business
Crypto miner Digihost plans to move rigs from New York to Alabama
Digihost, a United States-based cryptocurrency mining company, has announced plans to move part of its fleet from New York to Alabama in an effort to lower energy costs. In a Tuesday announcement, Digihost said its 55-megawatt (MW) facility in Alabama — which the company acquired in June — will host some of its crypto miners from New York, leading to lower operating costs. According to the mining firm, it aims to have a hashing capacity of 28 MW at the Alabama facility by the fourth quarter of 2022, and 55 MW by the second quarter of 2023. Like other crypto miners dealing with rising energy costs amid a bear market and record heat in parts of the United States, Digihost reported that it sold Bitcoin (BTC) produced in July. As of July 31, the company reported it held roughly 220 BTC and 1,0...
Michael Saylor will step down as MicroStrategy CEO but remain executive chair
Bitcoin maximalist Michael Saylor has announced that he will step down as the chief executive officer of MicroStrategy, the business intelligence firm he helped co-found in 1989. In a Tuesday notice on its second quarter earnings for 2022, MicroStrategy said Saylor would be assuming the new role of executive chair at the company, while president Phong Le will become CEO. The changes are expected to take effect on Aug. 8. “I believe that splitting the roles of Chairman and CEO will enable us to better pursue our two corporate strategies of acquiring and holding Bitcoin and growing our enterprise analytics software business,” said Saylor. Please join the @MicroStrategy management team at 5pm ET as we discuss our Q2 2022 financial results, executive transition, and answer questions about our ...
Billboard Welcomes Andrei Radaza to Executive Team, Promotes Anjali Raja
Billboard is pleased to announce two updates to our executive team: Andrei Radaza is joining Billboard as svp/head of sales and Anjali Raja has been promoted to svp of business ops and audience development. Radaza is a new hire who began his advertising career with True Agency back in 2004 working on multicultural accounts for Nissan and Infiniti. Since then, he’s also held sales positions at Blackrock Digital, Vox Media and Complex, where he was vp of brand partnerships and oversaw the outlet’s Style vertical. Radaza also comes to Billboard with a requisite passion for music grounded in an early love of ’90s and 2000s hip-hop. The proud father of two currently has everything from Tyler, the Creator and Freddie Gibbs to Snoh Aalegra, Tems and Cleo Sol cycling on his playlist of favorites. ...
Mo Ostin, Legendary Warner Bros. Records Chief, Dies at 95
Mo Ostin, the legendary label executive who led Warner Brothers Records through a storied time of both artistic and commercial success for more than 30 years, died in his sleep July 31, at the age of 95. Ostin, who signed and/or worked with such acts at The Kinks, Fleetwood Mac, Joni Mitchell, Jimi Hendrix, R.E.M., Randy Newman and many more, was “one of the greatest record men of all time, and a prime architect of the modern music business,” said Tom Corson, co-chairman and COO, Warner Records, and Aaron Bay-Schuck, co-chairman and CEO, Warner Records, in a joint statement. “For Mo, it was always first and foremost about helping artists realize their vision,” their statement continues. “One of the pivotal figures in the evolution of Warner Music Group, in the 1960s Mo ushered Warner/Repri...
Atlanta’s Music Midtown Festival Canceled After Court Ruling Made It Illegal to Keep Guns Out of Event
The long-running Music Midtown festival at Piedmont Park in Atlanta, scheduled for Sept. 17-18 with headliners My Chemical Romance, Future, Jack White and Fallout Boy, has been called off, according to a statement issued by festival organizers. The likely cause, industry sources tell Billboard, are recent changes to Georgia gun laws that prevent the festival from banning guns on to the publicly owned festival grounds. “Hey Midtown fans — due to circumstances beyond our control, Music Midtown will no longer be taking place this year,” a statement posted on Music Midtown’s website reads. “We were looking forward to reuniting in September and hope we can all get back to enjoying the festival together again soon.” While owner Live Nation didn’t provide any additional details for the ...
Travis Scott Bringing ‘Road to Utopia’ Residency to Zouk Nightclub in Las Vegas
Travis Scott will return to the stage Sept. 17 with the first of seven appearances at Zouk Nightclub inside Resorts World Las Vegas. Described by representatives as a multi-year partnership, an additional date of Oct. 15 is also on sale. A statement from Resorts World describes “Road to Utopia” as a “mind-bending, first-of-its-kind nightclub residency experience,” taking advantage of the venue’s technological prowess. The lighting system, known as Mothership, produces a kaleidoscope of visuals as it moves to the music, floating above the dance floor. Advanced sound from an L-Acoustics-driven system powers the audio. The experience changes nightly to meet the headlining artist’s specifications. “Travis plans to utilize all of this to his advantage,” says Ronn Nicolli, chief marketing office...
