Warner Music Group Corp. (NASDAQ:WMG) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Steve Cooper: Okay. So, while I can’t talk about our release slate in specifics, we did touch upon those albums that we know have either dropped or will drop in the first quarter. But what I will say is that our diversification, our geographic diversification, and our focus over the last decade in growing, not only our Anglo, but our non-Anglo business, has provided us with a tremendous amount of what I would call release resiliency, that we have local, regional, and global superstars bubbling up from many, many, many different parts of the world. And because of – because we’ve created both a geographic, read domestic music, local language portfolio, along with our Anglo portfolio, Stephen, it gives us a tremendous amount of resiliency by way of quarter in, quarter out, year in, year out momentum, where we have become less and less dependent upon any particular artist, and less and less dependent upon blockbusters, because this portfolio is consistently hitting singles, doubles, triples, and home runs.

So, that’s kind of on the slate point. On market share, market share moves around a bit, often driven by the strength or more strength or less strength in release schedules. One of the things I would point out though is that while there are various reports on share moving to labels or artists that aren’t affiliated with Warner or Sony or Universal, the fact of the matter is, when you continue to look at listening and the listening behavior of people that immerse their selves in music, that we continue to be one of the truly dominant global forces in music when it comes both to share, and as importantly, to hours of listening. So, while you will see small movements, the fact that listening continues to be dominated by Warner, Sony, and Universal, shows, in my view, the fact that – and I mentioned this in my opening remarks, that while access and distribution has become democratized, talent isn’t and never will be.

Frankly, if talent was democratized, I’d be celebrating my entry into the NBA Hall of Fame. And the fact of the matter is that we seek out real genuine talent, that complemented and supplemented by our resources, our creativity, our skills, create a very meaningful probability that that artist, whether it be on a local, regional, or global level, will be able to be successful. And it’s those artists at the local, regional, and global level that are driven by only a few companies in the world, one of which is us, that end up dominating listening hours and the ears of the music-consuming public. Hopefully, that addresses your question, Steven.

Eric Levin: And I’ll take the second question. So, on your question on ByteDance, Stephen, so just I’ll start by couching a little bit, just that we don’t talk to individual deals, but I can certainly talk to our approach, which I think will be helpful. First is, we work with each partner, each platform. And one of our first goals is to help them – and determine how we can work together to help them expand their products, their services, their reach that’s positive to consumption, it’s positive to competition, all of which we are – we think are favorable to the music industry and Warner. The second piece is, we take each negotiation and we look at the established growth trends and the projected growth trends of that platform and business, and we negotiate each deal to get what we think is full value for music out of that platform.