surviving, and even thriving, in a difficult marketplace. Making money from music media is challenging because print sales are - in the main - declining, while big audiences online don't necessarily equate to decent revenues, because people expect online content for free and banner ad income is generally pretty modest unless you have tens of millions of readers.

One of the titles that has managed to thrive is DJ Mag. It's MD Martin Carvell discussed buying the struggling dance music title from Future Publishing in 2006 with his business partner James Robertson, and then expanding the publication beyond the print title - and beyond the UK - in order to ensure the media brand's survival.

"When we bought DJ Mag in 2006, the landscape was becoming very challenging and the magazine had been through a series of traditional publishers in the preceding years", he said. "It was with Future before we bought it, but it had been through Highbury, it had been through Nexus, and when it got to Future, they didn't really know what to do with it. It was full of very old school dance music journalists".

On how he and Robertson, as Thrust Publishing, came to own the magazine, he explained: "We literally used to write to whoever owned it at any one time saying 'can we buy it?' Eventually, Future wrote back and said 'yes, you can'. We made them an offer and bought it. At the time it was not doing very well, and a lot of other dance music publications had recently gone out of business, or were struggling".

However, despite that, "we always felt that the brand of DJ Mag was very strong and hadn't really been fully exploited or explored. So we saw an opportunity to take it forward again".

Turning the magazine around involved creating new products around the DJ Mag brand, and building on the title's existing and popular Top 100 DJs poll - in part by launching other awards like the Top 100 Clubs Poll, the DJ Mag Tech Awards and the Best Of British Awards - all of which bring in revenue, but also enhance the magazine's global reputation. Which has proven key to growing the business.

Though the print magazine - actually two print titles, Thrust directly publishes a UK and US edition - is still at the core of the operation, and still delivers for the business. "We still generate a lot of our revenue through print advertising", noted Carvell. "We're reasonably niche in terms of the content we put out, but that means we still have a very loyal readership". And there are still a number of companies - especially in the music tech space - which want to reach that readership, and which recognise that traditional advertising within DJ Mag is still a very effective channel to do so.

Though the print edition is also about getting the DJ Mag brand out there, so to boost all the other things the company now does. "We print up tens of thousands of extra copies and distribute them at key events like ADE or Miami Music Week", Carvell continued. "In those scenarios, the print magazine is also about showing the world that we're still here and this is what we're doing. It's definitely our calling card".

DJ Mag's global reputation has proven lucrative for the business via a number of licensing deals, where other music or media companies buy the rights to use the brand in their home countries. "It's very simple", he says of these deals. "People pay us a license fee and then they get to use our content and they get to use our brand in their territory. It's nothing more complex than that".

"The licensees have to do a few simple things", he continues. "They have to operate a website, they have to cover our flagship products - Top 100 DJs, Top 100 Clubs - [and] they have to print [the editions of the magazine related to those events]. So two magazines a year. Apart from that, we take a stand-off approach to managing them, other than just being in contact and talking them through anything they need to know".

How many of these licensing deals are now in place? "Loads", says Carvell. "The whole of Latin America, Spanish-speaking under one licence. One in Brazil. Mexico. We run North America. In Europe we have licensees in Belgium, France, Italy, Spain, Germany. There's a new one coming out for the Middle East. Australia, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Japan. And China is our new big one".

Prior to Carvell and Robertson taking on the DJ Mag title, there were no licensing deals in place at all, he added. "We started doing a few in Eastern Europe to start with, then the rest of Europe, then it moved on from there".

"People tend to come to us, or it's people that we work with, or who are involved with within dance music, not necessarily always within publishing", he said of who typically comes to them to license the DJ Mag brand. "It fits in with what they're doing. We don't massively pitch it. I'm not travelling round the world going to a million conferences and pitching it per se. But we are out and about so people get to see us and people get to discuss it".

"Things like the Top 100 DJs have definitely helped [to grow this side of the business]", he added. "The profile of the poll has definitely helped us reach audiences in different territories; for a lot of people their first experience of DJ Mag will be their favourite DJ asking them to vote for them. That has definitely expanded our audience and given us the international reach, and the credibility and the heritage in different markets without us having actually been active there".

Check out all the reports and resources CMU has published around this year's CMU Insights @ The Great Escape conferences here.

BACK TO THE TOP OF THE BULLETIN

Michael Jackson estate distances itself from king of pop telly projects
The Michael Jackson estate has distanced itself from two TV productions in development about the late king of pop. One of which tells Jackson's story through the eyes of his pet chimp Bubbles. What a time to be alive!

The estate says it is not involved with, nor did it sanction, a biopic currently being promoted by Lifetime TV, nor the Bubbles-focused project, the script for which was recently bought by Netflix.

