How Billboard Is Predicting the Biggest Music Industry Moves Ahead for 2026 w/ Dan Rys, Elizabeth Dilts Marshall & Bill Donahue

26:46And back in 2021 or 2022, there was a letter written by signed by many, many prominent artists saying that that rap music should not be treated literally and that it should be taken as a form of art and should not be used in court. Drake was one of the signatories of that letter, which was brought up in the case. So all the legal experts who have really followed that issue closely have weighed in on this case exactly like you just did. So, yeah, it's a fascinating case and a good one to watch in 2026. Dan, how about you pull another question for 2026? This is such a nice boss. I know. Thank you, Target.

27:28Target's our sponsor today. No, they're not. They literally did not sponsor this. Specifically the Times Square Target. Will Universal's downtown acquisition go through and what does that mean for indie music? So to quickly describe this, Universal Music Group's version music group division is in the process of acquiring Downtown Music Group, which is one of the biggest indie distribution companies, which also has several other different divisions that deal in publishing and rights management. Huge company. Massive, yes. The deal is$775 million, has been met with vehement opposition from the independent music community, which is focused on the broader idea in the industry of consolidation.

28:16There has been a bit of an arms race towards vacuuming up market share from some of the majors. and the independent community has essentially looked at this deal as if you take another independent distributor off the market off from our options we suddenly don't have many other options to get our music to market without dealing with some of the major labels in some capacity and that is a business concern of theirs that is an ideological concern of theirs indie versus major and there is competition concerns with that, which you can speak to part of as well. That's the front side of their argument and then the nugget of their argument that actually has regulators interested and that actually might shape the outcome of this deal, making it not an entire buyout, but a buyout of most of downtown, just not all of it, is that the The indie organizations said, but wait, also this one company within downtown, Curve Royalty Systems, has specific access to data that we provided as clients that if UMG were to acquire that as part of this entire buyout, that'll put it upstream from us.

29:42So not just, it essentially makes it a vertical monopoly. I'm sorry. Not entirely a vertical monopoly, but it gives it a lever above all of them to know the pipeline of new music coming out, further advantaging their, giving them a better competitive edge. Because basically if you know who's paying royalties out to whom, then you know who your clients are, your partners are, and you can go and poach them. And that's what European regulators say. OK, actually, that specifically is probably problematic. They've spent like six months looking into it and it looks like they might force a sale of Curve for the deal to get approved.

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31:39There would be a firewall there. Don't worry about the data, basically. They've also said it doesn't matter that much to them in the big picture. They still want downtown. There's so much more that they could do. Yeah. They want it for market share purposes. They want to grow their distribution operations, especially as that seems to be where the industry has been going for a while towards these non-exclusive distribution deals. As to the question as to whether or not it will go through, I think probably. But to Liz's point, there will have to be some divestments. And whether that is that one division or Universal having to sell off other parts of things or whatever, I do think that they will find a way to make it happen.

32:26However, even as that brings one indie distribution company under the purview of the majors, I don't necessarily think that the sky is falling there because it does leave this big market opportunity. And there are other distribution companies that have not yet come to the United States or that haven't necessarily gotten into the white glove service of indie label distribution instead of just artist distribution. it does provide an opportunity for other companies to come in and be like, we'll take this segment. We'll help you out now here. Let's see how this kind of develops moving forward. Okay, Liz, you pick one.

33:12I don't like that one. Can I pick one?

33:18Oh, and I got one from me. How will the catalog market change and what major catalogs will be up for sale? Apart from Taylor, the other massive catalog sale deal that happened in 2025 was The Weeknd. And this was really a work in progress. It was a long-term search for both the right deal and the right partners. And to their credit, Abel Tosfaye and Sal Slaby, his long-term manager and the leader of his, you know, really his business empire, they found the right deal. Like, they're very happy with the outcome. So they sold. The weekend, we can't say it was a straight sale. It was a structured partnership where the artist received financing in the form of a royalty-backed note, which is basically a private loan from a Swiss private credit company called Partners Group.

34:23Never heard of them, but remember that name because they're very important behind the scenes. Partners Group, very memorable. They are. almost almost partner corp designs to be behind the scenes there yeah very Swiss uh and that so that was a part of it but then it got somewhere in the ballpark of like 750 million dollars worth of financing basically to consolidate his catalog and put it in a thing put it in a holding company that he and that The Weeknd and Lyric Capital jointly manage. God, that's confusing. Yeah, it's a totally new structure and way about thinking for an artist that is very pro-artist.

