Music Business News: Europe

Universal Music UK restructures, merging Island and EMI labels while launching new Audience and Media Division

Polydor Label Group will house Capitol UK and 0207 Def Jam labels

Done deal: Blackstone is the new owner of Hipgnosis Songs Fund, as investment giant’s bid wins shareholder approval

Vast majority of HSF shareholders agree to accept Blackstone's USD $1.584 billion offer

Warner Music Balkans office launched by Warner Music South East Europe

JV is a collaboration between WM SEE, Croatian label Dancing Bear, Serbian label Mascom and Slovenian label NIKA

There are 8bn user-curated playlists on Spotify, 725m created this year alone, Daniel Ek says

The streaming service has been working to make playlisting a more attractive feature for its subscribers

Believe buys 25% stake in Global Records, which claims to be the biggest indie music company in Central and Eastern Europe

Global achieved over 6bn streams across all platforms in 2023 and over 20bn streams for its global catalog to date

Primary Wave strikes music rights deal with songwriter and musician Keith Forsey

Primary Wave has acquired Forsey's writer’s and producer shares

25% of music producers are now using AI, survey says – but a majority shows strong resistance

A majority of producers indicated they have concerns about losing control of their music.

Utopia Music acquired Lyric Financial in 2021. Lyric’s sellers are still trying to get full payment for the sale

An arbitration panel has ordered Utopia to pay $1.86 million to Lyric Financial's former owners