Indie festivals urge UK competition regulator to widen its investigation into Live Nation's IOW Festival deal
The Association Of Independent Festivals has urged the UK's Competition & Markets Authority to widen its investigation into Live Nation's position in the British live music business. The competition regulator is already considering the live giant's proposed acquisition of the Isle Of Wight festival.

Live Nation - which has divisions operating in tour and festival promotion, venue management, primary and secondary ticketing, and artist management - continues to be acquisitive, not least in the UK where it has bought into a number of touring, festival and venue companies in recent years.

As previously reported, the Competition And Markets Authority announced in April that it would investigate what impact Live Nation's purchase of a majority stake in the IOW Festival would have on the UK live music and festivals market.

AIF has now published research which, it says, shows that Live Nation already controls nearly 25% of the larger festivals market - ie festivals over a 5000 capacity - and that the proposed IOW Festival deal will take it much closer to that figure.

The trade group for independently-owned festivals states: "At present, Live Nation either owns or majority-owns a 23% share of [these 5000+] events by capacity - including Download, V Festival, Reading/Leeds, Parklife, Creamfields, Lovebox, Wilderness and more". The next biggest festival operator in the UK is the also acquisitive Global, but "Live Nation are already almost three times bigger" than the live entertainment wing of Global Radio, which - AIF says - control a 8% share of the UK festival market.

AIF also expresses concerns about the synergies between the different strands of the Live Nation business, and the way that allegedly limits the choices available to artists when deciding which business partners to work with. Says the trade group: "With such concentration of power across the live music value chain, most artists will have little choice but to work with the California-based company at some point in their career".

Going on to consider the impact all this has on independent promoters, the AIF statement then says: "This is already raising concerns around so-called 'exclusivity deals', whereby artists can effectively be restrained as to where they can and cannot perform and the pool of talent available to non-Live Nation events is greatly reduced".

Confirming that his organisation was now urging the CMA to expand its ongoing investigation into the IOW Festival transaction so to consider Live Nation's general position in the UK festivals market, AIF GM Paul Reed said yesterday: "For the sake of its future health and diversity it is vital that the UK's live music sector remains open and competitive. We continually need new artists to break through, and entrepreneurs to launch fresh and exciting events".

He went on: "The live music sector is fiercely competitive, but data we have published today rings several alarm bells - highlighting that a single transnational corporation is fast-headed towards widespread dominance. For independent festival operators, a Live Nation monopoly would quite simply be a stranglehold with profound and serious consequences".

Referencing back to the exclusivity deals issue, Reed added: "The complaint we hear privately from a growing number of AIF members is about the collateral damage caused by the imposition of hugely restrictive exclusivity deals. By their nature, these deals are anti-competitive, restraining when and where even the smallest artist can perform and significantly diminishing the pool of talent that non-Live Nation promoters can draw upon".

Concluding, Reed said: "On this basis, we have urged the CMA to extend their investigations beyond the acquisition of the Isle Of Wight Festival and into Live Nation's position in the market overall".

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DEAG and Kilimanjaro take stake in 'Thriller - Live' producer
German live entertainment company DEAG yesterday announced that it was acquiring a majority stake in the UK-based Flying Music Group via its British subsidiary Kilimanjaro.

Flying Music mainly produces musical theatre, and is the company behind the Michael Jackson-celebrating 'Thriller - Live' enterprise, among other projects. DEAG says that the deal gives it a "more heterogeneous and wider range of events" in the UK market, which definitely sounds like fun. It adds that Flying Music has been profitable since its inception and that therefore, via the new acquisition, the wider group is "continuing its strategy of profitable growth in an international environment".

As previously reported, DEAG bought a majority stake in Kilimanjaro back in 2014, though the company is still run by its founder Stuart Galbraith. Confirming the new Flying Music deal yesterday, he discussed how the new alliance continues Kilimanjaro's expansion beyond the traditional gig into other areas of live entertainment such as comedy and theatre.

Said Galbraith: "These are exciting times for DEAG and Kilimanjaro. Our core business of live music is continuously growing. We are expecting to have another record year in 2018 with more than two million tickets sold in the UK. We have also been able to achieve the growth of the last three years by diversifying our business model beyond live music into projects such as 'The Illusionists', Tape Face and 'Dinosaurs In The Wild'".