35:10He's getting exactly what he wants. He didn't sell his assets outright. He consolidated ownership of them. Lost, maybe, he might have lost some share, but by doing it with a captive partner in this way, he will forever have say over what's done with his music. Right, a seat at the table. Yeah, and a seat and a stake. Yeah. So do you think more artists that have leverage like that are going to follow suit? Exactly. I think that more artists who know what their work is worth are going to leverage that. We have big picture factors here. You have, with Generation Z, the most financially literate generation ever, particularly in the United States.

36:02And you have the most affluent generation ever in North America. Gen Z? Yes. Doesn't feel that way. I know. I know. That's another problem. We're working on it. We're working on it on behalf of Gen Z. These are just factors that contribute to the average working artist having more information about how to make their money, make their art, make more money for them. And I think you're going to see them bringing that leverage and that know-how to more conversations. So that's going to change the catalog market big picture. The other thing is the money. You know, where's the money coming from and what form is it coming in now?

36:40It's no longer just straight private equity at all. That's like so three years ago. And it is now reaching the level of funny money. It is tens of billions flowing in a single quarter. Wow. I would just like to thank Liz for not using the word unique there in describing that deal because, as you guys well know, unique is a band word under my purview at Billboard. Oh, and the other catalogs that might come up for sale are maybe Metallica this year. I've been told a very big metal catalog. Definitely more current chart-topping country artists because they have maybe some of the unique... Wow. One of a kind.

37:30Say one of a kind. Machinations of how the Nashville business... Just the ways that Nashville business works. It is such a more business-forward genre. I guess you've worked with professional songwriters. People know the value of their works, and they monetize that so that they can go out and do more work. And K-pop. You're going to see a big K-pop sale, but I can't say which. Wow. She has some off-record information, clearly. Okay, wait. Pass me the vase. Are we going vase or vase? Vase? You know what? I call it a jug, I think. That's insulting for this one. We're going to pull like one more and then I think we'll move on.

38:13So I'm going to cheat here. Okay. I'm going to cheat here and see which one's the best. Wow. The integrity of the boss is being challenged here. This group has done a really good job at speaking quickly. I know. Hopefully y 'all have enjoyed the depth of our conversation. Okay. So this is one for Bill. what will happen with the DOJ's lawsuit against Ticketmaster? I think everyone cares about that. Yeah, I mean, this is a thing we've been talking about since 2010, since Live Nation and Ticketmaster merged. It's this big gripe that Live Nation and Ticketmaster run the whole live music industry is sort of the popular perception among some people.

38:52And two years ago in 2024, we saw the DOJ at a moment where I think there was the political sentiment to do it, go after them very aggressively in court and file a lawsuit, an antitrust lawsuit seeking to break up the company. So time flies. Two years later, we are getting to the make or break moment of the case. Live Nation has filed their brief saying this case should not go to trial, that you spent two years digging through all of our records, our emails, everything, and you didn't find a whole lot. DOJ begs to differ and says that they can prove that, you know, for instance, if you don't use Ticketmaster as your exclusive ticketing agent at your venue, that you will get fewer shows from Live Nation.

39:37They say they can make that case in court. So the judge will decide that in the coming weeks or months, and then we will get a trial in March. And it's a huge case because it's not just a huge case for the music industry. It is. And, you know, there's other cases that have been brought against Live Nation by the FTC over their ticketing practices with scalpers and all this stuff. So there's a big, you know, the big moment for Live Nation, but it's a big case for competition law in America in general. You know, the government has in this modern, you know, tech era, they have tried to go after they went after Google, they went after Meta, they're going after Apple right now.

40:18They're trying to rein in these giant, giant monolithic tech companies that have grown up over the last 25 years, and they've had kind of mixed results with it. And so this is another big inflection moment of can the government effectively police the way that companies grow and the way that companies dominate the markets that they're in. So we will see what happens, but it's a really, really big case. I'm really interested to see where that goes, especially in March when that trial starts. Yeah, we will see. Okay, so that concludes our questions and predictions for 2026. Now we're going to quickly go through some of our ins and outs for 2026 so something that you're gonna see as um in and out i don't know how to describe that any better okay it's like the take on the new year's resolution kind of thing yeah exactly exactly okay so liz let's start with you what's your in and your out for 2026 um in more artist involved catalog deals more of these structures that are not vanilla at all that keep the artist in control of what's done with their music my out hybe america maybe i think they're gonna have a they have had a rebuilding phase i think it's still continuing um hybe is so influential still in South Korea and K-pop, but they've had a lot going on there too with leadership issues, regulatory issues, investigations.

