sic rock standbys like Led Zeppelin,
Pink Floyd, the Eagles and AC/DC.
For catalog labels like Warner’s
Rhino Records, Sony’s Legacy
Recordings and Universal’s Univer-
sal Music Enterprises, monetizing
catalog has often involved releasing
and marketing box sets, remastered
special editions and anniversary
packages. As sales continue to crater,
however, labels are having a harder
time driving interest in older music.
This year, music released before 1990
accounts for just 4.29% of all streams,
according to Nielsen Music.
The ways labels market catalog
and current hits are diverging. Front-
line labels are pouring millions into
marketing singles from developing
acts in the hopes of enticing consum-
ers to become fans — and explore
more of their music in order to gen-
erate more revenue. On the catalog
side, however, “getting movement on
one track doesn’t do shit,” according
to a major-label executive. “Every-
body in catalog is trying to figure out
how to move the overall needle.”
Catalog promoters don’t just rely on
oldies radio and big synchs, but also
social media and playlist marketing.
One trick is to drive traffic to playlists
like Spotify’s This Is series or Apple
Music’s Essentials, says Jay Gilbert,
a principal in the artist- and label-
services firm Label Logic. Another
strategy: Use existing visuals from an
artist’s career to create music videos
for older hits that never had them, as
Led Zeppelin did a few years ago using
old concert footage set to studio mixes
of songs like “Whole Lotta Love” and
“Rock & Roll” or The Rolling Stones
did in 2018 with a new lyric video for
“Sympathy for the Devil.”
“Our job is to encourage the fans
to go deeper than two or three tracks
into an artist’s catalog,” says a catalog
executive at a major label. “There are
tons of stimuli that could bring the
consumer to our artists, whether that
be songs used in movie trailers, TV
shows or commercials. Now, people
can Shazam a song, find it and listen
to it immediately.”
For any act, from any decade, reach-
ing an audience these days seems to
require just that kind of immediacy.
In general, the catalog executive
says, “it’s important to post something
new to the artist page on a service
every week that will draw eyeballs.”
MARKET WATCH
I
N MARCH, HBO’S
harrowing four-hour, two-
part documentary Leaving
Neverland reexamined
allegations made by Wade Robson
and James Safechuck that Michael
Jackson had repeatedly sexually
abused them when they were
children in the 1980s and 1990s.
And the explosive program had the
late star’s fans — as well as radio
programmers — fiercely debating
whether his hits would, or should,
be played again.
The backlash was fast and
fierce. Reviewers predicted the
film would devastate Jackson’s
legacy; Oprah Winfrey agreed
to sympathetic interviews of
Robson and Safechuck on HBO;
radio stations in New Zealand and
Canada pulled Jackson’s music. In
response, Jackson’s family called
the allegations a “public lynching,”
pointing out that Jackson, who
was found innocent of child-
molestation charges in a 2005 trial,
was not around to defend himself.
The late singer’s estate filed a
$100 million lawsuit against HBO.
(The estate declined to comment.)
In the immediate aftermath, U.S.
radio airplay of Jackson’s catalog
dropped precipitously. According
to a Billboard analysis of Nielsen
Music data, in the four weeks prior
to Leaving Neverland, his songs
averaged 14,000 spins per week
at radio, while in the 31 weeks
afterward, through Oct. 3, stations
played his music an average of
11,000 times. The radio audience
for Jackson’s music fell 32.1%
during this period.
Yet people kept listening to
Jackson’s music. During the same
31-week period, Billboard found
that streaming consumption of
Jackson’s catalog never saw a
decline — on-demand streams
of Jackson’s catalog actually
increased by 22.1%, outpacing the
industry’s 21.8% growth.
“After I saw the documentary
and played Michael Jackson, I got
on the mic and said, ‘I hope no
one here saw the documentary,’
and people didn’t say a word,”
says Jeff Wittels, owner and DJ at
Retroclubnyc, a New York dance
club that spins ’70s, ’80s and ’90s
hits. “They couldn’t care less.”
WFEZ Miami, which reaches
1 million listeners, “backed off” on
the amount of spins of Jackson’s
music after the documentary
aired, according to branding and
program director Gary Williams.
“But as far as complaints go, I
maybe got two emails,” he says.
“As soon as we went back [to
playing Jackson’s music], we got a
positive response.”
“These are some of my top-
testing songs, and you want to give
the listeners what they want,” adds
WRRM Cincinnati program direc-
tor Brian Demay. “If the listeners
haven’t complained, don’t sacrifice
your product.”
Such listener loyalty bodes
well for the Jackson estate, which
has been rolling out new projects
including a Broadway musical,
set to debut in August 2020, and
a 1,000-copy box set containing
LPs and Blu-ray discs. Sony reps
were prepping the box set before
Leaving Neverland, and Scott
Carter, senior vp marketing for Epic
Records and Legacy Recordings,
says the allegations had no impact
on the release: “The basics for this
were drummed up before that
even happened.”
“We got more emails saying,
‘Thank you for playing this’ versus
‘Why are you playing it?’ ” says
WALR Atlanta branding and
program director Terri Avery. “And
what would Halloween be without
‘Thriller’?”
Additional reporting by Ed Christman.
Stuck In Neverland
DESPITE HBO’S CONTROVERSIAL
MICHAEL JACKSON DOCUMENTARY, THE KING
OF POP’S MUSIC HASN’T GONE ANYWHERE
BY STEVE KNOPPER
16 BILLBOARD • OCTOBER 19, 2019
22.63B
0.9%
TOTAL ON-DEMAND
STREAMS WEEK
OVER WEEK
Number of audio and video
on-demand streams for the
week ending Oct. 10.
866.1B
31.8%
TOTAL ON-DEMAND
STREAMS YEAR
OVER YEAR TO DATE
Number of audio and video
streams for 2019 so far over
the same period in 2018.
13.17M
0.7%
ALBUM
CONSUMPTION UNITS
WEEK OVER WEEK
Album sales plus track-equivalent
albums plus audio streaming-equivalent
albums for the week ending Oct. 10.
MERCK MERCURIADIS’ HIPGNOSIS SONGS ACQUIRED TIMBALAND’S COMPLETE CATALOG. RUFUS WAINWRIGHT SIGNED WITH BMG FOR HIS FORTHCOMING STUDIO ALBUM.
A still from
Jackson’s “Bad”
music video.
COURTESYOF^ SME2004 2009 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019
CURRENT VS. CATALOG ALBUMS BY YEAR*
CURRENT CATALOG
*For 2004, album sales; 2009 and 2014, albums plus track equivalent albums; 2015-19, albums plus TEA plus
streaming equivalent albums. Source: Nielsen Music and Billboard calculations based on Nielsen Music data.
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