On the new deal specifically, he went on: "The Flying Music Group deal is another important step in our expansion into West End touring musicals and theatre. The huge experience of Paul and Derek and the Flying Music Group makes it a strong, complementary partner. We're looking forward to working together with DEAG to continue the Flying Music Group's growth in the UK and worldwide".

The there mentioned Paul and Derek are Paul Walden and Derek Nicol, in case you wondered. They are co-CEOs of the Flying Music Group, and they spoke in perfect unison yesterday to say: "As an independent promoter, this is an exciting development for the Flying Music Group".

Still fully unified, they went on: "As our company continues to grow, we're excited to be entering into a new chapter with the combined international strength of Kilimanjaro Live and DEAG behind us. We have known and admired Stuart and his team for many years and are looking forward to working together in the future".

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Pre-release promo platform Byta launches Generic Links
During all the chit and the chat about the possible collapse of SoundCloud prior to it securing a new round of funding earlier this month, some people noted that the service remains particularly popular among opinion formers in the music industry and the music media. Many said opinion formers like getting pre-release music via a SoundCloud private link, because then linking through to the track is super-easy, and bookers, programmers, journalists and DJs can easily share the link with other colleagues.

Pre-release promo platform Byta yesterday announced a new 'Generic Links' feature that aims to bring that kind of flexibility to its service. It means artists and labels sharing new music with key opinion formers over its platform - whatever the format being shared - can now send generic links via email or messaging apps that are easy to use and which recipients can then share with any colleagues who also have Byta accounts.

Byta says Generic Links is "a new step forward in private links", adding that "now everyone from the smallest of artists to the biggest companies in the world can create Generic Links, easily shareable in email or via messaging services like iMessage, Facebook Messenger and Skype". Meanwhile founder Marc Brown added: "No matter what's being shared - mixes direct from the studio or albums requiring the tightest security possible - they all come in one simple shareable link".

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SEC met with Spotify to discuss its unconventional route to the stock market
US finance regulator the Securities And Exchange Commission last month met with Spotify executives to discuss the streaming firm's plans for a direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange, according to Bloomberg.

As previously reported, Spotify is expected to become a publicly listed company via the somewhat unusual direct listing approach, rather than pursuing a more conventional new-cash-raising Initial Public Offering. It would mean existing shares in the digital music business could be traded on the New York Stock Exchange, but there would be no big new share sale at the point of listing.

Spotify needs to go public sooner rather than later because of the way it structured past loan arrangements, but the firm presumably doesn't want to dilute its existing shareholders' stock by issuing a load more shares. Arguably a direct listing is less risky in PR terms, and less expensive when it comes to admin costs, than a conventional IPO, though it does mean the company starts to receive the scrutiny of being a public company - with obligations to report financials once a quarter - without getting a nice big pile of cash at the outset.

Sources say that it was the SEC who requested the meeting and that conversations between Spotify execs and the regulator continue. It is very likely that the SEC wants more time to scrutinise Spotify's plans simply because it is going with an unconventional approach.

Elsewhere in Spotify shares chatter, which is definitely a thing, Sky News reports that a Goldman Sachs hedge fund has quietly sold off a bunch of its shares in the streaming music firm. Its thought that the private transaction saw Goldman Sachs Investment Partners sell over $75 million of its Spotify stock, though that accounts for less than half of the fund's stake in the digital music firm.

Goldman Sachs is actually one of the banks advising Spotify on its direct listing, alongside Allen Co and Morgan Stanley. So that's all fun, isn't it. Did I mention Spotify has just gone live in Thailand? No? Oh, well, take note please: Spotify has just gone live in Thailand.

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BPI boss responds to Lyor Cohen's safe harbour remarks
BPI boss Geoff Taylor has followed the lead of his American counterpart at the RIAA and responded to Lyor Cohen's blog post from last week in which he bigged up the role of YouTube in the music industry's digital future, and played down the significance of the big bad safe harbours.

As previously reported, record industry veteran Cohen - appointed to lead music operations at YouTube nearly a year ago - defended his current employer in the blog post on Friday. YouTube, of course, has become enemy number one for many in the music community in recent years, with record labels and music publishers arguing that the Google firm exploits the copyright safe harbour to secure unfair terms in its licensing deals with music rights owners. To that end, said labels and publishers want safe harbour rules in copyright law rewritten so that services like YouTube no longer qualify for protection.