41:56They pivoted and focused a lot on Latin America and they are having some wins there, but I think that let's wait and see. 2026 might be a build year. Well, they just hired a new president as well in Ethiopia and, you know, she's a great leader as well um and i think that we'll you know coming into any company it takes a while you know planting the seeds probably 2026 maybe we see something 2027 that's great liz dan what about you what are your ins and outs of 2026 so my end was something that we had talked a little bit about earlier which is just more nuanced language around how we talk about ai and music because I think that it's become very clear in listening to certain people talk about AI, whether or not they really understand what they're talking about.

42:49I think even at the beginning of 2025, you could speak a lot more in generalities and people would be like, oh yeah, yeah, definitely. And I think as the year has progressed and certainly now as we're going into 2026, it takes a lot more nuance to talk about wait what are we talking about when we're talking about AI and music and we have that discussion in the newsroom yeah about how to put it in headlines how to put it into stories and in what language we're using yeah and you know whether it's AI assisted fully AI generated how do we know those things you know and you know what you were saying earlier too Bill about like are people going to disclose these things and how does that get murkier as we go.

43:27And I think that one of the things that, you know, obviously we focus on a lot is language and how we talk about things. And I think that there will have to be a lot more nuance in that, uh, with that going to 2026. And then, and then my out is just not caring about what other people think anymore. Maybe that's just me. Just a personal thing. That's just a personal thing. Um, it's certainly why I wore my, uh, contiguous map of the United States sweatshirt today. If you were worried about what I thought, I think it looks great, man. Thanks, man. I really appreciate that. Thank you. But I don't care about what you think intentionally because that is out.

44:06Okay, Bill, what about you? In and out 2026? My in is opting out and my out is opting in. Okay. All right. For those who don't speak this language, please explain what that means. This is a reference to, I'm being a little ridiculous, but it's a reference to the settlements that were struck over AI, the AI music platforms. And when these deals were reached, there was a lot of talk of we're going to have opt-ins and we're going to have, the artists are going to have full control. It's great for everybody. No one is going to lose here. It's going to be great. And no one is going to do anything that they don't want to do because they're going to opt-in.

44:48Exactly. They're going to choose to be a part of it. And that everyone, if you do opt in, you'll be paid. And there was just a lot of vague language because, you know, that is how things work when you're working on in frameworks. But I think the thing that we're going to see in 2026 is the devil is always in the details. And we're going to have to figure out the actual legal mechanics of how this works in terms of how do you opt out? How do you opt in? What exactly are you opting out of the training data set? Are you opting out of having your name used in the outputs? are you how do you audit the the extent to which your music was used is it a one-time licensing fee is it an ongoing thing all of these things are going to have to be dealt with by fleets of lawyers and uh it's going to be dealing with dusty contracts that you're going to have to break out of paper out of cardboard boxes that never foresaw any of this so um i think that uh the big in for me is that there's going to be some disputes over how exactly this works once the artists and their reps really start thinking about this, these deals that were struck by the big companies.

45:54How does this affect me? And how do I deal? How do I interface with it? And I think that we're going to, you know, I don't want to be cynical. I don't want to be a doomsday person, but I think we're going to get some disputes. There's going to be some friction over how it works. Okay. So I'll end off with my ins and outs. My in is that I think that people are going to put more and more marketing money and marketing dollars towards real life events. I think that in an age of AI when we can't really trust what we're seeing online, I think that people are going to really yearn for live events, special experiences with artists in person, pop-up events, that kind of stuff.

46:29So I see more of the marketing budgets going there. Additionally, my out is related to that. I think that TikTok fan pages are a little bit on the outs. It's not that I think that people are going to stop doing them and what i mean when i say this is um if i'm an artist team i would create a bunch of fan pages for my artist and run them as if i'm a fan but really i'm part of the artist team so i can recirculate interview clips and a classic music business tactic right there astroturfing yeah yeah like astroturfing i think that that's still going to be popular but i think that a lot of fans have caught on to this tactic and are familiar with it now um we heard a lot of people talk about like somber doing it um he's an artist who's really digitally savvy and whenever fans get fatigued by a marketing tactic it's probably time to start moving towards something else um so that's my in and out but i have like a hot take i think there's going to be an artist that uses this fad of prediction markets as part of their rollout in some way.

