March 30, 2016 Page 1 of 17

Two days ago, the music industry woke up to a morning surprise: Pandora co-founder Tim West-ergren was returning to the role of CEO, and Brian McAndrews was out. McAndrews, a polymath executive with deep advertising experience — who currently serves on the boards of a very long list of high-profile companies including The New York Times and GrubHub — had led the company through an extended period of dramatic change as its chair-man, president and CEO since taking over in Septem-ber, 2013. Clearly, McAndrews was overseeing a clear strategy under a broad mandate and — although the company’s stock had fallen from a three-month high of $13.41 to $9.52 at press time — all outward appear-ances point to it having been executed competently.

So what happened? While seemingly abrupt, one source says McAndrews’ ouster was not a surprise, and insiders point to several reasons for it, including a failed sale, executive infighting and a lack of progress in expanding the company’s core business.

McAndrews had overseen the company’s detente with the music industry after years of acrimony under former CEO Joe Kennedy. During Kennedy’s tenure, the company aggressively pursued its ends,

at odds with publishers and collection societies over streaming rates, and the governmental regulations around them. But McAndrews smoothed relations and led Pandora through bold acquisitions, including TicketFly and Next Big Sound last year, as well as its purchase of some constituent parts of defunct streaming service Rdio in order to build its own on-demand tier and, critically, expand internationally.

“Usually, there is a management change when something fails,” says one industry insider. “If that’s the case here, the question becomes: ‘What failed?’ If it were [being sold], you would let the buyer take the write-off on McAndrews contract and the other departing executives. Since Pandora is taking on the expense, maybe the failed strategy was the sale.” Billboard hears from multiple sources that a sale, rumors of which began percolating in February, has been abandoned.

Pandora was, according to sources, shopped to both Google and Yahoo (among others), but talks never went beyond tire-kicking and speculation. Google is said to have taken a serious look at the

INSIDE Pandora’s Executive Shakeup: What Happened Behind the ScenesBY ED CHRISTMAN, GLENN PEOPLES AND ANDREW FLANAGAN

Pandora’s ‘New’ CEO Tim Westergren on Evangelism, Global Expansion and Working with the Music Industry: Q&A

Spotify Raises $1 Billion in Convertible Debt Financing

Tidal at One Year: By the Numbers with Jay Z’s Streaming Service

More Than 80 Major CEOs & Business Leaders Demand North Carolina Repeal New ‘Anti-LGBTQ’ Bill

What’s It Like to Be A Modern-Day Roadie? (continued)

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[In Brief]company — but never made an offer — while Yahoo went a step further before being stopped by its board, one industry financial executive tells Billboard.

Still others suggest that McAndrews and Mike Herring — then its CFO, and now its president as well — didn’t get along, and that “the board lost confidence in Brian,” says one music digital services executive. A person close to the situation at Pandora downplayed any friction in the executive ranks, however. A major factor is said to be McAndrews’ relationship with the traditional music business. Although he helped Pandora enter a new age of warm industry relationships that resulted in direct deals with publishers and record labels, McAndrews never fit into the insular world of music industry executives.

Another issue is said to have been the lack of progress in moving Pandora’s core business, custom digital radio and the advertising around it, abroad. One source familiar with the negotiations says that one major label was turned off by the direct deal terms sought by Pandora. Sources tell Billboard that McAndrews himself wasn’t the issue. “We don’t care who we do a deal with, as long as the terms are right,” says one major label executive. “They seem to want to do direct deals with the labels, but also seemed to be trapped by their dependence on the CRB rate and an

unwillingness to truly embrace the market rate concept that direct deals require.” That negotiations, which generally begin with a low-high dance, between experienced executives would lead to the ouster of such an experienced executive remains surprising.

Any expansion of free, ad-supported listening is seen as a worry by the majors, who want subscriptions to overtake ad-supported listening by fans. However, Pandora’s listenership — which recent metrics suggest is approaching saturation in the U.S. — is primarily casual, and monetizing listeners who have little interest in the gargantuan catalogs of services like Spotify would seem to be making lemonade out of thin air. SoundCloud just pulled a similar feat yesterday, monetizing the millions of derivative works on its platform.

At the very least, the change decentralizes power at the top of Pandora.McAndrews was chairman, CEO and president. Now, with the new management structure, independent board member James Feuille is chairman, while founder Westergren is CEO and Herring is president.

With the surprising shakeup of one of digital music’s guiding lights, the question emerges: Which Pandora will the industry see going forward? Signs seem to point

to a warmer relationship with rights-holders, especially if the company plans to follow through on its international expansion. Industry executives are, of course, hoping for the best. Prior to the management change, says one executive, “they gave off every indication of a company in desperation.”

Pandora’s ‘New’ CEO Tim Westergren on Evangelism, Global Expansion and Working with the Music Industry: Q&ABY GLENN PEOPLES

Pandora’s new boss is the same as its old boss. Founding CEO Tim Westergren is back as the Internet radio company’s CEO after Brian McAndrews’ two-and-a-half-

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year run. (Head here for Billboard’s look at what happened behind the scenes.) Now the growing yet unprofitable music stream-ing company is hoping Westergren will help Pandora evolve from a company that serves advertisements into a music company run by music people for music people.

Westergren is the long-time evangelist, the face of the company whose name undersigns both customer emails and company blog posts. Now he has even more proselytizing to do. “Motivating the team,” he tells Billboard. “Inspiring the internal leadership. Equally important is being a voice for us outside the business.”

If ever Pandora needed an emotional lift it’s now. Monthly visitors have stalled at 80 million. Second-place (and bit of an apple to Pandora’s orange) Spotify has halved Pandora’s lead in monthly listening sessions over the past year, according to Triton Digital. Competition has further stiffened with launches from Apple Music, SoundCloud and Tidal in the last 12 months.

Now is a good time for Pandora to return to its roots. It doesn’t see itself as just an advertisement-selling Internet radio company. That’s not the image it wants to project. Instead, Pandora sees itself as a vital link between listeners and artists. It believes it’s a productive member of music’s creative class with Westergren as its artist-in-chief. Billboard: Brian helped build the ad sales team and better relationships within the industry. I’m wondering how your second tenure as CEO will be different?

Tim Westergren: I think about this in a couple different ways. One is internal. Motivating the team. Inspiring the internal leadership. Equally important is being a voice for us outside the business. With regards to the music industry, I think you’re right, the attitude has changed a ton. That has been driven bottom-up largely by the “music makers” group. That’s creating a lot of good will up to the labels.

The thing about me being involved is I’m a musician. That really matters in the relation between your business and the industry. So when I get in front of whoever it may be, I think they know my intentions

are noble with Pandora. I want Pandora to be a model of real collaboration between a digital company and artists and labels. I think that really matters.

I will [also] put a lot of effort into music industry relations. That will be a big emphasis part for me. And being more engaged in general across advertisers, business partners, certainly with investors. So telling our story much more loudly, more actively.

You’ve done grass-roots marketing in the past. You were doing town hall meetings years ago. But what evangelism can you do on a larger scale and to an external audience?  

