The AvA Connection

🗽 AvA TAKES NYC

Phase 1 of our panelists for next Tuesday’s AvA IRL Next Gen Panel have been announced!

Want to attend? We just released the FINAL 50 slots. Grab them below:

🐝 The Weekly Buzz (6 Entertainment Industry Headlines That Actually Matter)

1) Mark Measures, owner and president of talent agency KMR, is alleged to have stolen $1.8 million from New York actors, and money from employees. What did he use that money for? To purchase Four Seasons spa treatments, clothing, car payments and at least $55,000 worth of Los Angeles Crypto Arena seats. And you thought you had a shitty boss?

2) A first for AI and the music industry. Hallwood Media, the independent music company founded by former Geffen Records president Neil Jacobson, just signed its first AI-assisted “music designer,” Imoliver, who’s the most-streamed artist on Suno with over 3 million plays. Although Imoliver is an actual human using Suno’s AI to craft his tracks, the decision has faced a ton of industry backlash.

3) The RAP (Restoring Artistic Protection) Act was just reintroduced to The US House of Representatives. The bill is working towards song lyrics being inadmissible as evidence in court cases unless prosecutors can meet a very strict criteria, and this was helped on by the Recording Academy & the Black Music Action Coalition.

4) The US streaming video market is forecasted to surge 33% to over $112 billion, as per PwC. They also predict that traditional TV will be down 5.4%, and you can view a graph for the streaming market below:

5) YouTube just posted their Q2 earnings report, boasting an impressive 13% increase in advertising revenue to $9.8 billion year over year. Their overall revenue also jumped by 13.8% to a measly $96.43 billion.

6) Spotify shared that ‘super listeners’ typically make up 2% of an artists monthly streaming audience, but they account for 50% of the concert ticket sales through their app. ‘Super listeners’ also contribute to 18% of total streams, and they are 9 times more likely to share music with their network. More on that here.

✅ Meme of the Week:

📞 The Call Log: Rich Motzkin, EVP & Managing Executive for Global Soccer at Wasserman

Our podcast episode today is with Rich Motzkin, a top soccer agent and Executive Vice President at Wasserman, where he has represented the most legendary U.S. players in history.

Regardless if you’re a sports fan or not, it’s an amazing convo and an inspiring story.

Some of my favorite parts of the interview:

On relationships in the Entertainment Industry:

Motzkin: This is a very relationship oriented business. Prioritizing relationships is the single most important thing in life. Relationships are more important than any deal, any amount of money.”

Advice for the next generation:

Motzkin: Figure out what you're passionate about, and figure out if there's a way you can pursue that. But be flexible and take the opportunity that presents itself. Once you get an opportunity, be really, really fucking good at it.

Add value. I always tell people like, don't just come to me and say “I love sports and I really want to get in sports.” Okay you and every other college kid in the country. Do something to grab someone's attention. It could be I speak Mandarin and I think you can break into the Chinese market and this is why.

His craziest story as an agent:

In South Africa one time.. we're going to a game and we get pulled over. Our driver takes a shortcut through a really bad area, and then we get pulled over by the police and had guns drawn at us..

Find out what happens by tuning in to our full conversation below:

And finally check out Cinemarketing, a great read on the playbooks behind movie marketing.

From their latest issue: How Sony used a cloaked hookman to stalk NYC and promote a horror reboot “Sony took an old-school, low-fi approach to marketing its new I Know What You Did Last Summer legacy sequel by unleashing a silent, cloaked figure armed with a hook into the real world and letting TikTok do the rest.”

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

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This newsletter is written by Warner Bailey and edited by Riley Furey and Dominik Sansevere.

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