As we head into 2024, CMU recently sat down with the bosses of many of the music industry’s trade organisations to talk about their work, the key challenges faced by their members, and what to expect in the year ahead. Today, Annabella Coldrick, CEO of the UK’s Music Managers Forum.
Explore the full series of interviews
What was a major win for MMF and its members in 2023?
I'm not sure if it counts as a "win", but around the mid-point of 2023 we appeared to be making real progress in the campaign to reform music streaming.
Even though the MMF has highlighted dysfunctions in the streaming market for some time, mostly through the ‘Dissecting The Digital Dollar’ publications and research we co-authored with CMU's Chris Cooke, in certain quarters there was complete denial that anything was awry with the status quo. After all, the biggest labels were hitting record profits quarter after quarter - all driven by the mass adoption of services like Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Deezer and Tidal. What was there to worry about!?
However, after the CMS Select Committee in Parliament started their inquiry into the economics of streaming in late 2020, and then concluded that the underlying market structures required a "complete reset", we saw some real developments take place.
Firstly, the major rightsholders ended their denial. They've all acknowledged that the streaming business needed to evolve - making announcements to write off unrecouped advances, supporting actions to prevent fraud, and making moves towards what they've called an ‘artist-centric’ model - ensuring a greater share of value returns to artists with active fanbases.
In tandem with that, the UK trade bodies representing managers, artists, songwriters, producers and musicians have all pulled together as the Council Of Music Makers and established some common positions. Collectively, we've made the case for five infrastructural changes - such as across-the-board adoption of modern digital royalty rates for streaming, mechanisms to allow out-dated contract terms to be revised, and systems to ensure that rights data is submitted before music is made commercially available.
The idea that we should forget about fixing the underlying plumbing of the music industry, and simply focus on "growing the pie" and expecting revenue to trickle down, no longer holds water.
On the back of the Select Committee's findings and subsequent attention from the government, there was consequently pressure on the entire industry to come together and to start addressing issues around transparency, metadata and remuneration. It was also made clear that if the industry could not come up with voluntary solutions, then the government would consider legislation.
That pressure definitely focussed minds, to the point where we've now reached a pan-industry agreement on metadata, announced in May 2023. We're close to a similar agreement on transparency, and a remuneration working group was also announced to explore the CMM's concerns. So while the pace of change might at times seem glacial, things were at least moving forward.
Unfortunately, while the major labels have been fully involved in these discussions, their push towards ‘artist-centric’ reforms have taken place in a vacuum - without the involvement of any artists or their representatives. It feels like solutions are being imposed, rather than discussed. This is both disappointing and frustrating. A case of two steps forward, and several steps back.
As highlighted in an open letter written by some key people in the independent label sector - including Martin Mills, Darius Van Arman, Stephan Bourdoiseau and Emmanuel de Buretel - determining the future course of the music business needs to be a collective process. As they put it, we need universal solutions with a small "u".
If CMM members are continually denied a seat at the table then the fundamental problems with streaming will never be fixed. It feels we need to reconcile these two parallel discussions - the pan-industry working groups with government, and the agenda being driven by the biggest record labels - if we are to make real sustained progress.
What other wins were there for MMF as an organisation?
In terms of the MMF as an organisation, one major win has been recognition from Arts Council England and Creative Wales of our excellent training and professional development services, and some significant investment to help make the business of management more sustainable.
On the basis of successes we've seen with our Accelerator Programme, which has now benefitted 115 independent music managers from across the UK, as well as our growing network of Educational Associates, the decisions by ACE to award us National Portfolio Organisation status and by Creative Wales to provide us with grant funding will really benefit the music managers of tomorrow.
Their support is a real sign of recognition of how important the music manager's role has become, and also a statement of trust and belief in the MMF team that we can carry on delivering for our community of more than 1500 members.
What else kept the MMF team busy in 2023?
We've continued to enjoy another year of membership growth and now represent more than 1500 UK-based music managers. We also produced a second edition of our 2022 book ‘The Essentials Of Music Management’, relaunched the MMF website, and co-hosted another hugely successful Artist & Manager Awards which recognised managers including Wendy Laister (Duran Duran), Bello (Central Cee), Louise Latimer (Self Esteem, The Big Moon), Forever Living Originals and The Flight Club.
What have been the biggest challenges for your members in the last year?
The economic situation. Inflation, the cost of living crisis and Brexit are all taking their toll - and all exacerbating the challenges facing managers as they try to build businesses for their clients.
Obviously it's already a challenge to gain traction on streaming platforms that are uploading 100,000 tracks a day; but we're also seeing evidence of real strains in the live music ecosystem, which represents the most significant revenue stream for the majority of music managers. If artists can't make the economics of touring work, if they can't cover the increased costs of transport and accommodation, then that presents a really profound problem.
Added to that are changing dynamics in the live market, which has seen huge sustained growth at stadiums, arenas and festivals, but stagnation further down the pyramid. While some of the biggest US artists are embracing the concept of ‘dynamic pricing’ and selling tickets for hundreds of pounds, elsewhere it's hard to avoid making a loss when touring.
As the Music Venue Trust has highlighted, the strains are most evident at grassroots level with a raft of closures, and this is clearly something the entire industry will have to address. Artists are the biggest source of employment in the music business, but if touring becomes infeasible then the ramifications will be huge.
As one of the founding members of LIVE, the MMF is in the thick of these conversations within the industry and with government, and we look forward to the select committee inquiry into grassroots music in early 2024.
What do you expect to be a particular focus for the MMF in the year ahead?
Alongside everything I’ve already mentioned, the challenges and opportunities presented by artificial intelligence will continue to be a major focus for both the MMF and the wider industry.
Being inherently curious and creative, artists and other music-makers tend to be early adopters of new technology. That's the really exciting element of what we're seeing, especially with generative AI, and many of our members have been making extensive use of these technologies to make their workflow more efficient, as well as helping their clients produce recordings, videos and other creative assets. The AI conference we hosted before the MMF AGM in September brought many of these ideas to the fore, and was actually quite inspirational.
The flipside here are the very real concerns from creators - photographers, designers and authors most obviously, but also artists and music-makers - about their work being appropriated, ingested and monetised by tech firms, and also the risk of their label and publishing partners exploiting their works without permission.
Similar to the MMF's advocacy around the streaming market, we have chosen to voice these concerns via both UK Music and the CMM. And so while the MMF stands shoulder to shoulder with the ideals of the Human Artistry Campaign that these technologies are used transparently and responsibly, we also want to ensure that artists and their representatives are involved in all decision-making around their implementation.
As a result, the CMM published a list of five fundamentals for music AI, alongside a template letter that artists and songwriters can tailor and send to any record labels, music distributors and music publishers they work with, confirming that they are keen to hear about any opportunities in music AI, but also making it clear that advance permissions must be sought before any of their music is used to train an AI model.
Another area with direct involvement from MMF members is the FanFair Alliance campaign to end mass-scale online ticket touting. Originally founded in 2016, FanFair has already driven forward some major changes in the UK, resulting in more powers for artists to enforce the T&Cs of their tickets, and more transparency being thrust upon websites such as Viagogo.
The campaign was re-launched earlier this year, with a new goal to push for legislation that outlaws the resale of tickets for profit, giving UK audiences similar protections to those enjoyed in countries like Ireland, France, Australia and Belgium. The changes are supported by both UK Music and LIVE, and I'm optimistic that MPs and policy makers will adopt them too.