Well, there’s still a role for me to play there.

One is through the product. On platform product marketing. Creating new features people love and making sure listeners find out about them and they’re properly presented to them. That’s part of the way we’ve changed the organization. We’ve put growth and retention and marketing into the product organization so they’ll be married. So the same people that are building the products are going to be responsible for the adoption of them. Keep in mind, we have 100 million people a quarter that use Pandora. That’s a massive audience and the most efficient way for us to market new things to and grow listenership.

The second is we’re going to be much more proactive on the marketing side. We haven’t historically spent a lot of money on consumer marketing and that’s going to change as well.

Are you still on a path for a launch of the subscription service by the end of the year?

That’s the ambition, yeah.We keep churning on our core business,

which is the ad-supported radio business. But we’re stitching into that a more lean-in on-demand piece that we think will have multiple layers to it. It will upsell our existing audience into those products. So, some increasing level of on-demand up to a full-blown subscription product.

And then the ticketing piece. We’re integrating ticketing into the product. It’s

the same thing. You lower that over our 100-million-people-every-three-months audience and it becomes a source for relevant, targeted event/entertainment and a great attractor for an audience. And within this is a marketplace with musicians. Musicians are in this, interacting with listeners, talking with them, promoting albums.

It seems like you’re in unchartered waters putting such tools in the hands of artists hoping it drives revenue ultimately. Tell me how that’s gone so far.

Unchartered but not totally. We’ve been beta-testing this for a long time with artists. We’ve done one-offs and trials with artists. One early, fascinating thing. You know about the artist audio messaging system we have now, right? The engagement rate is off the charts. We know now definitely that if you put the right message targeted to the right way you get a real high engagement rate.

You’re right that we haven’t proven the business. So what will it do it in terms of commerce? But we have a lot of reason to be very confidence we’re going to be effective at getting people to lean in and engage and ultimately transact more because of this whether it’s buying a ticket, buying music, or whatnot.

Is Pandora a U.S. webcasting company or U.S. company with international aspirations?

Our ambition is to be a global business. The U.S. is the best country to start with. It’s 40 percent of the market. We are the absolute leader here. Our reach is completely unrivaled. So it’s a launching pad for us to go places. I don’t think our idea is to blast out everywhere right away. But we have this great core business and we think it will lay on top of other core markets and we’ll do it extensively, but the U.S. is the perfect platform for launching internationally.

News reports about Pandora pursuing its strategic options weren’t all that surprising given digital music’s tough economics. With the changes in the executive ranks, is a sale now off the table?

We have never been more committed to

[In Brief]

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our long-term growth strategy. Do you plan on holding onto KXMZ [in

Rapid City, South Dakota]?Yeah.What do you plan to do with it? What’s

the value to Pandora?I think we’ll see. It’s a profitable

business. There’s an interesting synergy between online and offline radio. It’s not a focus for us right now but no reason to make any moves there.

Spotify Raises $1 Billion in Convertible Debt FinancingBY COLIN STUTZ

As the streaming wars continue to heat up, Spotify is digging in its heels adding anoth-er $1 billion to its war chest. The Swedish market leader has raised $1 billion in convertible debt from investors, a Spotify spokesperson confirmed to Billboard.

News was first reported by the Wall Street Journal Tuesday (March 29) that private equity firm TPG and hedge fund Dragoneer Investment Group led the round, which also included clients of Goldman Sachs.

Convertible debt can be exchanged for stock later and comes with the advantage that it does not require a company valuation at the time of investment and hence does not risk diluting stock value when Spotify goes public. In contrast, equity investments take a share of the company for a specified price. A person familiar with the situation told Billboard the funds will be used for strategic purposes.

Initial reports of the deal broke in February, as it follows $526 million raised last summer in convertible bonds that put Spotify’s valuation at $8.5 billion.

As Spotify continues to lead the streaming music industry with roughly 30 million subscribers, its competition is building — namely Apple Music’s more

than 11 million paying users acquired in half a year.

Tidal at One Year: By the Numbers with Jay Z’s Streaming ServiceBY DAN RYS

One year ago today, the music world stood by wondering what, exactly, Jay Z was cook-ing up this time. The rapper, mogul and music executive was fresh off a $56 million purchase of Norwegian digital streaming company Aspiro — which had brought its Tidal service to the U.S. in October 2014 to little fanfare — and, according to sources, was plotting a “splashy” press conference in New York City to announce, presumably, what he planned to do with it.

What viewers got the afternoon of March 30, 2015 when tuning into the live stream on Tidal.com was a collection of 16 of the biggest, most successful artists on the planet across a slew of genres — hip-hop, pop, country, dance, rock — announcing that Tidal would be the first-ever artist-owned streaming service, with the idea to pay a higher royalty rate and cater to artists in a way that its new competitors like Spotify had not. Alicia Keys delivered a manifesto of sorts (and quoted Nietzsche), Madonna had climbed on a table, deadmau5 and Daft Punkhad to be separated to avoid a clash of overly-large helmets, and suddenly, after 10 strange minutes, it was over.

The re-launch of Tidal bred excitement, confusion and a fair bit of derision for its gaudy fanfare at James A. Farley Post Office in New York’s Herald Square. Its goals were laudatory: high-quality audio and video streaming, a dedication to battle against the growing artist disillusionment with streaming service profits and a commitment to serve artists first by inviting artists to own their own

distribution platform. But the optics of the event opened it up to criticism that the 16 artists — those mentioned above, as well as Beyonce, Kanye West, Rihanna, Nicki Minaj,Jason Aldean, Coldplay’s Chris Martin, Calvin Harris, Arcade Fire, J. Cole, Usher and Jack White, all who received a three percent stake in Tidal — were “music’s one percent,” claiming to be fighting a battle that, frankly, didn’t affect them as much as it did the independent artists who had been initially excluded.

But through a dedication to exclusive content, near-relentless public relations efforts, a consistent stream of live streams, original video series and its status as the New Kid on the Streaming Block trying to get artists paid, Tidal has survived through a rocky first 12 months and grown in the process. One year after that now-infamous launch event, Billboard looks back at Tidal by the numbers.

SUBSCRIBERS — 2015: 540k (17k HiFi) | 2016: 3m (~1.35m HiFi)

The most significant number for Tidal’s bottom line, and an impressive one in its first 12 months, is its announcement yesterday (March 29) that it had surpassed three million subscribers — adding 2.5 million to the 540,000 at its launch — for a service that does not have a free tier. Its HiFi platform, which goes for $19.99/month compared to its regular tier at $9.99, accounts for 45 percent of those subscriptions, the service says, extrapolating out to around 1.35 million subscribers. Much of this can presumably be attributed to the Tidal-only exclusive on Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo; back in October 2015, Jay hosted a star-studded Barclays Center show to celebrate the service passing one million subscribers, and some reports indicated that that number doubled after Pablo was released Feb. 14. Regardless, it still means the company lags far behind Spotify (30 million) and Apple Music (11 million) in the streaming wars.

