Ric Ocasek. A $560 million refinance of its
capital structure in August “was a first for
the music industry,” says Josephson, 58. It
inked a new deal with BMG to administer
licenses in India through Mint, its joint ven-
ture with Swiss collection society SUISA.
And SESAC’s Harry Fox Agency won a
contract to develop a rights administration
and interface development contract for the
Music Licensing Collective.
Elizabeth Matthews
CEO, ASCAP
Guiding ASCAP on behalf of its 735,000-
plus members — including 2019 breakout
star Billie Eilish — Matthews in 2019 con-
tinued the organization’s push for consent
decree reform, oversaw the rebranding
of its ASCAP Experience conference and
launched a health and wellness initiative
which, says Matthews, “will have mean-
ingful positive impact on creators’ lives,”
adding: “Every day the work we do at
ASCAP helps songwriters to pay their rent,
put food on the table, send their kids to
school or buy the instruments they need
to practice their craft. We are constantly
focused on helping our members be their
creative best so that they can make a liv-
ing creating the music we all love.”
Mike O’Neill
President/CEO, BMI
Under O’Neill, 58, BMI in 2019 reached
record revenue of $1.283 billion and dis-
tributed $1.196 billion to its members — the
organization’s highest-ever distribution, up
$78 million over the prior year. BMI has a 1
million-strong pool of songwriter-composers
— Mark Ronson, Ed Sheeran (in the United
States), Taylor Swift and others — who
represent 15 million compositions. How to
maintain that edge? “Even though we are
an 80-year-old company, I want our team to
think they are the disrupters and that we are
a 2-year-old company struggling to make it,”
says O’Neill. “You have to challenge yourself
every day not to accept the norm.”
INDUSTRY ASSOCIATIONS
Richard James Burgess
President/CEO, American Association of
Independent Music
Burgess’ recent advocacy efforts on behalf
of A2IM’s 600-plus independent label
members included partnering with the Mu-
sic Artists Coalition and the RIAA to amend
California’s “gig economy” law that affects
independent creators. In June, A2IM
celebrated the 10th anniversary of its Indie
Week conference. The event has increased
its attendance fivefold since it began, and
this year featured keynote speakers such
as U.S. Rep. Yvette D. Clarke (D-NY9) and
register of copyrights Karyn A. Temple,
along with panels on streaming ethics,
the use of artificial intelligence in A&R
and other topics. In December, Burgess
oversaw the launch of A2IM Artist, calling
it a platform to “fill an educational need for
self-releasing artists.”
Alisa Coleman
Board chair, Mechanical Licensing Collective
Coleman, the COO of ABKCO Music &
Records, bridges the worlds of music
publishing and public policy. She’s
recognized on the Billboard Power List in
her role as board chair of the Mechanical
Licensing Collective, set up as a result of
the passage of the Music Modernization
Act in 2018. (Coleman is also a member
of the RIAA board and president of the
New York chapter of the Association of
Independent Music Publishers.) She’ll
work with MLC CEO Kris Ahrend, named
in January. Effective as of Jan. 1, 2021,
the MLC will grant blanket mechanical
licenses and collect royalties for pub-
lishers, songwriters, composers and
lyricists. The MLC, says Coleman, “is the
future of the music industry.”
Mitch Glazier
Chairman/CEO, RIAA
In his first year as RIAA’s chief executive,
Glazier, 53, had to “reboot and realign” the
record-label trade organization to better
serve today’s “streaming economy,” he
says. In February, the RIAA reported that
U.S. retail revenue from recorded music in
2018 rose 12% to $9.8 billion, with roughly
three-quarters of that sum coming from
streaming. Glazier notes that the RIAA
board has become more diverse. It in-
cludes more women, more representation
of indie labels and, for the first time, a Lat-
in label member. And “although it is cer-
tain to be appealed,” notes Glazier, RIAA
member companies and music publishers
closed out 2019 with a landmark $1 billion
verdict in their copyright infringement suit
against Cox Communications.
