{"id":24761,"date":"2023-04-26T21:06:50","date_gmt":"2023-04-26T21:06:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/universal-music-sales-edge\/"},"modified":"2023-04-26T21:09:00","modified_gmt":"2023-04-26T21:09:00","slug":"universal-music-reiterates-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/universal-music-reiterates-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"Universal Music reiterates AI concerns as quarterly profit slumps"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(Reuters) -Universal Music Group, the label representing Drake and Taylor Swift, on Wednesday posted a slump in first-quarter core profit due to compensation expenses, and reiterated concerns over AI-made music.<\/p>\n<p>Core profit, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA), slumped 43.4% in constant currency to 261 million euros ($288.04 million), due to non-cash, share-based compensation expenses, part of an equity compensation plan announced last year.<\/p>\n<p>Excluding these expenses, adjusted EBITDA was 522 million euros, up 13.0% on the same basis, and beating a consensus cited by Credit Suisse which had expected 513 million euros. <\/p>\n<p>UMG&#8217;s CEO, Lucian Grainge, has come under shareholder pressure over an &#8220;excessive&#8221; $100 million pay deal, The Financial Times reported on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Grainge has overseen a strong period for UMG over the past decade, marked by growth in streaming revenues which the label collects from partnerships with the likes of Spotify and Apple Music.<\/p>\n<p>Labels now face challenges like slowing global revenue growth in recorded music, particularly in established markets like the U.S, while the emergence of AI-generated music adds to their concerns, as many laws do not currently deem the replication of artists&#8217; voices as strictly illegal.<\/p>\n<p>UMG earlier this month was successful in its bid for streaming partners to remove the song &#8220;Heart On My Sleeve,&#8221; which uses AI-made voices that sound like Drake and The Weeknd.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Unlike its predecessors, much of the latest generative AI is trained on copyright material which clearly violates artists&#8217; and labels&#8217; rights and will put platforms completely at odds with the partnerships with us and our artists,&#8221; the group&#8217;s chief digital officer, Michael Nash, said in a call.<\/p>\n<p>The group posted higher first-quarter sales, helped by subscription and streaming revenue, which grew 7.1% at constant currency from a year ago to 1.33 billion euros. But Redburn analyst Agnieszka Pustula told Reuters in an e-mail that this was below expectations of 8.2% growth, despite price increases from partners like Spotify.<\/p>\n<p>Top sellers included King &amp; Prince, Morgan Wallen and Taylor Swift, the group said.<\/p>\n<p>($1 = 0.9061 euros)<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Olivier Sorgho; Editing by Jane Merriman, Josie Kao and Leslie Adler)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/universal-music-reiterates-ai\/illustration-shows-universal-music-group-logo\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3P0S0-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3P0S0-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Reuters) -Universal Music Group, the label representing Drake and Taylor Swift, on Wednesday posted a slump in first-quarter core profit due to compensation expenses, and reiterated concerns over AI-made music. Core profit, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA), slumped 43.4% in constant currency to 261 million euros ($288.04 million), due to non-cash, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":24762,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1213],"tags":[1223],"class_list":["post-24761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-business","tag-updated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3P0S0-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24761"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25186,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24761\/revisions\/25186"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}