ARTIST OWNERS — 2015: 16 | 2016: 20In the past year, Tidal has added four

new artist-owners to bring its current total to 20, and those names have hardly been under the radar. Damian Marley, T.I.,

[In Brief]

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French band Indochine and, perhaps most surprisingly, Lil Wayne have all signed on since the initial 16 artists signed on the dotted line a year ago. Wayne already released his Free Weezy Album on the service (which brought the ire of his Cash Money label boss Birdman to the tune of a $50 million lawsuit), while Tip delivered the first single off his forthcoming tenth album, Tha Dime Trap, exclusively on Tidal last month.

CEOs — 3Andy Chen, Peter Tonstad and now

former Soundcloud exec Jeff Toig have all had the reigns in what has been a tumultuous, to say the least, C-Suite situation since Tidal’s re-launch. Toig came in in December to right the ship and, according to one source, continue to streamline positions and shift the operational headquarters into the United States from its Scandinavian origins. But still the executive turntable continues to spin; on March 1, the company fired two top-level execs in the latest of several high-level shakeups at Tidal.

AVAILABLE TRACKS — 2015: 25m | 2016: ~40m

At a certain scale these numbers become negligible, particularly because each top-level streaming service has similar deals with the major labels, which account for the majority of songs available, but Tidal can be considered to have as complete an offering as any other service at this point.

MUSIC VIDEOS — 2015: 75k | 2016: 130k

One section that Tidal can, and has, differentiated itself is in its video offerings. Its 130,000 music videos can now be incorporated into playlists within the service, meaning users can create video-only playlists or combine video and audio depending on preference. Spotify recently also launched a video (and podcast) platform in January with an impressive list of content partners, though it has largely skated under the radar. Where Tidal really proves its worth is with exclusives here; though exclusive music videos have been relatively rare (Rihanna, Nicki Minaj and Beyonce have premiered music videos on Tidal, though

few others have), its Tidal X performances and festival streams, as well as non-music content like Daft Punk’s Electroma film and Erykah Badu’s western, have diversified its appeal.

GLOBAL AVAILABILITY — 2015: 31 | 2016: 46

Tidal has particularly ramped up its availability in Latin American territories, and has worked to offer performances and streams that cater specifically to the particular demographics that it enters. Consider, for example, the Tidal X concert by Yandel, its first Latin live stream produced by boxing champ Miguel Cotto, which debuted shortly after it became available in Puerto Rico.

EXCLUSIVE ALBUM RELEASES — 9Kanye West, The Life of PabloRihanna, AntiPrince, HITNRUN Phase OnePrince, HITNRUN Phase TwoLil Wayne, Free Weezy AlbumThe Dead Weather, Dodge and BurnWaylayers, Re:VerseJudith Hill, Back In TimeAndy Allo and Prince, Oui Can Luv

EXCLUSIVE PLAYLISTS — 166Artist-curated playlists have been an

easy slam dunk for streaming services in the past few years, and Apple Music has taken it to the next level with its Beats 1 radio shows hosted by the likes of Drake, Dr. Dre, DJ Khaled and many more. But this is where Tidal’s artist-owners can really pay off: what other service can offer curated playlists from Jay, Bey and Usher? Add to that non-owners like Gwen Stefani, Macklemore, Giorgio Moroder, Seal and Justin Bieber — as well as legendary hip-hop execs like Lyor Cohen and Irv Gotti — and Tidal has plenty up its sleeve here.

LIVE STREAMS — 44Live streams have grown to be

some of Tidal’s bread and butter, particularly with its Tidal X concerts (T.I., Jeezy, Jay, Coldplay in Paris, Jack White acoustic), all featuring exclusive or rare performances. They’ve also streamed festivals — Made In America being an obvious one, but Hot 97’s Summer Jam and Wayne’s Lil Weezyana included —

and things as completely random as the Papal visit to Philadelphia last summer. But it hasn’t come without its growing pains; despite 23 million people tuning in to Kanye’s Yeezy Season 3 fashion show at Madison Square Garden in February, Tidal was beset by server issues that submarined its high-quality video and forced fans to watch a grainy depiction of one of the most anticipated events of 2016 to date.

... AND A TIMELINEMarch 30 — Launch in NYC.April 17 — Tidal CEO Andy Chen leaves

the company in a “restructuring” that includes the shuttering of its Stockholm headquarters, replaced by interim CEO Peter Tonstad.

April 26 — Jack White’s final acoustic show of his tour in Fargo, N.D. becomesTidal’s first-ever live stream; the same day, Jay Z goes on a Twitter spree to defend the service against negative publicity using the hashtag #TidalFacts.

May 16/17 — Jay Z performs two intimate “Tidal X: B-Sides” shows at Terminal 5 in New York City.

June 4 — Lil Wayne comes aboard as a co-owner and Tidal announces a partnership with Ticketmaster to allow fans to purchase concert tickets from within the app. Also, lower student and family pricing.

June 8 — Confirmed as a Tidal artist-owner until dropping out two days before its launch event, Drake officially endorses rival Apple Music at WWDC.

June 23 — After just three months on the job, interim CEO Peter Tonstad exits the company.

July 4 — Tied up in litigation at his parent label Cash Money Records, Lil Wayne drops his Free Weezy Album exclusively on Tidal — which causes Birdman to file a$50 million lawsuit against Jay Z and Tidal two weeks later.

Sept. 7 — After removing his catalog from every streaming service but Tidal in July,Prince releases the first of two HitNRun albums exclusively for sale and streaming on the service — the first retail album for the previously streaming-only company.

Oct. 20 — To celebrate Tidal reaching one million paid subscribers, Jay Z pulls out his Rolodex and throws the Tidal X

[In Brief]

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10/20 show at the Barclays Center with Beyonce, Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne, Rick Ross, Meek Mill, Nas, Usher, DJ Khaled, French Montana and more, including Damian Marley, announced as the 18th artist-owner of the service. The concert raised approximately $1 million for the nonprofit New World Foundation, distributed to Black Lives Matter and social justice groups.

Oct. 26 — Tidal inks a first-of-its-kind content deal to rebrand the Barclays Center’s theater configuration as the Tidal Theater.

Nov. 2 — After adding the second season of YouTube-distributed hit web series Money & Violence to its offerings, Tidal announces its first-ever foray into original video content with Cipha Sounds› comedy series No Small Talk.

Dec. 2 — Without a CEO since late June, Tidal announces that former Soundcloud exec Jeff Toig is taking over as its third CEO in nine months.

Jan. 27, 2016 — In its most high-profile release yet, Rihanna’s Anti album accidentally appears on Tidal five hours before its scheduled release, sending the leak around the internet and causing Tidal and Universal Music Group to point fingers over whose fault it was.

Feb. 11, 2016 — Kanye West›s Yeezy Season 3 fashion show at Madison Square Garden — which includes the first-ever listen of his latest album, The Life of Pablo— is live-streamed in front of Tidal›s paywall; with more than 23 million fans tuning in, it crashes Tidal’s hi-def video quality.

Feb. 14, 2016 — Kanye West releases The Life of Pablo exclusively as a stream on Tidal, which would go on to be streamed 250 million times in its first 10 days, according to the service.

