The AvA Connection

🐝 The Weekly Buzz

🌟 Oscars Key Race Spotlight 🌟

• Best Picture: Anora leads the way with a 63% chance of winning, followed by Conclave with a 22% chance, andThe Brutalist with 14% odds. Early favorite Emilia Perez has less than 1% chance to win.

• Best Actor: Adrien Brody is the stand out favorite from his work on The Brutalist with a 67% chance of winning, and Timothée Chalamet has the next best odds with 33%

• Best Actress: Demi Moore from The Substance leads the pack with a 65% chance, with Mikey Madison from Anora trailing at 28% odds, and Fernanda Torres from I’m Still Here with a 9% chance

• Best Director: Anora’s Sean Baker is favored over The Brutalist’s Brady Corbet with odds being stacked 68% versus 31% towards Baker, trailed next by Emilia Pérez’s Jacques Audiard with a less than a 1% chance to win.

• Best Supporting Actor/Actress: Kieran Culkin is the stand out favorite for Best Supporting Actor with 95% odds of winning, and Zoe Saldaña sits at a 88% chance for Best Supporting Actress. Both have cleaned up all Awards Season.

Full odds (and the ability to actually bet on your favorite) here.

Presenters for the event now include Harrison Ford, Zoe Saldaña, and Samuel L. Jackson. The full list of who has been announced so far can be found here.

The 2025 Oscar Nominees gathered for their annual class photo on Tuesday night, and all I can think about is their assistants sending around avails to try and to schedule this..

In other news, major record companies have publicly backed the campaign against the UK’s AI copyright proposal. A lot to unpack here.

On the red carpet of their shiny new $320M Netflix film ‘The Electric State,’ The Russo Brothers teased a ‘very radical’ new Avengers films. “We found a way into the story that’s very exciting to us but we think very radical and I think it’s going to challenge audiences.” More info here.

Spain generated nearly half a billion dollars from streaming in 2024. Total recorded music revenues rose 9.42% year over year, increasing from €520 million to €568.8 million. Learn more about the landscape for Spains streaming success here.

SoundExchange surpasses $12 billion in distribution to artists and rights holders since they were founded in 2003. Growth has been on the exponential path for the company as of late as It comes less than a year after SoundExchange’s payouts passed the $11 billion mark in 2024. More on that here.

Kurt Cobain and Tony Hawk’s kids welcomed their first child into the world recently. Tony Hawk shared, “I wish Kurt were here so he could see the incredible woman his daughter has become, meet her devoted, caring husband, and hold our wondrous grandchild.” 1) Beautiful 2) Holy shit that kid has a lot of pressure to be great at something..

In totally unrelated news, we just released a limited run of black Industry Plant hats.

📞 The Call Log: Executive Vice President/Chief Marketing & Communications Officer at ASCAP, Lauren Iossa

Lauren Iossa is…

Our conversation is below:

AvA: Can you break down the role of ASCAP & other PROs for someone that isn’t familiar? 

Iossa: You hear music almost everywhere – bars, clubs, restaurants, supermarkets, radio, streaming services, live concerts, doctor’s offices, television, cable – from Spotify to symphony orchestras to Netflix. ASCAP is a collective licensing organization or Performing Rights Organization (PRO) that makes sure songwriters, composers and music publishers get paid when their music is publicly performed. Our job is to license all of the businesses that use music, to then track the music that was played, and to pay the songwriters who wrote the music their share of the public performance royalties they earned. We have over one million music creator members. Some are top names in music; others are just starting out. Some are well-known recording artists; others write hit songs or tv and film scores behind the scenes. Our recent Grammy winners included Chappell Roan, Amy Allen, Daniel Nigro, Mustard, Beyoncé, Charli XCX, St. Vincent, Alicia Keys, Gustavo Dudamel, Samara Joy, Hans Zimmer, and ASCAP Board member Jon Batiste – just to name a few of them!

We were the first PRO in the U.S., formed in 1914. We also represent music legends, from Duke Ellington to Leonard Bernstein to Joni Mitchell to Stevie Wonder to Paul McCartney to Patti Smith – the list goes on and on.

AvA: What is the main difference between ASCAP and other PROs? 

Iossa: Great question. ASCAP is completely unique in the United States among PROs because we are the only one that is founded and governed by music creators and the only one that operates on a not-for-profit basis, returning to our members about 90 cents of every dollar we collect on their behalf. That means that our songwriter, composer and music publisher members are the sole beneficiaries of our financial growth, and we are mission driven to support them in every way we can. Every other U.S. PRO is owned by private equity investors who take their profit out of the money they collect, so writers and publishers are making less than the value of their music.

