Robert Kyncl: Last News

Universal Music Group and Google have started to discuss the prospect of officially licensing artists' voices for deepfakes, the Financial Times reports. Both parties reportedly hope to develop a tool that would allow the public to create their own officially licensed deepfakes. Presently, deepfakes are trained on machine learning programs to imitate the voices of singers without authorization; the phenomenon broke into public view with the April release of "heart on my sleeve," a song created with generated versions of Drake's and the Weeknd's voices.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor YouTube has tried its hand at funding original content more than once — with disappointing results. Ten years ago, YouTube believed it needed to more directly compete with the Netflixes of the world. Robert Kyncl, then YouTube’s chief business officer (who left to become CEO of Warner Music Group in 2023), in 2015 hired TV veteran Susanne Daniels to build a slate of original programming — available exclusively to subscribers of YouTube Red (later rebranded YouTube Premium).

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Warner Music Group and Spotify have announced a new, multi-year agreement, covering both recorded music and music publishing, that effectively ends the companies’ disputes over the streaming giant’s “bundling” option, which pays rights-holders less in royalties by offering audiobooks and music together for a reduced subscription fee. Universal Music struck a similar deal with Spotify just days ago.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music It’s been a challenging year for Warner Music, with a major overhaul at its Atlantic division and change throughout its business and the industry overall, but it’s safe to say the company is ending 2024 on an up note. Its Warner Records has successfully completed a multi-year turnaround with hits from Zach Bryan, Teddy Swims, Benson Boone and more — and saw its chief execs Aaron Bay-Schuck and Tom Corson named Variety’s Hitmakers executives of the year — and Atlantic is coming off a flurry of hits from Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga, Coldplay, Rose and Variety‘s Hitmaker of the Year Charli xcx. In publishing, its Warner Chappell division has three of its writers up for the songwriter of the year Grammy — Jessi Alexander, Raye, and of course Amy Allen, who was named Hitmakers songwriter of the year.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Warner Music Group has announced two new leadership appointments in its recorded music division. Eric Wong has been named president of East West Records and head of global A&R for recorded music, while Jessica Keeley-Carter has been promoted to Wong’s previous role, chief marketing officer of recorded music.

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Warner Music Group announced Tuesday that Gregg Nadel will become co-chair and co-president of Warner Music Nashville, taking a position alongside Cris Lacy as one of the leaders of Warner’s Nashville operations. Nadel (pictured above) succeeds Ben Kline, who was described as deciding to step down after a decade with the company. Kline and Lacy had been elevated to co-chairs and co-presidents at the beginning of 2023, jointly following in the footsteps of John Esposito, after that longtime label topper announced his retirement in 2022.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music After an extensive round of layoffs last week that saw some 170 people leaving the company, Atlantic Music Group has unveiled the new leadership structure that will be in place when new CEO Elliot Grainge takes the helm from longtime chief Julie Greenwald next week. The move, which is positioned as the first phase of the new structure, sees multiple longtime execs such as Craig Kallman, Lanre Gaba, Kevin Weaver, Rayna Bass and Selim Bouab elevated to new roles while some veterans from Grainge’s 10K Projects take on enhanced roles as well.

Nicki Minaj has thrown shade at the employees of Atlantic Records that have been laid off this week, quipping that “UPS are hiring”.On Thursday, Variety reported that an expected wave of departures of executives and staff at Atlantic Music Group had begun, with up to 170 people thought to have been affected. Warner Music CEO Robert Kyncl has called it a “new dynamic structure for the label group”.Minaj, however, has apparently not been overwhelmed with sympathy for those laid off, writing on X on Thursday: “Dear fired executives & A&R’s: Don’t be mad, UPS is hiring. Also, feel free to submit your resumes for a job @ #HeavyOnIt,” referring to her own record label.Dear fired executives & A&R’s: Don’t be mad, UPS is hiring.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music As expected, in the wake of the impending departures of top Atlantic Music Group executives Julie Greenwald and Kevin Liles, a large wave of layoffs have begun at the storied company as it begins what Warner Music CEO Robert Kyncl describes as “a new dynamic structure for the label group.” Numbers were unclear at the time of this article’s publication and a rep for the company declined comment, but they are likely to number well into the hundreds. Incoming Atlantic CEO Elliot Grainge officially starts work on Oct.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Warner Music Group saw its stock rise as much as 6% on Wednesday morning after reporting strong growth in streaming and publishing despite dips in sales of merch and physical product. Net profit for the quarter was up almost 14% to $141 million from $124 million in the same period last year, while digital revenue was up 4.7% and streaming 5.5% over the same period last year, with subscription revenue rising 7%. Revenue from WMG’s music publishing division rose by 8% to $305 million from $283 million in the year-ago quarter.