Feb. 22, 2016 — T.I. signs a distribution deal with Jay Z›s Roc Nation and becomes Tidal’s 19th artist owner.

Feb. 29, 2016 — Following class action lawsuits against Spotify and other streamers, Tidal is sued for not paying royalties to artists.

March 29, 2016 — Tidal announces it has surpassed three million paid subscribers worldwide, and announces its 20th artist-owner, French band Indochine.

More Than 80 Major CEOs & Business Leaders Demand North Carolina Repeal New ‘Anti-LGBTQ’ BillBY COLIN STUTZ

More than 80 of the country’s biggest CEOs and business leaders have signed a letter demanding North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory and the state general assem-bly repeal the recently passed House Bill 2, which has been criticized as the most anti-LGBTQ bill in the country.

The letter’s signees include Apple CEO Tim Cook, Facebook chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Square and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and YouTube cofounder Chad Hurley, among many others.

“HB 2 is not a bill that reflects the values of our companies, of our country, or even the overwhelming majority of North Carolinians,” the letter reads.

House Bill 2, the Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, was passed last week by North Carolina’s legislature and signed into law by the governor. It declares that North Carolina’s nondiscrimination law, which does not include specific protections for LGBTQ people, overrides local ordinances.

It also states bathrooms and changing facilities at public schools, public colleges and government agencies must be designated for use only based on people’s “biological sex” stated on their birth certificate, excluding transgender people’s use in their preferred facility unless they get their birth certificate changed.

The letter continues, making the argument HB 2 is bad for business, saying it will make it more challenging for the North Carolina to recruit and retain the

country’s most capable workers and students, while harming tourism, new businesses, and economic activity.

“We are disappointed in your decision to sign this discriminatory legislation into law, the letter reads. “The business community, by and large, has consistently communicated to lawmakers at every level that such laws are bad for our employees and bad for business. This is not a direction in which states move when they are seeking to provide successful, thriving hubs for business and economic development.”

Read the full letter here.

What’s It Like to Be A Modern-Day Roadie?BY CATHY APPLEFELD OLSON

What’s it like to be a modern-day roadie? Showtime took over Austin’s Clive Bar dur-ing SXSW to not only sponsor a stage that rocked for three days with acts including the Head and the Heart, Ra Ra Riot and Borns, but also to provide food, drink and even complimentary massages for anyone with a working crew badge.

It’s all part of the ramp-up to new scripted series Roadies, created and directed by Cameron Crowe, starring Luke Wilson and Carla Gugino and premiering on the network June 26. “It’s kind of a rock’n’roll love story,” Don Buckley, Showtime head of marketing, tells Billboard. “You really get to experience the family of these crew members who are the unsung heroes of rock.”

Showtime invited Billboard in to talk with some of the real road warriors. If you’re tethered to an old-school vision of a big-bellied stoner, think again. These guys are health-conscious, tech-savvy, and many are multi-tasking in their own in bands or music production. Here’s what they had to say:

* Gigs are fluid, loyalty is strong“The coolest thing is I’ve never had a

[In Brief]

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resume,” says Max Terlecki, who loads for Borns and also works with Transviolet and Milo Greene. “You just work with a ton of people, doing one-offs until you get referred and a band picks you up. It’s all freelance.”

Word of mouth brought Carson Milican on the road with Bronze Radio Return. He’d just been fired from his bartending and pondering next steps when his phone lit up. “I was laying out formal wear and ready to go do some job interviews, and I got a text and it said, How’d you like to go see the country?” he says.

Being a member of the crew still often means wearing a few hats. Erin Hinojos, who’s been working consistently as a roadie for three years, also does double-duty as tour manager for Hey Marseilles. “It’s all under the same umbrella,” he says. “When you’re out in the road, you’re all roadies. I’ve been tour manger, done merch, management.”

Milican’s duties include loading, residuals and merch. “He makes it easy for us because the industry average is four to five bucks a head, merchandise-wise,” says Bronze Radio Return vocalist Bob Tanen says. “This guy has been doing upwards of 10 to 12. That’s dollars a head.”

Contracts are signed for most roadie positions, but the scope of work varies. “You’ve got to work the deal. Some guys get paid a weekly salary. I’ve got buddies who are on a retainer and they get paid a certain amount and if there’s a show they get an extra, say, $400 a day,” says TJ Elias, who travels with Jamestown Revival.

Elias says pay schedules are determined band by band. “There are guys who get a daily rate and get a certain amount of money for days there’s a show and less money on off days. Some guys get set amount per week, some get a set amount per year. Some bands will keep crew members on retainer all year. I’ve been paid a couple hundred dollars a month just to keep my schedule open for them.”

Still, there always seems to be some wiggle room. Although Elias says he recently “locked out everything else to do front of house for Jamestown Revival,” he picked up an extra gig during a night off

during SX working for Cypress Hill. “They asked and I said sure, I’ve got nothing going on, may as well make a little extra cash.”

* Not your father’s roadiesOne common thread running among

the crew members Billboard spoke with is a desire to put a little distance between themselves and their predecessors.

“When I hear roadie, I think of some burly dude on the Metallica tour in the ‘80s,” says Terlecki, who’s 26. “Maybe a lot of people still think that but that’s definitely not the case today.”

“You meet some of the older guys. They party harder than us young guys do and want to,” says Elias, 28, who got to know some of veteran roadies while touring with Thievery Corp. “The old mentality of let’s do as many drugs and drink as much as we can and it’s all going to be great has changed. Nowadays, you can’t do that. You have to work. Because there’s going to be some other guys who’s going to cost half as much as you and do it just as well and he’ll take your job real fast.”

Acknowledging “the older guys have a whole different mentality,” 27-year-old Hinojos says they can also be valuable mentors. “With some guys it’s great because they’ll show you how to make your deal better, they put a little less fear in you. If you have to travel and fly out and you have to check your bag, they’re the ones who are saying, ‘Don’t be scared to send the bill for checking your bags.’

“It’s a double-edged thing,” he adds. “I think roadie is a bad word nowadays because a roadie is the crusty old guy who is partying, following the tour in his van because he really likes the band and is bringing them sweaty towels. And now you’re really more like the tech, or the engineer.”

* Tales from the road are still stranger than fiction

Whatever the semantics, some things haven’t changed a bit. There’s still lots of time clocked in sweaty vans and busses, occasional confusion over the city and state they wake up in, and a general feeling of familial love.

“Sleeping in bed with another guy was

definitely different,” Milican says. “Mark, the sound engineer… I’d known him for two hours and that night I was snuggling with him.”

The strangest times “are when you’re in some f—king weird-ass place like in Oklahoma, maybe a little off the beat and path and you end up in a random situation,” says Terlecki. “One time we were in Nashville and all the bars were closed and we ended up going with some of the locals to an American Legion lodge. They stay open for the members and me and one of the other dudes became official members of the American Legion that night.”

Generally, venues are good to band crews these days, Milican says. “Every single venue has been super awesome. I think they are now understanding we’re sick of being on the road and we’re tired of eating at McDonald’s. So they stock up with bananas and avocados, sometimes oranges. They feed us well, but it’s usually limited, so it’s all about who’s grabbing it first.”