Another difference is in how we support our members in terms of payment transparency and education. We want our members to understand how they are being paid and what their music is earning, so all of our distribution rules are publicly available on our website and we offer our members very detailed statements about their performances. Also, our distribution rules are approved by our member-elected Board of Directors of songwriters, composers and music publishers. They are focused on making sure the rules are fair and objective for the membership as a whole and that our payment system evolves with the way music listening evolves. We are also the only U.S. PRO to publish our annual financial results. We also do a lot to help our members at every stage of their careers. Our Board are music creators themselves so they know how challenging it can be in this business. We offer education, networking, song camps, mentoring, our ASCAP Experience conference, a member wellness program, and so much more. Everything we do is to support our music creator members, putting them first.

AvA: Biggest challenge and opportunity facing songwriters in today’s music landscape? 

Iossa: Breaking through the noise to get your music noticed and heard is more challenging than ever. For songwriters starting out, it seems like you have to have a lot of other skills than writing great songs, like managing social media, and making sure your metadata is accurate and up-to-date so you can collect your royalties – not just from ASCAP, but from other sources as well.

The flip side of that is that there are more opportunities for your music to find its way to your fans and it is easier to network with more people and collaborators. And there are more opportunities to get educated and have the information you need to succeed – you just have to make sure you aren’t being exploited by people who claim to be experts, but who are more opportunistic than expert.

AvA: Biggest challenge and opportunity facing ASCAP & PROs? 

Iossa: One our biggest challenges is that the businesses who license music are always looking for ways to pay songwriters less, sometimes by trying to regulate how we operate with legislation that would be very harmful to songwriters. That means ASCAP is always fighting for the right of our members to be paid fairly. Right now, there is an effort by a group of licensees, including music venues and their Washington lobbyists, to upend the PRO system that really is the most efficient and effective way to protect songwriters and to make sure songwriters can make a living from their art. They convinced three members of Congress to write a letter to the United States Copyright Office looking into the PROs, and the Copyright Office issued what’s called a Notice of Inquiry to ask for comments. What they really want is to pay less for the music that fuels the success of their businesses, and it is critically important that songwriters work with their PROs to protect their livelihoods. 

We also are very engaged on the issue of Artificial Intelligence for our members. AI is both an opportunity, creatively for our members, and in terms of efficiencies in the business, and a challenge in terms of infringing on the rights and livelihoods of human creators. ASCAP believes in the principle that we need to protect human creativity, and we were happy to see that the Copyright Office agreed with many of the comments we submitted to them for their recent report on the copyrightability of works that use AI.

We are also very focused on leveraging technology to create efficiencies and streamline our operation, which ultimately benefits our songwriters. Through our ASCAP innovation initiative, ASCAP Lab, we are also working on exploring the latest technology developments that can impact our own operations and also help our members.

AvA: You recently released your 2024 report. What were some key insights and what trends do you anticipate shaping the future of PROs & ASCAP specifically?

Iossa: Our growth in both revenues and distributions has been incredibly healthy as our 2024 financial results show. We continue to keep our overhead low, so that our members are getting the best possible return on the royalties they earn. The trend of private equity investment in PROs continues because they recognize that royalties are a valuable and predictable revenue stream. ASCAP, according to our association rules, may only deduct our operating expenses and then must distribute all remaining income to our members at royalties. We will always put creators first.

Another trend we are watching closely is the use of AI in music, which will have an impact on all aspects of the music industry, but it is too soon to predict just how much of an impact. Streaming fraud made some headlines this past year, and I think the industry will collaborate more pro-actively to tackle that issue to ensure that the money is going to the true artists and songwriters. ASCAP announced a joint anti-fraud task force with one of our competitors because it is by working together that we can solve industry-wide problems.

AvA: What is one piece of advice you have for someone just starting out their career?

Iossa: Be you. If you try to chase the latest trend, and that isn’t who you really are or what you want to say, you might have some temporary success but that is not the same as a career. To have a career, you have to have artistic vision and integrity and something to say, lyrically or musically. If you’re working on the business side, my advice would be to follow your passion and also to open your mind to as much music as possible. I have been at ASCAP for a long time, and one of the reasons is that I am truly in love with so many different kinds of music and ASCAP’s mission is fully aligned with that love of music. It is amazing to hear from the people who actually create music about their inspirations and process – whatever the genre. And I see the power that music has to bring joy to people – don’t take it for granted. I am very grateful to be able to work in this industry and to support the true creators without whom there would be no music.

👋 See you back here on Tuesday for a brand new selection of Entertainment jobs

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This newsletter is written by Warner Bailey and edited by Riley Furey

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