Warner Music Group said on Thursday that revenue rose 7% in the second quarter of its fiscal year to $1.5 billion, with the company pointing to the strength of its publishing business and a boost in revenue from streaming subscriptions to recorded music. music.
Successes like Teddy Swims“I'm losing control” and Benson Boone“Beautiful Things” led to an 11% increase in recorded music streaming revenue, including a 13% increase in subscription streaming revenue. Swims and Boone held the Nos. 1 and 2 spots on the Billboard Hot 100 songs in the first quarter, while Megan Thee StallionHis “Hiss” debuted at No. 1 in February.
“This quarter, we've seen huge hits from artists from different genres and all stages of development – exactly the kind of mix we want,” said WMG CEO Robert Kyncl on a call with investors. “[The increase in streaming revenue] driven by stronger music performance as well as subscriber growth and subscription price increases.”
Recorded music revenue rose 4% to $1.19 billion overall in the quarter compared with a year ago, as the termination of Warner's distribution deal with BMG led to streaming and digital revenue growth for the division and made a difficult comparison to a year ago. Excluding the impact of the termination of BMG's distribution agreement and the non-renewal of the digital license agreement with WMG, total revenue increased by 8.8%.
Music publishing revenue rose 19% to $306 million as WMG's songwriter contributions to hits such as Jack Harlow's “Lovin On Me,” Ariana Grande's “We Can't Be Friends” and “Carnival ” by Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign drove more. 30% increase in music publishing streaming revenue.
Kyncl said Warner's growing global market share in music publishing is due to organic growth – such as signing renowned British singer/songwriter Raye early in her career. But it was the company's inorganic growth plans that prompted the first question from analysts on the company's earnings conference call.
In April, WMG shelved plans to make a binding bid for French music label Believe.
“We decided not to pursue it for a number of reasons that I can't get into,” Kyncl said in response to an analyst question about the decision. “We have a clear strategy to expand our offerings to serve more artists across a wider range of their careers. We're building against that… We're always looking at ways to speed things up, because all this work takes time. Whenever there's an option in the market to accelerate our roadmaps, we'll look at it.”
Ultimately, the acquisition and bidding process for Believe prompted Warner to publicly disclose that it was considering an offer, but the time it took WMG to do due diligence was short and “wasn't in our control,” Kyncl said. , who also played a role in WMG. moving away.
The company “remains alert to M&A opportunities” that could further its goal of providing “lower-touch services that many independent artists, record labels and songwriters rely on.”
Warner Chappell has announced a partnership with BandLab and artist services platform ReverbNation that aims to provide management and a full JV tier to develop BandLab's most promising writers.
A former YouTube executive and tech and music advocate, Kyncl ended the call with a plug for “Where That Came From,” an AI song by the Grammy-winning country star. Randy Travis. Travis has suffered from aphasia since 2013, limiting his ability to sing. Being able to release new music for the first time in years last week was “a wonderful example of what's possible with artificial intelligence,” Kyncl said.
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/business/business-news/warner-music-group-earnings-revenue-publishing-1235678592/