“Everyone’s got to work, whether it’s playing music or working at Liberty Mutual in finance,” Terlecki says. “And this has got to be one of the greatest jobs. You travel and make these surrogate families.”

And about the upcoming series? “I think it’ll be kind cool in the sense that people who have no idea there is a working crew behind a tour will realize, Oh shit, there’s an army of people that make these shows happen,” Elias says. “It’s not just the artist showing up and f—king killing it with bad-ass lights and pyro.”

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‘Empire’ Flops Overseas as Foreign Viewers Resist Hollywood’s Diversity PushBY SCOTT ROXBOROUGH

Driven by the ratings success of shows with mainly nonwhite casts — Empire, Black-ish and Fresh Off the Boat — along with political pressure to make shows better reflect their diverse audience, American TV outlets increasingly are greenlight-ing series that feature black, Asian and Latino leads. Fox’s 24: Legacy, a reboot of the Kiefer Sutherland series, stars Corey Hawkins, famous as Dr. Dre from Straight Outta Compton. CBS has Rush Hour, based on the action movie franchise, starring Jon Foo and Justin Hires, and has cast Sarah Shahi, a former NFL cheerleader of Persian and Spanish ancestry, as Nancy Drew in its reboot of the lily-white mystery franchise.

“It’s color-blind casting,” says Sony Pictures TV casting director Dawn Steinberg. “There used to be a time when it had to be written that way to look for an actor with a specific ethnicity. Now it’s just who is the best actor for the role.”

But when trying to sell overseas, American shows are finding the color barrier is still there. Why? Insiders say it’s because international audiences have yet to truly embrace diversity on the small screen. “These shows are a reflection of our society, but [they are] not a reflection of all societies,” says Marion Edwards, president of international TV at Fox.

Take Empire. Fox’s hip-hop drama appeared to be a slam dunk for the international market: a splashy mainstream hit that felt both of the moment and a throwback to primetime soaps, and global hits, like Dallas and Dynasty. But the show has been a global flop. In the U.K., the first

season drew a middling 717,000 viewers on Channel 4’s youth-oriented E4 network, a mere 3 percent share, and season 2 has been worse, averaging a 2.2 percent share with 595,000 viewers. The show first season averaged 181,000 viewers on Australia’s Channel Ten, prompting a shift to the smaller Eleven network, where season two has averaged just 77,000 viewers an episode. In Canada, broadcaster Rogers Media moved Empire off its free-TV network City after season two ratings dipped to 208,000 viewers, shifting the second half of the season to its online streaming service Shomi. While in Germany, Empire, which aired in primetime on Pro7, one of the country’s leading free-TV networks, attracted less than 1 million viewers per show and fewer than 4 percent of the national audience, a fraction of the channel’s regular draw.

“I love the show and we took a big risk on it. But our courage was not rewarded,” says Rudiger Boss, head of acquisitions at ProSiebenSat.1, which bought Empire for German TV.

Adds Edwards: “Having a diverse cast creates another hurdle for U.S. series trying to break through; it would be foolish not to recognize that. We are telling our units that they need to be aware that by creating too much diversity in the leads in their show means … problems having their shows translating to the international market.”

The diversity issue comes at a particularly perilous time for U.S. television studios because foreign outlets increasingly are creating their own shows or buying from producers in their region. American series simply aren’t as popular as they used to be. This is significant because international sales can provide significant revenue. A 2013 study by U.K. group Digital TV Research estimated the sale of U.S. drama series to European television generated $5.4 billion for U.S. rights holders, $1 billion less than in 2008.

But it would be simplistic to call viewers in Europe, Canada or Asia racist. Edwards points to global juggernauts NCIS and CSI “two hugely popular shows, both of which have had versions with diverse actors as

major characters, without hurting their performance internationally.” The Digital TV Research study appears to confirm this, noting that NCIS generated $205 million in revenue for CBS from sales to Europe in 2012, making it the most valuable imported series. CSI was second on the list, with an estimated $188 million in revenue from European TV sales.

Edwards also notes the success of The Cosby Show “which broke all the rules of international television: a half-hour comedy, with a black cast. And it translated everywhere,” she says. “It was the same thing with The Fresh Prince of Bel Air.”

“Those shows and the success of the original Roots mini-series proved there is an interest in black stories abroad,” says Timothy Havens, a professor in African-American studies at the University of Iowa and author of Black Television Travels: African American Media around the Globe. “But the pattern we’ve seen, again and again, is that black shows break new ground that white shows benefit from. So Roots was followed by a number of white miniseries that were very successful abroad, Fresh Prince by white youth-oriented shows.”

Havens also draws a distinction between shows like CSI and Shonda Rhimes’ Shondaland productions (Grey’s Anatomy, How to Get Away with Murder) which feature “black faces but non-ethnically specific kinds of stories” and are often very successful worldwide— and the “specifically black stories” of series like Empire and Black-ish, which tend to sell only to smaller niche networks outside the U.S.

A broader issue on the international television market is the difference in viewing habits between U.S. audiences, who have largely embraced complicated story-telling and non-generic drama formats, and international viewers, at least those watching on mainstream channels, who prefer traditional, episodic TV of the NCIS, CSI variety.

“Diversity is an issue with our audience, but it’s also the kind of shows coming out of the U.S. now — almost everything is serial, with long multi-episode story

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arcs, [and] that doesn’t work for us,” says Philipp Steffens, head of drama at RTL, Germany’s leading commercial network. Out of necessity, RTL in 2015 signed a deal with French network TF1 and NBCUniversal International Television Production to directly produce U.S. series themselves with a European audience in mind. The initial plan sees the financing of two development cycles with a target of producing three series over the next two years.

Says Steffens, “We’re hoping the deal will mean we’ll get the kind of shows we used to from the U.S.”

This article originally appeared on The Hollywood Reporter. A version of this story first appeared in the April 8 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.

Madonna Leads Hot Tours Roundup With Final Rebel Heart ShowsBY BOB ALLEN

With the wrap of her Rebel Heart tour, Madonna owns the No. 1 slot on the weekly tally of top-grossing Hot Tours (see list, below), based on $62.4 million in sales from the final two legs of her four-conti-nent jaunt. A swing through seven Asian markets in February and a final trek in Australia and New Zealand rounded out the world tour that kicked off last fall in North America.

Her highest-grossing venue during the Asian leg was a two-night stand in the Tokyo metropolitan area at the Saitama Super Arena on Feb. 13 & 14. With $9.6 million in ticket sales, the arena also ranked as the highest grossing venue throughout the entire six-month trek. The tour finale, a two-show stint at Sydney’s

Allphones Arena on March 19 & 20, generated $6 million in revenue, the top sales among the venues during the final leg Down Under.

Final overall box office counts for the Rebel Heart tour totaled $169,804,336 from 1,045,479 sold tickets at 82 sold out performances worldwide.