David Israelite
President/CEO, National Music
Publishers’ Association
During 2019, the NMPA chief, 51, pushed
back against appeals from Spotify, Amazon,
Google and Pandora of the Copyright
Royalty Board ruling, finalized in February,
that will “raise interactive streaming royalty
rates 44% over the next five years,” he
says. Following the passage of the Music
Modernization Act in 2018, the NMPA also
helped establish the Mechanical Licensing
Collective to track, collect and distribute
mechanical licenses from streaming
services in the United States. Says Israelite,
“We’re now on pace to open the MLC on
time” — in January 2021 — “and change the
global music business forever.”
Frances Moore
Chief executive, IFPI
Moore has been a fierce opponent of
the “value gap,” described by IFPI as the
MOORE
GLAZIER
ISRAELITE
mismatch between the value that user-
upload services (notably YouTube) gain
from music and the revenue returned
to rights holders. She led the global
recorded-music trade association’s fight
to pass the European Union Copyright
Directive in March. If fully implemented
by individual EU members, the directive
would provide the framework for music to
be “valued fairly,” says Moore. “We knew
if the industry was going to develop in the
digital age, this value gap had to be dealt
with.” Other IFPI wins in 2019 include
successful copyright infringement actions
in Spain, Australia, Denmark, Italy and
Russia and shutting down stream-ripping
site Convert2MP3 as part of a 2017 lawsuit
settlement. According to IFPI, last year
alone the site had 684 million visitors.
O’NEILL
BURGESS
COLEMAN
CONTRIBUTORSJustino Águila, Rich Appel, Steve
Baltin, Alexei Barrionuevo, Jeff
Benjamin, Karen Bliss, Dave
Brooks, Dean Budnick, Judy
Cantor-Navas, Britina Cheng,
Ed Christman, Tatiana Cirisano,
Leila Cobo, Jonathan Cohen,
Danica Daniel, Frank DiGiacomo,
Camille Dodero, Chris Eggertsen,
Suzette Fernandez, Adrienne
Gaffney, Bianca Gracie, Gary
Graff, Sarah Grant, Hannah Karp,
Gil Kaufman, Steve Knopper,
Juliana Koranteng, Katy Kroll, Carl
Lamarre, Rob LeDonne, Robert
Levine, Joe Levy, Geoff Mayfield,
David Menconi, Taylor Mims, Gail
Mitchell, Melinda Newman, Cathy
Applefeld Olson, Paula Parisi,
Chris Payne, Glenn Peoples, Alex
Pham, Brian Reesman, Claudia
Rosenbaum, Dan Rys, Micah
Singleton, Richard Smirke, Taylor
Weatherby, Deborah Wilker, Nick
Williams, Xander Zellner.
METHODOLOGY
Billboard editors weighed a variety of factors
in determining the 2020 Billboard Power List,
including, but not limited to, nominations by
peers, colleagues and superiors, and impact on
consumer behavior as measured by chart, sales
and streaming performance, social media impres-
sions and radio/TV audiences reached, using
data available as of Dec. 2, 2019. (Nielsen Music/
MRC Data information in profiles is updated as of
Jan. 9.) Year-end Billboard charts for 2019, career
trajectory and industry impact were also consid-
ered, as were financial results when available.
Where required, U.S. record-label market share
was consulted using Nielsen Music’s current
market share for albums plus track-equivalent
and streaming-equivalent album-consumption
units, and Billboard’s quarterly top 10 publisher
rankings. Unless otherwise noted, Billboard
Boxscore and Nielsen Music are the sources
for tour grosses and sales/streaming data,
respectively. Nielsen is also the source for radio
audience metrics. Unless otherwise noted, album
streaming figures cited represent collective U.S.
on-demand audio totals for an album’s tracks,
and song/artist streaming figures represent U.S.
on-demand audio and video totals.
MATTHEWS
128 BILLBOARD • JANUARY 25, 2020
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LAZIER:^ COURTESY^OFRIAA.ISRAELITE:COURTESY^OFNMPA.MOORE:^ GRAHAM^FLACK.2
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