Cohen argued that the safe harbour is one big distraction, and that the music industry should instead focus on the growth of YouTube advertising sales and its Red subscription service - and the new monies both can generate for the music industry. Plus, he insisted, YouTube remains a valuable marketing channel for new music, and his team is busy further enhancing the promo tools the platform offers artists and their business partners.

The boss of the Recording Industry Association Of America, Cary Sherman, was quick to respond with his own blog post denying safe harbour was a distraction, questioning Cohen's optimism about the potential for a future boom in YouTube royalties, and disputing some of Cohen's figures regarding what YouTube is currently paying to the music community. Yesterday the CEO of UK record industry group BPI, Geoff Taylor, echoed the many of those sentiments.

"Lyor Cohen argues that YouTube's advertising business is growing rapidly", Taylor wrote in a new blog post, "paying out more per stream than other ad-supported services, and is now joined by a subscription business that together will drive the industry to 'a more lucrative place than ever before'. He praises the role of YouTube in breaking new artists and argues that safe harbours allow platforms like YouTube to give a voice to millions of artists, making the industry more competitive and vibrant"

"Sounds good, right?" Taylor continues, before adding "but from a UK perspective, this ignores a few inconvenient truths. Contrary to his claims, in the UK, at least, there is little if any growth in advertising revenues from YouTube. Ad supported revenues from video streaming grew by just 0.4 per cent for UK labels last year, despite rapid growth in use of the platform".

Noting that the YouTube Red subscription service is yet to launch in the UK, Taylor also points out that the video platform does little to upsell the streaming service parent company Google does operate in the UK, ie the Google Play streaming set-up. "YouTube isn't helping to grow our subscriptions business", he says, "it's undermining it. According to research from IPSOS, one in five internet users say they don't pay for music because they get all the music they need from YouTube".

But what about all that free promo YouTube offers, hey Geoff? "YouTube isn't such a great music discovery service as it might like to believe", he reckons. "Research from AudienceNet and from IPSOS shows that two thirds to three quarters of YouTube music users use the service mainly to listen to music that they already know".

So what does that mean? Well, says the BPI boss, "rather than empowering the artist community, as Lyor argues, safe harbours take away an artist's freedom to choose. Artists aren't given the opportunity to decide whether they want their music to appear on the platform, or at what price. For most artists, the only option is to accept pitiful compensation for the use of their work, at a rate dictated by YouTube - since effectively blocking use of their work using the Content ID tool (if it's even available to them) is not realistic".

Content ID, of course, is YouTube's rights management tool that helps labels and publishers manage their content on the platform, in particular when their music appears in videos uploaded by third parties. It's a pretty damn good tool, but - some in the music community say - not as damn good as YouTube claims. And although individual artists can monetise their own videos by becoming a YouTube content partner - which is very easy to do these days - they will usually have to ally with a music distributor to access Content ID.

"Safe harbours are hardly 'a distraction' in the relationship between YouTube and the music industry", Taylor continues. "If the music industry is getting paid around one twentieth as much as it should by one of the biggest users of music on the planet, that's a reasonable thing to obsess about".

"The simple way for YouTube to fix its disconnect with the music industry", he says, "is to confirm publicly that it does not qualify for safe harbour protection for music content, because it does not play a merely neutral, passive and technical role. This should be uncontroversial, given Lyor's claim that most music watch-time on the platform comes from a YouTube recommendation".

Like Sherman at the RIAA, Taylor adds that he believes former record industry man Cohen has good motives, but - he adds - the music industry trade bodies who are busy lobbying for safe harbour reform haven't seen a shift in attitude higher up the command chain at YouTube and the wider Google/Alphabet business.

"I believe that Lyor Cohen sincerely wants YouTube to be a positive force for music", Taylor concludes, "[But] that's going to take more than words. It's going to take a fundamental shift in YouTube's business practices so that it pays for the music it uses at a level similar to competing services".

"It can afford to do so", Taylor adds. "Alphabet, YouTube's parent company, is on course for revenues of $100 billion this year. That's bigger than the GDP of Croatia and Slovenia combined (according to the IMF). If Lyor can persuade the powers at Google to make such a change, he will be a hero to even more people in music".

