Sony Pictures Television Launches Music Division, Headed by Palash Ahmed (EXCLUSIVE)

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Raedio, the “audio everywhere” division of Issa Rae’s Hoorae Media, has announced a multi-year deal with Def Jam Recordings. The partnership will give Raedio the opportunity to sign, market, and distribute signed artists through Def Jam’s network, according to the announcement. It includes publishing, music supervision, music library, podcasts, digital content and events divisions. Raedio’s “symbiotic pipeline to Hoorae Media’s ecosystem of film, television production and talent management divisions provides a unique all-in-one infrastructure paving the way for a new, disruptive approach to music label models,” the announcement states.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Over the past weekend, the Weeknd broke London Stadium’s record for highest attendance with his two-night stand at the venue on Friday and Saturday, which drew 160,000 people to his “After Hours Til Dawn Tour.” The tour also holds the record for highest single-night attendance for any show at the stadium with 80,000 fans. According to promoter Live Nation, the tour has already sold more than 2 million tickets for its European and forthcoming South America and Mexico dates — and 200,000 for both England and France. The sold-out 2022 North American leg of the stadium tour grossed more than $148 million dollars. The global tour has now grossed over $350 million dollars to date.

Disney+ has announced a slate of Asia originals for the second half of 2023, including Korean dramas Moving and The Worst Of Evil and the latest project in its collaboration with Hybe, BTS Monuments: Beyond The Star.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Laurie Anderson will lead a post-screening conversation with legendary singer Joan Baez and director Karen O’Connor after a screening of the new documentary, “Joan Baez I Am a Noise” at the Hamptons International Film Festival on July 22. (Read Variety‘s review of the film here.) The 2023 edition of the documentary showcase festival will conclude with a presentation of the documentary, which was produced by O’Connor, Miri Navasky and Maeve O’Boyle on Saturday, July 22, at 7 p.m. at the Regal UA East Hampton Cinema. Following the film, Baez and O’Connor will join the musician and artist Laurie Anderson for an intimate conversation.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music After months of speculation, TikTok is finally launching its own “social music streaming service,” initially in Indonesia and Brazil, the company announced Thursday, with licensing from all three major music companies. The service, hich is premium-only, will allow users to synch with their existing accounts and also share and download the tracks they discover on TikTok. The service is now available in both countries with a one-month free trial, according to The new service will replace the company’s existing streaming service, Resso, on Sept. 5. The transition began in May, which TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, announced that Resso would become a premium-only service.

Brent Lang Executive Editor Magnet Releasing, the genre arm of indie distributor Magnolia Pictures, has acquired North American rights to “Sleep.” The horror-thriller, which sounds designed to make you rethink your thoughts about sleepwalking, recently had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival’s critics week. It was directed and written by Jason Yu, who worked with Korean filmmaking legends Bong Joon-ho and Lee Chang-dong before making his feature directing debut with “Sleep.” Magnet will release the film early next year. The director’s previous collaborator, Bong, called “Sleep,” “the most unique horror film and the smartest debut film I’ve seen in 10 years.” So that’s some high praise from the director of “The Host” and “Parasite.”

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music The estate of legendary British singer Joe Cocker has entered into an agreement with Irving Azoff’s Iconic Artists Group to acquire and develop the singer’s five-decade catalog. The acquisition includes the singer’s music intellectual property assets, including his interest in his sound recordings, compositions, and his name, image and likeness; further terms were not disclosed. After working as a singer through the early 1960s, Cocker burst into the mainstream in 1969 with his electrifying cover of the Beatles’ “With a Little Help from My Friends,” which topped the British charts and sparked a major U.S. following, thanks in large part to his show-stopping performance at the Woodstock festival (and subsequent film). With his powerful and unmistakable soul-blues voice and explosive stage presence, Cocker’s popularity grew with the “Mad Dogs & Englishmen” tour, live album and film, which featured an all-star band helmed by Leon Russell.

Darrell Issa Guest Columnist Darrell Issa, Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet represents California’s 48th Congressional District. Later today on the Nashville, TN campus of Belmont University, I’ll convene a field hearing of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet. The hearing won’t just take place in Music City, USA but five years after Congress achieved that rarest of things: A consensus solution that recognized the rights of musical artists and created a way they could be compensated fairly by publishers. It may be hard for some to believe, but at the time we crafted this legislation, the music industry and other content owners were being crushed by widespread piracy and an inability to monetize the value of musical creativity.

Naman Ramachandran Sony Music-owned music distribution company AWAL has launched in India and South Asia, following the acquisition of OKListen, a digital music platform for independent artists and record labels. Based in Mumbai and supported by Sony Music India, AWAL will offer independent artists in the region a range of services including global marketing, creative, synch and brand partnerships, radio promotion and distribution as well as access to real-time music analytics. Vijay Basrur, who founded OKListen in 2012 as India’s first homegrown digital distribution service, has been appointed head of India and South Asia, AWAL, reporting into Lonny Olinick, CEO of AWAL and Vinit Thakkar, managing director, Sony Music India.

