and the late Bob Marley and Whitney
Houston. “From my perspective,” says
Alter, “the more complicated the deal, the
more interesting.”
John Branca
Partner/music department head, Ziffren
Brittenham
It was a “challenging year” for the Michael
Jackson estate, says co-executor Branca,
who had to spend time in 2019 taking
action in response to revived accusations
of sexual abuse leveled at the King of Pop
following the premiere of HBO’s Leav-
ing Neverland at Sundance last January.
Despite many calls for Jackson to be “can-
celed” in the documentary’s wake, Branca
says the late star’s core fan base has
remained faithful: His catalog outpaced
the U.S. industry in streaming growth year
over year, with a 31.9% gain to 2.125 billion
streams. “Laws don’t protect dead people
from slander,” he says of the estate’s cur-
rent fight, a $100 million lawsuit against
HBO that is in arbitration. Meanwhile,
MJ, the previously announced Jackson
musical, is on track for a Broadway debut
in mid-2020.
Allen Grubman
Founder/senior partner,
Grubman Shire Meiselas & Sacks
Kenny Meiselas
Senior partner,
Grubman Shire Meiselas & Sacks
Founded in 1974 as a one-man shop, Grub-
man’s firm has since grown to 45 attorneys
working in film, TV, music and gaming.
Along with major media and streaming
companies, the firm represents marquee
clients like Bruce Springsteen, U2, Ma-
donna, Lionel Richie, Barbra Streisand and
Sting, as well as the “next generation of
superstars,” says the 77-year-old Grub-
man, like The Weeknd, Lizzo, Lil Nas X,
Bebe Rexha and Ella Mai. “What I’m doing
personally is looking at creative ways for
some of the really major artists [to] deal
with their business and how they deal with
their assets. It’s not just music. It’s a very
interesting time.”
Joel A. Katz
Founding chairman of the global media and
entertainment group, founding member of the
Atlanta office; Greenberg Traurig
For five decades, Katz has brokered water-
shed deals for clients including Jimmy Buf-
fett, the Recording Academy, the Country
Music Association, Alibaba and the Mi-
chael Jackson estate, for which he serves
as co-general counsel. During the past 18
months, he guided a trifecta of agreements
that are “changing the industry,” he says,
citing Jon Platt’s contract to lead Sony/ATV
Music Publishing, AEG’s purchase of a 50%
stake in Australia’s Frontier Touring and the
$300 million sale of Scott Borchetta’s Big
Machine Music Group to Scooter Braun’s
Ithaca Holdings.
Dina LaPolt
Founder/owner, LaPolt Law
LaPolt’s years in the trenches of copyright
policy and her work for clients including
Steven Tyler, Mick Fleetwood, Nicki Minaj,
Britney Spears and deadmau5 have made
her an industry problem-solver. At the front
lines of the fight for the Music Modern-
ization Act in 2018, she helped shepherd
the bill into law in October of that year;
four months later, she faced off against
the Department of Homeland Security to
help secure the release of 21 Savage from
Immigration and Customs Enforcement
detention. “There are a lot of great lawyers
in this business, but it’s not just about
closing deals,” says LaPolt, 53. “Who can
work in public policy, politics and also get
every chairman of every record label on the
phone? I get shit done.”
Donald Passman
Partner, Gang Tyre Ramer Brown & Passman
Don’t look to Passman to discuss the legal
affairs of his superstar clients, said to
include P!nk, Adele, Stevie Wonder, Heart,
Paul Simon and Taylor Swift. But like Swift,
whose music business discussions often
are aimed at the next generation of artists,
Passman has been a legal mentor to many
through his book All You Need to Know
About the Music Business, first published
in 1991. The 10th and most recent edition
had Passman making his most drastic
changes to date. “Streaming has so radi-
cally changed the music business that the
book had to be wholesale slashed, added to
and rearranged,” he says. “I would hope the
book is continuing to help educate people
who want to be in the music business.”