Kevin Hart follows in the second slot on the Hot Tours recap based on a sold out engagement in Sydney, also at Allphones Arena. The comedian performed two nights at the venue, selling a total of 27,284 tickets on Feb. 7 and 8. With a $2.2 million box office take, the Sydney engagement was the final date for his What Now? tour’s Aussie leg that also included performances in Perth, Melbourne and Brisbane during February.

Hart’s yearlong tour kicked off last April with 129 shows set in U.S. and Canadian markets through the end of 2015. An international leg began in January and included shows in European and Asian cities before heading to Australia. The What Now? tour’s final run was a string of South African dates at the end of March.

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame member Van Morrison scores the No. 3 ranking on Hot Tours with a $1.6 million gross from two sold out concerts in Los Angeles at the Shrine Auditorium. A total of 12,318 fans saw the veteran artist during the Jan. 15-16 run.

The L.A. engagement kicked off Morrison’s 2016 touring schedule that also included a three-night sold out stint at Oakland’s Fox Theater beginning on Jan. 18. A handful of European shows followed in March, and a series of U.S. shows are booked in April, including an appearance at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on April 23. Also, a slate of upcoming performances are booked in Europe during the summer months.

Patty Duke’s Billboard Chart History, ‘Don’t Just Stand There’ & BeyondBY FRED BRONSON

Patty Duke, who died Tuesday (March 29) at age 69, had a celebrated career on Broadway and in films and television, winning an Oscar and three Emmys. While most people think of her as an actor, she also had a recording career that began in 1965 with a top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100: “Don’t Just Stand There” peaked at No. 8 in August of that year.

The single was released just as the second season of The Patty Duke Show was signing off for the summer. The sitcom, which starred Duke as identical cousins Patty and Cathy, started its run on ABC on Sept. 18, 1963, and ended after three seasons, with the final first-run episode airing on April 27, 1966.

By having concurrent careers in acting and recording, Duke joined a number of other artists from the 1960s who were mostly known for their thespian work, including Shelley Fabares (“Johnny Angel”), Richard Chamberlain (“Three Stars Will Shine Tonight”), Lorne Greene (“Ringo”) and Ann-Margret (“I Just Don’t Understand”).

“Don’t Just Stand There,” written by Lor Crane and Bernice Ross, was musically reminiscent of Lesley Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me,” a No. 2 hit on the Hot 100 a year and a half earlier (and now nearing Billboard’s Pop Songs airplay chart as reimagined by Grace, featuring G-Eazy).

Duke followed that first hit with three more Hot 100 entries, all during the run of The Patty Duke Show. “Say Something Funny,” also written by Crane and Ross, peaked at No. 22 in the fall of 1965. The B-side, “Funny Little Butterflies,” also charted, rising to No. 77. Composed by

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Crane and Ross with Jack Gold, the flip was from the film Billie, which starred Duke as a high school co-ed who jeopardized her conservative father’s political career because she was a girl who excelled in sports. Duke’s final Hot 100 entry was “Whenever She Holds You,” a gender-switch remake of Bobby Goldsboro’s No. 34 hit from 1964, “Whenever He Holds You.” Duke’s version landed at No. 64.

Signed to the United Artists label, Duke recorded several albums, but only one appeared on the Billboard 200. Named for her first hit single, Don’t Just Stand There spent 12 weeks on the chart and peaked at No. 90 in 1965.

All four of Duke’s charted singles appear on a greatest-hits collection, Just Patty, issued by EMI in 1996. Her albums Don’t Just Stand There and Patty were combined on a CD released by Real Gone Music in 2013, as were subsequent albums Sings Songs from Valley of the Dolls and Sings Folk Songs – Time to Move On.

Blake Shelton Accused of Giving False Testimony in Defamation LawsuitBY ERIQ GARDNER

Bauer Publishing, under fire over an In Touch cover story that presented Blake Shelton as having hit “rock bottom” after a booze-filled bender in Cancun, says it has photographic evidence that the country music superstar’s recent sworn declaration was false.

Shelton is suing Bauer for defamation for the story that suggested he had enough of a drinking problem to send him to rehab. In response to the lawsuit, Bauer points to tweets and media interviews that allegedly show The Voice star cultivating a reputation for hard drinking. The publisher claims

he’s “libel proof,” that there’s nothing in the story that is capable of defamatory meaning, and finally, that Shelton can’t show actual malice on the part of the reporters. Shelton opposes dismissal, and as part of the many documents lodged to save the lawsuit, the musician gave his own declaration to note what was false in the story at issue.

Regarding the Cancun trip, Shelton stated, “Contrary to the Rehab Story, I was not in Cancun for a bachelor party. Instead, I was with my tour manager Kevin Canady and a married couple who are friends of ours. We stayed at the Fiesta Americana. My hotel was not an ‘all inclusive’ resort.”

“During this trip, I did not stay at the hotel ME Melia, Cancun or visit it,” he continues. “Contrary to what is reported in the Rehab Story, I did not attend a bachelor party, party with strippers, or go to a strip club during my time in Cancun. There were no strippers at Coco Bongo and I did not go to a club named Dassan. Unlike what is set forth in the Rehab Story, I did not do tequila shots ‘non-stop’ or walk through my hotel lobby carrying two bottles of tequila. I did not kiss any women while I was in Cancun. There was no ‘alcohol-fueled rendezvous,’ nor did I hook up with any women, let alone multiple women, in my hotel room or anywhere else.”

Basically, Shelton’s attorney presents the depiction of the Mexico trip as fabricated.

On Monday, the publisher filed a brief in reply.

“Shelton resorts to apparent false testimony,” states the memorandum. “He declares that the Article’s depiction of his Mexico trip was ‘fabricated,’ because the ‘partying’ described at the Hotel ME Melia in Cancun could not have occurred as during his trip he ‘did not stay at the hotel ME Melia Cancun or visit it.’ Yet, indisputable photographic evidence places Shelton at that very hotel and with the blonde guest described in the Article.”

According to a declaration from In Touch reporter Adriane Schwartz, she got information from a “longtime confidential source who stayed at the hotel ME Melia,” including an “Instagram photograph

clearly depicting Blake Shelton standing with his arm around a woman in a room with a distinctive tile pattern, lights, drapes and round rug.”

So did Shelton actually “visit” the hotel that was a focal scene of the story?

Hardly, says Shelton’s camp. According to one of his reps, just because he’s in the “driveway of the hotel” doesn’t mean he actually visited. What’s more, the photograph doesn’t show him drinking nor kissing this woman. It’s a fan photo, they say.

Nevertheless, the question becomes not whether the photo corroborates everything in the story, but rather whether it supports in some fashion the credibility of Schwartz’s anonymous source. And that maybe goes to the question of actual malice, which is necessary to demonstrate in a defamation lawsuit brought by a celebrity. Did the reporter recklessly disregard the truth? “At the time we published the Article, I had no reason to doubt the accuracy of the photograph or of the conclusions we drew from it,” says Schwartz in her declaration.

Shelton’s camp doesn’t believe this is enough. They ask: Where are the declarations from sources? Why hasn’t the hotel clerk come forward to support anything in the challenged article?