So long, soundstage of 1,000 memories.

EXCLUSIVE: Kapil Talwalkar (Night Court), Olivia Liang (Kung Fu), Karan Soni (Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse) and Tom Everett Scott (That Thing You Do!) are set to star in Paper Flowers, an inspirational indie based on the true story of Shalin Shah, a 22-year-old whose battle with cancer gained viral attention in 2015. 

Comic-Con is the latest event to be hit by Hollywood’s labor issue.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music In what may be the first AI-specific senior executive role in the music industry, Sony has hired former BPI CEO Geoff Taylor as executive vice president of AI, according to an internal memo obtained by Variety. In his new role, Taylor, who was CEO of the British Phonographic Industry trade organization for 15 years and is a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE), will report to Sony Music Entertainment COO Kevin Kelleher. According to the memo, Taylor’s responsibilities will include coordinating the company’s business efforts surrounding artificial intelligence, and coordinate across the global digital business and business and legal affairs division.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Sara Bareilles has announced a special initiative to help save Rockwood Music Hall, the long-running independent New York City music venue, which is in danger of closing. The #PreserveRockwood benefit concert series will launch on June 30 with Bareilles and will be an opportunity to see artists perform in the venue’s intimate setting while helping to keep it alive. 100% of the proceeds from the shows will be donated to Rockwood to help continue a space for independent and emerging artists to perform. Other artists initially joining the series include Chris Thile and Michael Daves (July 1), Amy Helm (July 6), Isabel Hagen (July 10), Ingrid Michaelson (July 20), Elle King (July 31) and The Lone Bellow (August 10), and more.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music Warner Bros. Discovery is negotiating to sell around half of the storied Warner studio’s film and TV music-publishing assets for approximately $500 million, three sources confirm to Variety. The news was first reported by Hits. While it is unclear exactly which assets are on the table, one source says that the rights to “slightly less than half” of the catalog, with a price of around $500 million, are likely to go to a major label, with Sony said to be in the lead. The catalog is believed to include music from such films as “Purple Rain,” “Evita,” “Sweeney Todd,” “Rent” several “Batman” films and many more titles, as well as songs included in iconic films such as “As Time Goes By” from “Casablanca” — iconic titles to be sure, but again, it is unclear exactly which rights are in play. Top attorney Allen Grubman is said to be overseeing the deal for Warner Discovery CEO David Zaslav.

Jem Aswad Executive Editor, Music BMG has acquired a “substantial stake” in the work of legendary songwriter and two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Paul Simon, the company announced Thursday. The acquisition includes his royalty income in Simon & Garfunkel recordings as well as his neighboring rights income; Simon sold his publishing catalog to Sony Music Publishing in 2021. According the the announcement, the deal includes such songs as ‘The Sound Of Silence’, ‘The Boxer’, ‘Mrs Robinson’ and ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water.” Paul Simon was represented in the transaction by Gene Salomon and Don Passman at Gang, Tyre, Ramer, Brown & Passman. 

Sony Pictures said Wednesday that it has removed from its release date schedule El Muerto, the Bad Bunny-starring Spider-Man spinoff movie that is being directed by Jonas Cuarón. The Columbia Pictures pic is set to be the first time a Latino character leads a Marvel live-action film.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Sony Pictures International Productions and Italy’s Colorado Film have teamed up on Italian comedy/road movie “50km per Hour” which has started shooting with multi-hyphenate Fabio De Luigi directing and starring. The film is an Italian remake of Sony’s 2018 German box office hit “25 Km/h,” written by Oliver Ziegenbalg and directed by Markus Goller about two estranged siblings who reunite at their father’s funeral and make a spur of the moment decision to fulfill their childhood dream of driving across the country on their old motorbikes. It has also recently been remade in Mexico with the title “A Todas Partes” (“All the Places”).

The French film Le Colosse aux Pieds d’Argile and UK-Australia series Ten Pounds Poms took the top fiction prizes at the 62nd annual Monte-Carlo Television Festival, which were handed out Tuesday in Monaco. See the full winners list below.

Ben Croll “The Fragile Colossus,” “Ten Pound Poms” and “The Seed” ruled the roost at this year’s Monte-Carlo Television Festival, with the three programs collecting two prizes each at a small-screen showcase that ran June 16 – 20 in the Monaco capital. Produced by Make It Happen Studio and Shoot Again Productions in partnership with TF1 France, telefilm “The Fragile Colossus” took home Monte-Carlo’s Golden Nymph for best film and the special jury prize. The French drama follows a one-time rugby star (played by soccer player-turned-actor Eric Cantona) confronting his history as a victim of childhood sexual abuse, and is based on the life and memoires of rugbyman Sébastien Boueilh.