Debbie White
Partner/vice chair, music industry; Loeb & Loeb
Working with what she calls “a diverse
group of incredibly talented clients who
are breaking ground in their own genres,”
White represents BTS, the first K-pop
group to become a stadium-filling star act;
Melanie Martinez, who made a feature film
to accompany her album K-1 2; Regina Spe-
ktor, who wrote and recorded the theme
to the film Bombshell; perennial hitmaker
Diane Warren; and The Who, fresh off a
North America tour that ended in October.
Named Billboard’s top music lawyer for
2019, White also has a corporate client list
that includes Tencent, Citi and Uber. “My
goal is to give my clients the utmost peace
of mind,” she says, “[so] that when it comes
to their legal and business needs they have
someone they can trust that puts their best
interests first.”
MEDIA
Raúl Alarcón Jr.
Chairman/CEO, Spanish Broadcasting System
SBS, whose assets include radio, TV, live
concerts and the music app LaMusica,
reported in December that it was in the
process of securing $300 million in debt
financing as part of a recapitalization plan.
The company boasts strong ratings for its
key radio stations, including WSKQ (La
Mega) New York, the city’s most-listened-to
Spanish-language station. “SBS is honored
to have served as a springboard in launching
the careers of every major Hispanic artist
and popular musical genre during the last
37 years,” says Alarcón, 64, of his network,
which bets heavily on new music.
Mary G. Berner
President/CEO, Cumulus Media
After Berner led Cumulus out of a bank-
ruptcy and through a much-needed debt
reduction of over $1 billion, the company
achieved its first full year of revenue growth
in 2018, “which has continued through the
third quarter of 2019,” she says. Accord-
ing to the company, Cumulus reaches
over 250 million monthly listeners through
its 428 owned and operated stations and
Westwood One’s audio network of 8,000
affiliate stations. Berner also committed to
investing in Cumulus’ underserved business
sectors of digital, streaming and podcasts.
“We’ve firmly established Cumulus as one
of the country’s top audio-first media and
entertainment companies,” she says.
David Field
Chairman/president/CEO, Entercom
Pat Paxton
Chief programming officer, Entercom
Driven by acquisitions of studio/distributor
Cadence13 and producer Pineapple Street
Studios, radio giant Entercom became the
No. 3 podcaster in the United States this
year, behind iHeartMedia and NPR. Those
podcasts and over 500 radio stations
are accessible via Entercom’s Radio.com
platform, which Field says is the “fastest-
growing digital audio app in the country.”
In September, Entercom outlets and Radio.
com hosted a two-hour commercial-free
special to raise awareness about mental
health, with segments from Lizzo, Halsey,
Shawn Mendes and others.
Scott Greenstein
President/chief content officer, SiriusXM
Amid multiple achievements at SiriusXM
in the past year — the acquisition of Pan-
dora, reaching 34.9 million paid subscrib-
ers, opening state-of-the-art studios in
Los Angeles, and deals with Drake, Marvel
and Netflix — high on Greenstein’s list is
how the satellite broadcaster leveraged
resources behind Lewis Capaldi’s “Some-
one You Loved,” which reached No. 1 on
the Billboard Hot 100. “Most didn’t have
[the song] on their radar. With SiriusXM
and Pandora working in unison, we can ef-
fectively break artists we believe in,” says
Greenstein, 60. “Our model is based on
our belief in content, and everything else
GREENSTEIN follows that.”
LAPOLT
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BRANCA:^ ANGIESMITHPHOTOGRAPHY.^ G
RUBMAN:^ COURTESY^ OF^GRUBMANSHIREMEISELAS^&SACKS.MEISELAS:^MATTFURMAN.^ K
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ASSMAN:^ COURTESY^ OF^GANGTYRE^RAMERBROWN^&PASSMAN.WHITE:COURTESY^ OF^LOEB&LOEB.^ A
LARCÓN:^ COURTESY^OFSBS.BERNER:ADRIENNE^GRUNWALD.FIELD,PAXTON:COURTESYOF^ENTERCOM.^ G
REENSTEIN:SIRIUSXM.^