The former is called 'Michael Jackson: Searching For Neverland' and is based on a 2014 book written by two of the popstar's former bodyguards. It stars Michael Jackson impersonator Navi in the lead role. Yeah, see, that Bubbles-based project is sounding pretty good now, isn't it?

Says the estate on the two telly projects: "To clear up any confusion or misperceptions about unsanctioned Michael Jackson projects currently in the news - including a Lifetime television movie and an animated film script recently purchased by Netflix - the estate of Michael Jackson does not license or permit the use of any rights it owns, including to Michael's music, images, video and films, for use in unauthorised works seeking to exploit Michael's legacy".

It went on: "The estate itself has numerous projects in development, all of which respect, honour and celebrate Michael's life and legacy along with his extraordinary artistry that touched fans throughout the world. When the executors are ready to announce them, they will. As Michael said countless times about his own work, the quality goes in before the name goes on".

BACK TO THE TOP OF THE BULLETIN

Kali Uchis releases new single with Jorja Smith, announces new London show
Kali Uchis has released a new single, 'Tyrant', featuring Jorja Smith. She's also announced a new live date in London next month.

"'Tyrant' is a post-apocalyptic love song", says Uchis. "Wanting to stay in the haze of puppy love forever and never face the power struggles, because that's your only real escape from the cold realities of life".

As well as Gorillaz's Demon Dayz festival on 10 Jun and a headline show at the Jazz Café in London on 12 Jun, both of which are sold out, Uchis will play Oslo in London on 11 Jun. Tickets for that will go on sale on Friday.

Here's 'Tyrant'.

BACK TO THE TOP OF THE BULLETIN

Matthew Ogle, Lana Del Rey, Carla Bruni, more

Other notable announcements and developments today...

• Matthew Ogle, formerly of Last.fm, The Echo Nest, This Is My Jam and most recently Spotify, is heading to a new job at Instagram.

• Another former Last.fm exec - Stefan Baumschlager - more recently with YouTube, has joined Austrian start-up Record Bird, which is developing a fan notification service and recently closed a six figure investment round.

• Lana Del Rey has released the video for 'Lust For Life', featuring The Weeknd.

• MØ has released the video for her latest single, 'Nights With You'.

• Carla Bruni has announced that she will release a new album, 'French Touch', on 6 Oct. It's first single is a cover of Depeche Mode's 'Enjoy The Silence'. "What I like very much about the song is the lyrics", she says. "They are quite dark, but they're made stronger because, nowadays, noise is everywhere. We need silence. Silence is healing".

• Former frontman of The Only Ones, Peter Perrett, will release his debut album, 'How The West Was One', on 30 Jun. Here's the video for new single, 'An Epic Story'.

• Sleep Party People have released a new track, 'The Sun Will Open Its Core', taken from upcoming new album 'Lingering'.

• Torgny will release new album, 'Cut & Run', this week. From it, this is 'Dreams'.

BACK TO THE TOP OF THE BULLETIN

If you like being punched in the mouth, just start saying that Linkin Park have sold out
Linkin Park are not a band who it's ever been very easy to call 'credible'. But of those who have tried in the past, a sizable portion have officially given up because of the band's new album, the more pop 'One More Light'. But singer Chester Bennington doesn't want any talk of 'selling out'. And he will pop you in the mouth if you say it.

"Either you like the song or you don't. And if you don't like the song because you hear it and - on a kneejerk reaction - it's like 'oh it doesn't have metal in it, so I don't like it', that's fine, like whatever", says Bennington in an interview with Kerrang Radio. "But if you're gonna be the person who says, like, 'they made a marketing decision to make this kind of record to make money', you can fucking meet me outside and I will punch you in your fucking mouth because that is the wrong fucking answer".

Why is that the wrong fucking answer, Chester? "Because guess what, calling us a 'sell out' for that purpose is... selling out on your fucking excuse as to why you don't like it. You're a fucking pussy".

Well that's all clear then. Still, this issue did occur to the band even as they started to pull together the songs that ultimately made up the new album, realising that they were "going down a route that a lot of our hardcore rock fans are going to be, like, put off by it maybe".

"My response was 'cool, fuck them, we don't want them as fans anyways'. By now, if people don't know that we can throw a curveball, then fuck them! If you're a guy who only likes 'War' off 'The Hunting Party' - that's your favourite Linkin Park track and that's what you want, you've got that one song. It's the only song that we've ever written like it, that's it. I don't know if we'll ever write another one ... It's like, sorry dude, if you're going to hate on us for it, then fuck you, I don't care".

Basically, Chester Bennington doesn't care what you think about his new album, but he will punch you if you do voice your opinion on it. Stop having opinions on Linkin Park. He's right, it really isn't worth it.

BACK TO THE TOP OF THE BULLETIN