Welcome to Music Enterprise Worldwide’s weekly round-up – the place we be certain you caught the 5 greatest tales to hit our headlines over the previous seven days. MBW’s round-up is supported by Centtrip, which helps over 500 of the world’s best-selling artists maximize their earnings and cut back their touring prices.
In the meantime, the Division of Justice’s antitrust case in opposition to Dwell Nation and Ticketmaster probably gained momentum with revelations of undisclosed kickback schemes involving venue big Oak View Group.
Elsewhere, contemporary information from Luminate painted a sobering image for these chasing US chart hits, whereas Warner Music Group bolstered its catalog technique with a key rent.
Additionally this week, Main Wave continued its acquisition spree by way of a cope with Fleetwood Mac co-founder Peter Inexperienced’s property, marking the newest in a collection of catalog acquisitions backed by the corporate’s $2 billion partnership with Brookfield Asset Administration.
Listed here are among the greatest headlines from the previous few days…
The European Fee is planning to open a “full-scale” investigation into Common Music Group’s proposed acquisition of Downtown Music Holdings. That’s based on a report revealed by Reuters on July 16, citing “three individuals with direct information of the matter”.
The transfer represents an escalation from the preliminary Part 1 evaluation to a extra intensive Part II investigation lasting as much as 90 working days.
UMG’s Virgin Music Group revealed in December that it had agreed to purchase Downtown Music Holdings LLC in a $775 million deal. The reported investigation comes after over 200 individuals signed a letter objecting to UMG’s proposed takeover of Downtown, together with 20 staff from Beggars Group and Secretly Group corporations.
Common maintains confidence within the deal, with a spokesperson stating: “[We] stay assured that the mix of Virgin and Downtown will create an improved providing within the rising and extremely aggressive label companies class that in the present day consists of roughly 100 corporations…”
The Division of Justice’s antitrust case in opposition to Dwell Nation and Ticketmaster probably gained new ammunition this week with revelations of a beforehand undisclosed kickback scheme. The kickback association was revealed as a part of the DOJ’s investigation into bid-rigging allegations in opposition to OVG CEO Tim Leiweke.
OVG reportedly entered right into a pact with the ticketing companies supplier, by way of which the ticketing firm agreed to make annual $7.5 million “Sponsorship Funds” to OVG. These funds had been “topic to changes based mostly on the quantity of major, fee-bearing tickets offered” for venues managed by OVG360 in North America over a 10-year interval.
The essential problem recognized by the DOJ is that OVG did not disclose this monetary association to venue homeowners, regardless of having fiduciary duties to them. The revelations might considerably strengthen the DOJ’s ongoing antitrust case in opposition to Dwell Nation and Ticketmaster…
New information from Luminate’s midyear report reveals basic shifts in American music consumption patterns. The USA’s market share of world audio streaming quantity has considerably fallen – down from 43.4% in 2019 to simply 27.9% in H1 2025.
Much more hanging is the decline of megahits. The USA’s Prime 10 tracks in H1 2025 claimed a half-a-percent share of the market’s complete audio streams (0.52%). Return just some years, and the equal stat was as excessive as 1.6%.
Maybe most importantly, tracks youthful than 18 months outdated (‘present’ releases) had been streamed 168.5 billion occasions within the first half of 2025. That was down in quantity phrases by 3.3% YoY vs. the identical interval of 2024, when ‘present’ tracks racked up 174.3 billion streams…
Warner Music Group made a strategic rent to capitalize on the rising catalog market, appointing business veteran Orla Lee-Fisher as Head of Twin Catalog Technique. Lee-Fisher will “champion” catalogs represented by WMG. That can contain “crafting and main campaigns for the corporate’s off-roster catalog” throughout each recorded music and publishing rights.
Lee-Fisher joins WMG from Common Music Group, the place she labored for greater than 20 years, serving in quite a lot of roles, together with Normal Supervisor of Polydor Information and Managing Director of A&M Information. Most lately, she was EVP, International Advertising and labored throughout campaigns for famous person artists together with The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Sir Elton John.
The appointment comes two weeks after we discovered that WMG and personal funding big Bain Capital are launching a $1.2 billion three way partnership to amass “legendary” music catalogs throughout each recorded music and music publishing…
Main Wave has struck a music rights cope with the property of Peter Inexperienced, the founder and unique lead of Fleetwood Mac. In accordance with Main Wave, phrases of the deal will see the writer purchase the belongings comprised in Inexperienced’s Rattlesnake music publishing catalog, and his curiosity in all compositions written by him, in addition to sure recordings.
Inexperienced’s writing credit embody Fleetwood Mac songs corresponding to Albatross, Black Magic Lady,Oh Nicely, The Inexperienced Manalishi (With the Two Prong Crown), and Man of the World. Rolling Stone ranked Inexperienced at No.58 in its listing of the “100 Best Guitarists of All Time.”
This partnership marks the newest Fleetwood Mac-related deal for Main Wave. In December 2020, the corporate acquired a majority stake within the publishing catalog of one other Fleetwood Mac member, Stevie Nicks. The Wall Road Journal reported on the time that Main Wave purchased an 80% curiosity within the copyrights, which its sources stated had been valued at roughly $100 million…