The Warner Music Group will see CEO of Recorded Music Max Lousada step down at the end of September, the company announced today.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Warner Music Group has announced dramatic changes in its recorded music operations: Max Lousada (pictured above, left), CEO of recorded music and a 20-year veteran of the company, will step down at the end of the fiscal year (September 30), although he will remain as an advisor through Jan. 31, 2025; At the same time, Julie Greenwald has begun a leadership transition, which will see her take on a new role as chairman of Atlantic Music Group, reporting to Robert Kyncl, WMG CEO, an elevation of her previous role as CEO; Effective October 1, Elliot Grainge (pictured above, right), 10K Projects founder & CEO, will become CEO of Atlantic Music Group, reporting to Kyncl.

Warner Music Group (WMG) has elected Michael Ryan-Southern to the newly created position of executive vice president of corporate development. Ryan-Southern, who will assume the role starting Aug.

Thania Garcia FKA Twigs and Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl testified before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property on Tuesday to discuss the dangers of exploitative artificial intelligence. “AI cannot replicate the depth of my life journey, yet those who control it hold the power to mimic the likeness of my art, to replicate it and falsely claim my identity and intellectual property,” Twigs told Sens.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music The U.S. recorded music industry grew its revenue by 8% in 2023, reaching an all-time high of $17.1 billion and marking eight consecutive years of growth. However, there’s no question that the streaming boom of the past decade, which produced years of double-digit growth, is leveling off and the industry is reacting with layoffs and talk of a “transformational moment” in the months and years to come.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor YouTube is laying off about 100 employees and is restructuring some of its operations. The cuts at the internet video giant were announced in a memo to staffers Wednesday from Mary Ellen Coe, YouTube’s chief business officer. The roughly 100 jobs eliminated represent about 1.4% of YouTube’s nearly 7,200 headcount.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music As streaming has returned the music industry to health over the past decade, with year after year of growth, people have not wanted to admit that, since the pandemic, that growth has slowed down significantly. While we saw double-digit revenue increases for several years in the latter half of the 2010s, the average number of subscriptions through the first six months of 2023 grew just 6% to 95.8 million , compared with a growth of 10% to 90 million for the first half of 2022, according to the RIAA.

YouTube is working on a new AI tool that would allow users to create videos that use the voices of well-known musicians.Billboard reported that the company is currently in talks with record labels to negotiate permission for the use of artists’ intellectual property.If it goes ahead, the beta version of the tool would allow a “select group of creators” to use the voices of the artists that agree to participate to create new video content on the platform.However, it is reported that conversations between YouTube and record labels are taking longer than expected. YouTube had intended to unveil the tool at their ‘Made on YouTube’ event in September, but that did not happen.Universal Music Group (UMG), Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group are some of the major labels that are currently in talks over voice rights for the beta version, although it is expected that any wider launch of the tool would require a new set of legal agreements.UMG CEO Lucian Grainge has said that the new technology could “amplify human imagination and enrich musical creativity in extraordinary new ways.”Robert Kyncl, the CEO of Warner Music Group said, “You have to embrace the technology, because it’s not like you can put technology in a bottle.”It is thought that many major artists are resistant to allowing their voices to be used, and Billboard reports that there remain questions about how artists would be paid for the new content that the tool would create.This week (October 18), music publishers including Universal Music Group Publishing, Concord Music Group and ABKCO sued an Amazon-backed AI company over alleged copyright infringement.

Mary Ellen Coe was installed as YouTube‘s Chief Business Officer last fall, just as the activity level at the company was beginning to surge even by the breakneck standards of a startup-turned-digital-behemoth.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music After a couple of sub-optimal quarters, Warner Music Group posted strong results on Tuesday morning, giving the company’s stock a healthy 5% bump following the announcement. The company’s stock rose as high as $33.29.

Ellise Shafer Warner Music Group and TikTok have announced a first-of-its-kind partnership to expand the licensing agreement of Warner Recorded Music and Warner Chappell Music to TikTok, TikTok Music, CapCut and TikTok’s Commercial Music Library. The multi-year, multi-product deal will “expand the level of partnership, collaboration and innovation between the two companies,” according to a press release. “It will create new revenue, marketing and insights opportunities for WMG’s artists and songwriters, while deepening the engagement with TikTok’s huge audience of passionate music fans.” It also includes a licensing deal for TikTok Music — the app’s newly launched streaming service that is now only available in Brazil and Indonesia, but has plans for growth in other markets — and CapCut, TikTok’s video-editing sister app.