This article originally appeared on The Hollywood Reporter.

Instagram Sued By Photographer Over Copyright ClaimsBY GIL KAUFMAN

A Wisconsin-based photographer filed a lawsuit in California federal court this week alleging that Instagram infringed on one of her copywritten images and ignored her takedown requests.

As first reported by TorrentFreak,

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photographer Jennifer Rondinelli Reilly claims that Instagram linked to one of her shots — a pair of red lips and a microphone — but the company’s takedown procedure failed to remove the image, which she registered with the U.S. Copyright Office in 2013.

If rights holders make a takedown request Instagram is expected to act quickly to take down the image, something Reilly says they failed to do in this case despite her sending notices on January 26, 27 and 28 of this year. “Reilly never authorized the Infringing Uses,” according to the complaint, which notes that the images are still on the site. “Instagram has not removed or disabled access to the Infringing Uses.” Reilly sells the “Red Lips and Microphone” image as a fine art print.

As a result, the lawsuit is seeking a temporary and permanent injunction against the service hosting the photo and compensation for the damage she claims to have suffered, as well as payment of her attorney’s fees. In a statement provided to Billboard, Instagram says the company “is aware of the suit and is looking into the matter.” A request to Reilly for comment wasn’t returned at press time.

While Torrentfreak reported that several of the offending images had been removed so far, appear to still be present.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s “safe harbor” provision protects Internet companies from responsibility for copyright infringement by their users. However, they are protected only if they promptly respond to DMCA takedown requests; if they fail to do so within a reasonable time frame they may be held liable.

Reilly filed a similar lawsuit against Twitter in January over the same image; that case was reportedly dismissed a short time later, though it’s unknown if a settlement was reached. She also reportedly sued BuzzFeed in February over copyright issues reportedly related to her images from Santana’s Universal Tone Tour; that status of that lawsuit was unknown at press time.

Updated: 1:23 p.m. ET March 30: A statement from Instagram was added.

Russian Torrent Site To Get Second Life Thanks to Former VKontakte CEOBY VLADIMIR KOZLOV

Russia’s recently banned torrent tracking web site RuTracker, the main source of music and movies for many Russians for several years, will re-emerge as part of the messaging service Telegram launched by Pavel Durov, founder of leading social net-work VKontakte (often referred to as “the Russian Facebook”).

RuTracker, which was permanently banned by a Russian court last December and was subsequently blocked by most Russian internet providers, recently announced collaboration with Telegram wherein Telegram’s users will be able to receive ‘magnet links’ leading them to download content via RuTracker.

Meanwhile, the concept of copyright-free distribution of music and media content online, which RuTracker has been sticking to, is apparently not strange to Durov. Durov, 31, founded VKontakte, which is in many ways similar to Facebook, in 2006, shortly after graduation from St Petersburg State University. One feature that VKontakte had and Facebook didn’t, allowed users to upload music tracks and videos that immediately became available to all other users.

The feature quickly made VKontakte popular with younger users over Facebook — and also triggered rights holders’ wrath, as the lion’s share of user-generated content on VKontakte was illegitimate.

VKontakte has yet to debut a legitimate music service, as it has repeatedly promised. Durov sold up his stock in the company and stepped down as CEO before leaving Russia in April 2014, citing pressure from authorities.

Durov’s standoff with the Russian

government began several months earlier, when VKontakte refused to release to authorities personal details on Ukrainian pro-democracy supporters during the Maidan revolution in Kiev. Back then, Durov said he had no plans of returning to Russia as the country is currently “incompatible with the Internet business.”

Durov, who also holds a passport of Saint Kitts and Nevis, is believed to constantly travel around the world with a team working on Telegram, which he launched in 2013.

Avicii Documentary Acquired By BBC Prior to Retirement AnnouncementBY LUIS POLANCO

BBC Worldwide last week (March 23) announced the acquisition of Avicii’s Stories music documentary.

Avicii’s announcement yesterday (March 29) that he is retiring from touring after his 2016 run has cast a new light on the documentary deal, with some outlets mistakenly reporting the acquisition had followed his announcement.

Stories follows the Swedish star from the release his debut album True in 2013 to the release of his sophomore record, which shares its title with the documentary. Directed by Levan Tsikurshvili, Stories documents the dance star’s career progression and challenges related to health issues that forced him to cancel festival appearances and tour dates.

BBC Worldwide’s director of music Salim Mukaddam said, “This film promises give fans and music lovers an insight into the unbelievable world of a superstar artist, from the highs of playing to packed stadiums around the world to the lows of illness and struggling to get back to the stage.”

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Terri Clark Is ‘Giddy’ Over New Gig As Host Of Country GoldBY PHYLLIS STARK

Terri Clark is a big fan of ’90s country, and not just because most of her own hits oc-curred during the latter half of that decade. She calls the era’s music “pretty amazing,” noting, “They were still writing songs about stories and life” in those days.

Those are some of the many reasons why she’s delighted to be taking over from Alabama frontman Randy Owen as host of Westwood One’s syndicated classic country show Country Gold, which airs on more that 100 radio stations nationwide. Along with the new host — who begins her job with the program set to air the weekend of April 9-10 — the long-running show will also make some programming adjustments, refocusing primarily on those ’90s hits. Clark says the music mix on the four-hour weekly show will now be about 50-60 percent ’90s and 30-40 percent ’80s, with the balance being older tunes.

“I am just so excited to get to sort of be a spokesperson for my era,” says Clark, describing herself as “giddy” over the opportunity to spotlight not only her artist peers, but the elder acts that influenced her musically, like Reba McEntire and Ricky Skaggs. “If I wasn’t doing this show I would be listening to it,” she adds.

Clark, a Grand Ole Opry member, has notched 10 top 10 hits on Hot Country Songs since making her U.S. debut in 1995, including the No. 1s “You’re Easy On the Eyes” and “Girls Lie Too.” In her native country she has won eight Canadian Country Music Assn. entertainer of the year awards and five female vocalist trophies.

In 2013 Clark embarked on a new phase of her career when she joined Cumulus’America’s Morning Show as part

of a Blair Garner-led cast that included fellow artists Chuck Wicks, Sunny Sweeney and Lee Ann Womack. Only Wicks now remains on the syndicated show with Garner.

Clark says she left the show after a little less than two years by “mutual” decision. The full-time, five-day-a-week gig proved very challenging for her. “The artist part of me had a really hard time with the schedule on weekends,” she explains. “I was trying to do tour dates. There are some clubs that don’t want you onstage until 10:30 p.m. So to have to flip my clock back around to getting up at 3:30 a.m. again on Monday morning was difficult.

“Blair knew that it was hard on me to do both. I think that show takes somebody who is dedicated to that 100 percent and willing to pretty much give up everything they’ve got going on for it,” she continues, while noting with admiration that Wicks has managed to find the right balance. “It’s a lot of work, and it’s not easy. I enjoyed it, but I feel like this [weekly] show is a much better fit for me. Face it: Morning shows don’t necessarily need five artists on them.”