Sony Lowers PlayStation 5 Game Sales Profit Projections by 16% For 2022
Sony has significantly readjusted its profit projections for its PlayStation 5 games sales across 2022, posting a 16% reduction in its latest quarterly financial report. Citing “an expected decrease in sales of first-party titles” and the expenditure attributed to its recent acquisition of Bungie, the Japanese gaming giant revised its profit forecast down from $2.3 billion USD back in May last year to now $1.9 billion USD for the year of 2022. Overall, the company sold just 47.1 million titles over the quarter with 6.4 million of those being first-party games, a significant decline compared to the same period last year which saw 63.6 million games sold, 10.5 million of which were first-party. As for PS5 console sales, the company hasn’t adjusted its forecast just yet, but Sony has only shi...
Mark Vaughan to Lead Live Nation’s Promoter Team For Australia and NZ
Mark Vaughan lands at Live Nation, where he leads the promoter team for Australia and New Zealand as vice president – talent and artist development. With effect from Monday (Aug. 1), Vaughan works alongside LN’s existing promoter team to continue to “best serve artists as they hit the road,” reads a statement welcoming the new recruit. The Australian concerts veteran has spent much of his career in Europe, where he served as partner/promoter at Norway’s All Things Live, said to be the largest independent concert promoter in the Nordics. At the Oslo-based live music specialist, he worked with such artists as Rammstein, Justin Bieber, Twenty-One Pilots, Kendrick Lamar, Green Day, Shawn Mendes, Lorde and others. “For a long time I have been closely following the live market in Australia and N...
Charles Schwab’s asset management arm launches crypto-linked ETF
Schwab Asset Management, the asset management arm of financial giant Charles Schwab, has launched an exchange-traded fund (ETF) with exposure to firms linked to cryptocurrencies. In a Friday announcement, Schwab said its Crypto Thematic ETF was expected to be available for trading on the New York Stock Exchange’s Arca under the ticker STCE on Aug. 4. The fund tracks Schwab’s Crypto Thematic Index, providing an investment vehicle with exposure to companies “that may benefit from the development or utilization of cryptocurrencies and other digital assets.” Likely because the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, has not given the green light to ETFs providing direct exposure to Bitcoin (BTC), the Schwab fund will indirectly invest in crypto through companies. Schwab...
Pro-Russian groups raised only 4% of crypto donations sent to Ukraine
According to data from crypto analytics firm Chainalysis, users have sent more than $2 million in crypto to 54 pro-Russian groups since Feb. 24, a fraction of that received by many wallets controlled by the Ukrainian government. In a Friday blog post, Chainalysis said it had tracked funds sent to social media accounts controlled by pro-Russian groups in Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), USDT-TRX, and Dogecoin (DOGE) starting with the country’s invasion of Ukraine in February. According to Chainalysis’ data, users sent roughly $2.2 million to the pro-Russian groups, with more than $1 million going to a single unnamed account. While there may be other groups outside of Chainalysis’ investigation of those supporting pro-Russian forces, the available data suggested that the $2.2 mill...
Netflix Sues ‘Unofficial Bridgerton Musical’ Creators Days After Sold-Out Live Show
Days after musicians Abigail Barlow and Emily Bear performed their Grammy-winning Unofficial Bridgerton Musical to a sold-out audience at the Kennedy Center, Netflix is suing them for “blatant infringement” of the company’s rights to the popular period drama. In a complaint filed Friday (July 29) in D.C. federal court, Netflix accused the duo of piggybacking on “the creative work and hard-earned success” of hundreds of artists and staffers behind Bridgerton – using the company’s copyrights and trademarks without permission to build a “brand for themselves.” “Netflix owns the exclusive right to create Bridgerton songs, musicals, or any other derivative works based on Bridgerton,” the company wrote. “Barlow & Bear cannot take that right—made valuable by others’ hard work—for th...
The Ledger: Spotify’s Paul Vogel Is Cautiously Optimistic on Growth
The Ledger is a weekly newsletter about the economics of the music business sent to Billboard Pro subscribers. An abbreviated version of the newsletter is published online. Music executives are balancing optimism about streaming growth with caution about the state of the economy and future growth. As we reported Wednesday, Spotify had a solid second quarter, finishing with 188 million subscribers — 1 million ahead of its guidance., It also reached 433 million total monthly listeners — 5 million above its guidance. Beating guidance helped Spotify shares climb 12.2% to $116.61 on Wednesday, its highest mark since June 24. In the second quarter, Spotify’s subscription growth was led by Europe and Latin America, while emerging markets such as India, Indonesia and the Philippines were standouts...