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ITV announces new music show with Syco
With the BBC recently announcing its new regular music programme and a one-off Harry Styles special, ITV has bounced back with its own music brag in the form of a new show called 'Your Song', a sort of 'CD:UK' meets 'Surprise Surprise'. Don't worry, it's only a one off special. For now at least.

Emma Willis will host the programme, which will see "real people who have done something extraordinary" (so bad news for fans of fictional people who do things that are ordinary) personally serenaded by a pop star. A pop star the extraordinary real person likes I should add. Providing the researchers on 'Your Song' do their job properly.

The show is being made by ITV's frequent partners on musical television, Simon Cowell's Sony Music unit Syco and telly making giant FremantleMedia. The one-off will air this autumn. Long-term plans for the format aren't known, though you suspect that if the special is a hit with viewers a proper series could be commissioned.

Say's Syco's telly chief Nigel Hall: "'Your Song' is an extremely exciting project that we have been developing for some time. We are now delighted it is coming to fruition. And we are sure it will bring surprise, entertainment and emotion to everyone at home. We all have that special song which means the world to us - and it will be really exciting to see superstars perform them for their biggest fans".

Adds presenter Willis: "This is such an amazing show to be part of... imagine seeing somebody you love, and who is so deserving, being surprised with the performance of a lifetime by their musical hero!" Are you imagining it? Well, are you? Are there tears, hugs and happiness in your imagined scenario? That's what Willis is imagining. "I think there'll be plenty of tears, hugs and happiness!" says she. Marvelous.

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Venues Day, King Krule, Gary Numan, more

Other notable announcements and developments today...

• The Music Venue Trust has announced the addition of a new strand to its Venues Day event called Venue Futures, which will be curated by Deviate Digital's Sammy Andrews. The strand will give "tech companies, digital marketing companies and start-ups the chance to connect with independent venues from all over the UK". Venues Day is 17 Oct. Companies interested in taking part in Venue Futures should email [email protected] by 4 Sep.

• The final speakers have been announced for the London edition of the FastForward music industry event, with Ticketmaster's Sophie Crosby, Sony Music's Dusko Justic and Sony/ATV's Miranda Kempin among the latest additions to the line up. The Association Of Independent Music is also offering five emerging labels the chance to win free tickets to the conference. FastForward London is on 15 Sep.

• The other band members have been cast in the long-in-development Queen biopic that is finally in production. Ben Hardy will play Roger Tayor, Gwilym Lee will play Brian May and Joe Mazzello will play John Deacon. As previously reported, Rami Melk is on board to play Freddie Mercury.

• King Krule has posted a one-minute teaser video featuring new music onto the Facebooks. How very modern.

• New Gary Numan track everybody! 'And It All Began With You' comes from Numan's 22nd album 'Savage (Songs From A Broken World)', which is out on 15 Sep via BMG.

• Here's the video for latest Ride single 'Cali'. It's described as a "psychedelic surf video" and a "kaleidoscopic video". So that's fun.

• Liam Payne, Rita Ora, The Vamps, Camila Cabello and Dua Lipa will all perform at BBC Radio 1's Teen Awards 2017 at Wembley Arena on 22 Oct. Excited? No? Are you a 'teen'? Then fuck off then. Assuming you said "no" to that last question. This one liner only really works if you said "no" to that last question.

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Bonnie Tyler sang 'Total Eclipse' during a total eclipse
So, I'm in Jamaica at the moment and I can confirm that the solar eclipse this far south was a whole lot less impressive than the solar eclipse website I consulted suggested it was going to be.

I mean, it was never going to be a total eclipse down here, but I was hoping for a bit more than just having to trust the locals that the sun wasn't quite as bright as you'd normally expect for 2pm in the afternoon.

But, further north - across parts of the USA and its coastline - the sun was indeed totally eclipsed. Want to see Bonnie Tyler sing 'Total Eclipse Of The Heart' during the moment of daytime darkness with Joe Jonas's band DNCE? Of course you do. Click here to consume.

As previously reported, Tyler was booked to perform her pop rock classic during the eclipse by a cruise company, which was parking its ship in the path of totality. Said cruise company has now posted some clips of that performance online.

True, it does kinda look like Tyler is just singing her hit on a cloudy day, but you do get to see some people wearing silly glasses staring into the sky, so swings and roundabouts I guess.

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