The AvA Connection

The Weekly Buzz:

• Paramount Global turns down a $11B bid from Apollo

  • Shari Redstone, president of National Amusements Inc. (the controlling shareholder of Paramount Global) was not convinced by the PE firm’s bid to buy Paramount’s film and TV studio. Read more

• Spotify announces record-breaking payout to Artists in their economics report

  • They set the record for the highest annual payment to the music industry ($9B+) by any retailer.

  • Over half of the Artists who generated $10k+ are from countries where English isn’t their first language .

  • I’m sure no one will complain…

  • Read the full report here

• There is an Artist whose music has been streamed 15B times and is in the top 100 most streamed Artists of all time… that no one has ever heard of.

  • Johan Röhr has created 650 “fake artists” on Spotify with 2,700 songs on the platform. Read more

The Call Log: Mark Williamson, Co-Founder & CEO of ROSTR

AvA: How did you get involved in the music business? 

Williamson: Back in 2010 I was trying to build a tech startup but it was just too early for me. I needed more experience first. I’d recently discovered Spotify and I was obsessed with it - they were number 1 on my list. I found this guy called Shakil Khan, who ran special projects at Spotify. I hit him up on LinkedIn and pretty much said “I need to work there.” He had me do this unusual online treasure hunt style test. Less than a week later I was working at Spotify in London. I took a shot, got very lucky with timing and ended up being part of a really key story in the music industry for a number of years. 

AvA: What was your experience at Spotify like? 

Williamson: I joined at this time when it was still pretty small but about to lift off. A lot happened in a really short time and I got to do a lot of really interesting stuff because it just wasn’t really a corporation yet. I got to help launch Spotify in the US and then I co-created the Artist Services team which I led for a number of years. It was super challenging at times because a lot of people really hated us. But the flip side is we got to build a lot of really important relationships across the industry. 

AvA: What was the driving force behind creating ROSTR? 

Williamson: Even at Spotify and with a pretty connected team of people we were constantly chasing down some piece of info or another. I remember this time, the whole music department got a one-line email from Spotify CEO Daniel Ek: “I need to speak to Tool’s manager, today.” Tool were on one of their long hiatuses and so we had like 100+ people texting, calling and emailing contacts to try and figure out who was managing them. 

If Spotify had trouble finding this info, what are other companies or brands doing? How are people connecting with each other? How much time and opportunity is being wasted because it’s difficult to find even basic info? So ROSTR was really about solving a problem I had and that I figured lots of other people must have too. 

p.s. Now you can find Tool’s manager, or any of the tens of thousands of other artists on ROSTR in just a few seconds. 

AvA: How have you seen ROSTR continue to develop?

Williamson: At the beginning a lot of managers and agents told me ROSTR was going to piss people off because they didn’t want their rosters to be so accessible. A few years later that’s almost completely flipped. Now people really want to be listed on ROSTR, they want to be found. 

One of the ways we’ve shifted that behavior is through stuff like the now infamous Who Booked Coachella, The World’s Leading Artist Management Companies and our Hottest Signings on IG. We’ve taken these things that were always kind of hush hush and made them more open, more fun. 

AvA: What trends are you seeing in the industry right now?

Williamson: Two divergent trends I’m seeing on the agency and management sides… 

The agency landscape is more fragmented than it’s been in a long time. During COVID furloughs led to a bunch of new independent agencies springing up. A couple of years down the line we haven’t yet seen those get swallowed up by the majors and so there’s more players on the field. 

On the flip side, we’re seeing a move towards more consolidation at the top of the management world. There are a handful of companies getting way bigger than the rest of the pack. This is partly through acquisitions but also these companies are hoovering up a lot of the superstars. It almost feels like the emergence of a group of management “majors” for the first time. 

AvA: You recently launched Jobs by ROSTR. Talk to us about the impact that has had.

Williamson: ROSTR is about connecting people, and making connections. Jobs felt like a natural extension of that. We launched it as a test just over 6 months ago and the response has been pretty incredible. We’ve now had more than 500 employers post jobs, more than half a million visits and generated more than 50,000 applications. 

It’s bittersweet though, because part of the reason it worked is because there have been so many layoffs in music and there are so many people looking for work right now. We weren’t smart enough to be intentional about that but we are looking at ways that we can evolve the platform to be more candidate focused. There’s a lot of incredible talent looking for work right now but finding it very difficult to cut through. 

AvA: What is some advice you'd give to someone just starting out in the music industry? 

Williamson: People tend to say “I want to work in music”. Sure, but what do you want to do exactly? What specifically are you trained in or training for? 

Do you like being a marketer? Do you want to be in sales? Do you want to work with data? Do you want to be a developer? 

It has to start there. Know what you want to do, train for it, get good at it then find a way to do that in music.

The Job Board

💼 = Job | 🎒 = Internship

💼 Touring Assistant - AEG - LA - Apply Here

💼 Artist Manager Assistant - Grassroots Music - LA - Apply Here

💼 Manager, Music Creative Production - Netflix - LA - Apply Here

💼 Music Coordinator - ZEALOT - LA - Apply Here

💼 Talent Buyer - Insomniac - LA - Apply Here

💼 Coordinator, Music Royalty Administration - Sony Pictures - LA - Apply Here

💼 Artist Relations Manager (Country & Rock) - EVEN - Remote - Apply Here

💼 Concert Venue Booking Agent - Star Entertainment Global - Remote - Apply Here

💼 Talent Buyer Assistant (Part-Time) - AEG - LA - Apply Here

💼 Group Assistant - Wasserman - LA - Apply Here

💼 Campaign Manager (Pop) - BMG - LA - Apply Here

💼 Manager, Music & Content Operations - Studio71 - LA - Apply Here

💼 Manager, Music Creative - Warner Chappell Music - NYC - Apply Here

🎒 Multiple Internships - Newport Festivals Foundation - Newport, RI - Apply Here

🎒 Summer Internships - Degy Entertainment - Remote - Apply Here

🎒 Artist Management Summer Intern - Roc Nation - LA - Apply Here

🎒 Label A&R Summer Intern - Roc Nation - LA - Apply Here

🎒 Music Publishing Summer Intern - Roc Nation - LA - Apply Here

🎒 Music Business Development Summer Intern - Create Music Group - LA - Apply Here

🎒 Sync Summer Intern - UnitedMasters - NYC - Apply Here

🎒 Music Brand Partnerships Summer Intern - Roc Nation - Apply Here

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