47:36And I bring this up here because Bill, as legal reporter, I'm wondering if you feel like that's possible and also if an artist could get themselves in a lot of trouble jumping on the trend of Calci and Polymarket and all that stuff. Yeah. I mean, certainly if you give people advance notice and then they make a bunch of money, if you manipulate those markets, I mean, if you were dealing with a publicly traded company and you were part of the the regulatory regime that exists there and you were talking about shares of a company it would just be insider trading uh so there's a lot of ways you can get in trouble um doing that uh you know you could you could certainly do it i'm sure if people were like oh everyone's speculating about when drake's album will come out and people are gambling on that but if if the artists themselves get involved and you know are making any money on that and then decide when to drop the album yeah it's a legal minefield uh so i yeah i just okay like to to explain like my thought process on this well obviously prediction markets are like everywhere i i just looked at some last night and it was super depressing actually definitely in the midst of a major marketing campaign right now in 2026 is a casino for sure and i mean i just think entertainment is like the perfect place i mean sports betting has been such a big thing over the last few years when's it going to come time when people are really leaning into entertainment and trying to also transform it in the same way.

49:00We've also heard conversations over the last few years about the idea of monetizing super fandom. And people have struggled to do that. I don't know, maybe if it doesn't come from the artist, is there, I don't know, some way to encourage fandoms to place bets? I mean, you can definitely see an outcome where there's a Kalshi bet on who's going to be the Super Bowl. Yeah. I'm sure it is. It probably is. It probably is. Yeah. I think that there's, So I'm curious about what the actual lawsuit would look like because this is a – Kalshi, for example, is all – the definition of this is a private market.

49:37so you if the okay drake in hypothetical drake gets involved and says starts sprinkling easter eggs about when his next album might come very intentionally to this audience of investors on investors better on kalshi and one party loses a lot of money that party sues the other like class action of people that like how does it even what does this lawsuit even look like well i'm sure you sign i'm sure you sign a private market do you have a case i'm sure you sign a very aggressive when you use these platforms i'm sure there's a huge waiver of like you know that dealing with sort of like an end user license agreement once again read the addendum get a lawyer read the fine print um so you know potentially users are signing away their right to do this kind of stuff i'm sure there's an arbitration agreement that says you have to deal with it through private arbitration, not through a lawsuit.

50:35But, you know, it just there's a reason why we wrote insider trading laws. And now we've turned the entire and, you know, there's a reason why why sports gambling is very is a very highly regulated industry. You know, all that crazy small print that you every time you see a gambling ad is because there are serious regulatory regimes in every state where that has legal gambling. So yeah, I don't know. It's a mess. I don't know exactly what it would look like, but I certainly, if I was an attorney advising a artist about, you know, doing that kind of campaign, I would say be very careful. Yeah, well, I just wanted to raise it as a hot take.

51:18I was thinking about it last night and I was like, that is monetizing super fandom, I guess, in some way. It's going to happen. Someone's going to figure it out. I don't know what it's going to look like, but just placing it here, y 'all come back to On The Record in like a year or so. And I will say, I told you so. Yeah, I'll come back. Okay, so how I end every episode of On The Record is I ask my guests to make me a playlist. And so I'm going to have each of you take, I usually have people pick three songs, but since I have three guests, I'm going to have each of you pick one song. So it's all based on the same prompts every time.

51:52The first prompt is a song that you can no longer gatekeep. And I'm going to throw it to Dan because Dan knows a lot of niche songs. So give us something good. When Kristen was setting me up with this, she referenced specifically that I have been listening to nothing but African music for about half a decade now, if not longer. Exclusively. And I'm not sure if I gatekept this because I really I tweeted a lot about it before I left Twitter like three or four years ago. It might be like the last tweet that I had done, but there was a song, I want to say 2021, from these three guys in Lagos, Nigeria, called Don't Call Me.

52:32It's by Lil Keshe, featuring Zina Lieski and produced by Young John. And it is the first time I heard it. I was like, this might be the best song I've ever heard in my life. It was I spent the entire rest of the year going around saying this is the best song of the year. This is the best song of the year. It's been four years, and I think it's still the best song of the year. And it's just like, there's just like a bounce to it. There's an unbridled joy to it. I think all three of them are amazing artists in and of their own right. And just having them on that song, it just brings a smile to my face every time I hear it.

