Music tech firm VNUE has partnered with Kokku, claimed to be South America’s ‘largest gaming and entertainment co-development firm”, to bring “a continuous VNUE Festival and multi-stage experience” to kids gaming platform Roblox in Q1 2023. Nevada-headquartered VNUE, a publicly traded company on the OTC markets, also says that it has “retained” ICON Capital Group to raise $15 million “or more”, in order to list on NASDAQ.
Source: Music tech firm VNUE plans to list on NASDAQ with $15m+ raise
The company says that the new feature will allow artists who have received a qualifying offer from beatBread to highlight tour dates, collaborators, marketing partners, and other initiatives to a range of pre-approved investors. Investors within the network can use this information to bid on providing advances on some or all of the royalties associated with an artist contract.
Source: Music funding platform beatBread launches exclusive investor network
In a brief two-page order issued late on October 31, Judge Florence Y. Pan blocked PRH’s bid to buy S&S, saying the government had succeeded in showing that the proposed merger would harm competition in the market for the U.S. publishing rights to anticipated top-selling books.
Deezer ended Q3 2022 with 9.4 million subscribers, unchanged from the start of the period, while revenue growth in the third quarter gained momentum partly due to price hikes that the company implemented. On a year-over-year basis in Q3, Deezer’s total subs fell 2.5% YoY from 9.7 million to 9.4 million, weighed down by a 15.8% drop in B2C subscribers outside of France.
Source: Deezer revenues grow 13.8% YoY in Q3, but total subscribers fall 2.5% to 9.4m
Universal Music Group has announced its financial results for the third quarter ended on September 30, 2022, reporting a revenue increase of 13.3%, informed by growth across all sectors. Recorded music revenue grew by 10.1%, with music publishing growing by 6.9%, while adjusted EBITDA increased by 9.1%, driven by revenue growth. The quarter’s top sellers included BTS, BLACKPINK, Ado, INI, and Morgan Wallen.
Disney is not currently in the market to buy another studio or network, chief executive officer Bob Chapek said. Disney’s biggest content acquisitions came under its previous CEO, Bob Iger. In 2019, the conglomerate closed its $71 billion deal for 21st Century Fox assets, coming after earlier buying Marvel, Pixar and Lucasfilm. At this point, Chapek said, “Our plan is to have all our content creation self-contained.”
Source: Disney Is Not Looking to Acquire Any Content Companies, CEO Bob Chapek Says
NBCU grew its studios unit financials, helped by the likes of ‘Minions: The Rise of Gru,’ while the cable systems at its parent company added 14,000 broadband subscribers. Peacock, the streaming service of Comcast’s entertainment unit NBCUniversal, grew its third-quarter revenue strongly, but its loss widened again, while NBCU increased its earnings for the latest period by more than 20 percent.
Source: NBCUniversal Third-Quarter Earnings Rise, Peacock Loss Hits $614M, Comcast Takes $8.6B Sky Charges
YouTube’s ad revenue dropped during the third quarter, down nearly 2% compared to the previous year, parent company Alphabet reported on Tuesday. But the video giant isn’t the only tech and social platform to be impacted by a declining digital ad market. Snap reported a net loss of $360 million during Q3 as the company has seen engagement in the U.S. decrease by 5 percent year over year.
Source: YouTube Sees Ad Revenue Drop Slightly to $7.07B During Third Quarter
Universal Music Group, Hipgnosis Songs Fund and other music stocks rose on Tuesday following news of Apple Music’s price hike, as investors bet it would trigger a wave of streaming subscription cost increases. This 10% price hike — Apple’s first — comes amid high inflation and a darkening economic environment in many global markets. If Apple can raise prices at a time like this, that is a sign the music industry can charge more without turning off consumers, Wall Street analysts said.
The Music Acquisition Corporation (TMAC), floated on the New York Stock Exchange in February last year under the ticker symbol TMAC.U, raising $230 million in the process. TMAC.U, formed specifically to effect a merger/acquisition in the worlds of both music rights and music tech has been largely quiet since then – something that now doesn’t look likely to change in the near future.
Source: $200m SPAC, The Music Acquisition Corp, files to liquidate early and delist shares from NYSE