53:08So it's called Don't Call Me. Okay. We'll definitely have to look that up. And then another one of my prompts is a favorite throwback. So I'm going to give that one to Liz. So a song that's over 10 years old. Oh. Leaving the entire world's catalog of music free to select from. Just to narrow it down. I had a throwback, but it was not that throwback-y. I guess it was only like five years old. I was going to say. Okay, near catalog. Yeah, we can. You can do that. You can do that. Raul Alejandro's Todo de Ti. Nice. Which is just such a fun, upbeat song. I actually found it. This is super lame of me.

53:45not super lame because Leila Cabo and the Billboard Espanol team are supreme experts in the genre of all things Latin but I got it I was like I'd never heard this song before until I listened to it on Billboard's Billboard Latin's best 50 Latin pop songs news you can use baby that's a great pick that's a great pick um and then finally a guilty pleasure I'm gonna throw that to Bill. So, um, I, I, you, you told us what these like broad prompts were. And I was thinking about like so much of my, it's a hard question for me because so much of my, uh, my music consumption, I feel like is, is, has some level of guiltiness to it.

54:28Uh, there's just like a lot of shame, um, um, but so there were a lot of options to pick from, but, uh, but I would say, Okay, so I'm going to go with the Goo Goo Dolls, Iris, which...

54:46That's beautiful, Kristen. Thank you. Really great quick anecdote. This is a big song for my wife and I, and we wanted them to play it at our wedding. And we wanted them to play it for the last song. So you wanted the Goo Goo Dolls to play it? We wanted Johnny Resnick to show up at our wedding. You have to get like a rain machine to rain on him while he's singing? So we asked the band to play this as the final song, and they shot us an email like three weeks before the wedding, and they were like, everything looks good. We're not going to play Iris. We were like, no, you have to. To be clear, your wedding band, not the Goo Goo Dolls.

55:17Yeah, no, no, our wedding band. Our three-piece wedding band. So we get on the phone with them. We're like, you have to. Like, it's our song. You got to play it. And the guy goes, you're aware that that song has like a seven-piece string ensemble in it, right? and we're like yes and he's like we can't do that where there's there's three of us so uh we finally i was like dude play the recording we don't care play it and it all played and it was great so um wait so did the band end up playing the band played and they just played the recording in the background and it's sort of i mean everybody was in the bag by that point anyway so uh you know it was fine so uh it was great everyone had a drunken sing-along to uh iris as as one should at their wedding.

56:00That's beautiful. Okay, perfect place to end it. Dan, Liz, and Bill, thank you so much for coming to On The Record. We'll have to have you back at the end of 2026 to see if we're right about any of this. Early birds always rise to the occasion for summer vacation planning because early gets you closer to the action. So don't be late. Book your next vacation early on Vrbo and save over$120. Rise and shine. Average savings$141. Select homes only. Thought sweet green was just salads? Think again. There's a new way to do sweet green. Wrapped and ready. These handheld wraps pack bold flavor and 40 plus grams of protein into something hearty, satisfying, and built for life on the go.

56:39From craveable sauces to satisfying textures, they're designed to keep you going without slowing you down. So put that fork down. Try the new wraps today in app or at order.sweetgreen.com. Available at participating locations only. Thank you so much to Dan Rice, Bill Donahue, and Liz Diltz-Marshall from my team for joining me today to talk about the 2026 year ahead. Now it's time to dive into our charts roundup to learn more about this week's biggest movers and shakers. Here is the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for the week of January 24th. Coming in at number 10 this week is Opalite by Taylor Swift.

57:21Nine is Folded by Kehlani. Eight this week is Back to Friends by Sombra. Seventh is End of Beginning by Joe. In the sixth slot is Choose in Texas by Ella Langley. Five is Ordinary by Alex Warren. Fourth is Man I Need by Olivia Dean. In the third position is Golden by Huntrix.

58:01Second this week is The Fate of Ophelia by Taylor Swift. And finally, the number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for the week of January 24th, it's I Just Might by Bruno Mars for its first week at number one. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of On the Record. If you like today's show, please give us a follow on Instagram at BillboardOnTheRecord where you can find new clips of our show every single week. We'd also appreciate it if you give our show like a rating, a like, a thumbs up, all those good things. They really help a show like ours to grow and to reach new people. Again, I'm your host, Kristen Robinson, and tune in next week for another peek behind the curtain of the music business.

58:41I'll see you then.

58:53Thank you.