Despite the challenges, Clark still loved working in radio, so when Cumulus programmer Charlie Cook came to her with the Country Gold opportunity, she jumped at it. “This is the kind of show I was hoping the morning show would eventually lead me to do,” she says, adding that it was her “ultimate goal” to do a program exactly like this one.

She learned a lot about how good radio is made while working on the morning show and plans to apply that new skill set to the job. In particular, she cites pointers picked up from Garner about doing compelling artist interviews since she hopes to have plenty of stars dropping by her show.

“There are a lot of artists from my era doing new music,” she says. “I want people to be aware of them. They’re still touring and making new records … I’d love to have people bring their guitar in and sing some acoustic versions of their past hits or new music. There’s all kinds of stuff that we can do to make this interesting.

“I don’t want it to be a show about me telling stories about me,” she continues. “I’m like a walking jukebox, especially with ’70s and ’80s country, and the ’90s was my era. I know a lot of these artists personally, so I’ll be able to interject facts and stories where I can about the artists as we’re going into songs.”

Clark believes artist-on-artist interviews tend to have a different feel than those conducted by a full-time air personality, and she plans to capitalize on that. “I think there is a trust factor, a loose factor that goes along with that,” she says of the peer-to-peer conversations. “Everybody knows I’m one of the guys, so it’s going to be fun. I’ve been on the road with a lot of these people. I still do shows with a lot of them.”

She has about 80 concerts booked this year, including a not-yet-announced fall tour, and plans to use some of those opportunities to grab interviews and audio of backstage banter with her fellow artists for the show. But she’s making sure to carve out plenty of time in her schedule to devote to the show in-studio as well.

“Touring and singing and playing is second nature to me,” she says. “This [radio] thing is a little bit newer, so I really want to make sure that I’m focusing on what I am doing here on this show and not rushing it.”

Although Owen hosted Country Gold for four years, Clark says she deliberately chose not to listen back to any of his shows to help prepare. “I do not want to bring in any preconceived thing to it. I want this to be fresh to me and make it unique and make it my own if I can. I know a lot of people will miss hearing Randy, but hopefully they will stick around to hear what we do.”

Even before officially starting the gig, however, there’s one thing Clark knows about it for sure: “I’m going to have a blast. No doubt about that.”

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Nashville Notes: Chris Stapleton Already An ACM Winner, Johnny Cash Songs Added To National RegistryBY TOM ROLAND

NEWS + NOTES

Chris Stapleton could win as many as seven trophies at the 51st annual Academy of Country Music Awards in Las Vegas on April 3 — and the first of those is already in the bag.

Stapleton claimed his first-ever ACM trophy when the academy announced the new-artist winners on March 23. He collected new male artist of the year, while Kelsea Ballerini scored new female and Old Dominion secured new duo/group. The honors were decided strictly by a vote of the ACM’s industry membership since the academy ended a fan-voting component that started eight years ago when balloting for entertainer of the year was opened up to the public.

The new artist trophies were confusing during the fan-voting years. The awards often went through several tiers of voting using different partners, and the categories seemed to shift almost yearly, thanks in large part to a paucity of female acts. The ACM hadn’t recognized all three categories since 2013 when Brantley Gilbert took new male, Jana Kramer earned new female and Florida Georgia Line accepted new duo/group. FGL also won the umbrella trophy, new artist of the year, in 2013.

The last time the ACMs divvied up the new-artist honors without naming an overall new artist of the year was 2008, when the titles went to new male Jack

Ingram, new female Taylor Swift and new duo/group Lady Antebellum. Much has changed since that time. Swift is now considered a pop artist, Ingram recently signed with indie label Rounder, and Lady A’s Charles Kelley is performing solo on the April 3 ACMs for the first time.

Kelley, Old Dominion, Little Big Town and Blake Shelton were all announced March 28 as new additions to the April 3 performance lineup, while the ACM also rolled out a few of the presenters’ names. They include Chris Janson, Kramer, Martina McBride, Kip Moore, Kacey Musgraves, Jake Owen, Chase Rice and Cole Swindell. It should be the least pressure Shelton has felt at the ACMs since 2010. He co-hosted each of the last five award shows with either Reba McEntire or Luke Bryan, including the 2015 soiree at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, an event that marked the only major awards show held in a stadium to date.

— Merle Haggard’s “Mama Tried” was one of this year’s 25 additions to the National Recording Registry, one of several developments that brought classic country into the news in the past week. Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline and Hank Williams’ likenesses were added to the Madame Tussauds Hollywood wax museum, and Williams was also recognized March 24 with a memorial plaque on Main Street in Oak Hill, W.Va., the city where his death was made official on Jan. 1, 1953. The Williams biopic I Saw the Light debuted in movie theaters on March 25.

— Jon Pardi and Brandy Clark will release their sophomore albums in June. Warner Bros. releases Clark’s Big Day in a Small Town, her first effort with producer Jay Joyce (Eric Church, Little Big Town), on June 10. She co-wrote each of its 11 tracks, including lead single “Girl Next Door,” which is No. 42 on Country Airplay. Capitol Nashville issues Pardi’s California Sunrise on June 17. The package features 12 tracks recorded with a seven-player core band, including first single “Head Over Boots,” which is currently No. 19 on Country Airplay.

— So it only took 75 years to make this happen: Kenny Chesney’s April 23 appearance at Jordan Hare Stadium in Auburn, Ala., will mark the first time in the structure’s history that it hosts a full-stadium concert. It’s also the first stadium gig on Chesney’s 2016 calendar, and it boasts Miranda Lambert, Sam Hunt and Old Dominion.

— Florida Georgia Line, Blake Shelton, Cole Swindell and Chris Young are set to play Nissan Stadium on June 11 during the CMA Music Festival. It’s the third of the event’s four nights at the venue, where the concerts will be distilled into an ABC special, CMA Music Festival: Country’s Night to Rock, for a 13th consecutive year. Among the previously announced acts scheduled for the first two nights are Carrie Underwood, Rascal Flatts, Jason Aldean, Sam Hunt and Hank Williams Jr.

RADIO MOVERS + SHAKERSNash Nights Live co-host Elaina

Smith and WNSH New York personality Shila Nathan will receive Gracie Awards from the Alliance for Women in Media Foundation. Smith’s honor will be presented May 24 in Beverly Hills, while Nathan’s trophy, recognizing her 2015 work at WUSN Chicago, will be handed out June 21 in New York … Chris Clare has taken the PD role at WTHT Portland, Maine, RadioInfo.com reported. He was recently music director/afternoon personality for WYCT Pensacola, Fla. … Chris “Muttley” Stevens was hired as Townsquare/Midland-Odessa, Texas, operations manager, according to RadioInfo.com. The five-station cluster includes country KNFM … Cumulus/Youngstown, Ohio, added Jeff Pezzano as vp sales, InsideRadio.com reported. Formerly Dix/Kent, Ohio, vp advertising sales and marketing, Pezzano’s new responsibilities include country WQXK … KKGO Los Angeles personality Christine Martindale is no longer with the station, according to InsideRadio.com. PD Tonya Campos has taken her shift on an interim basis.

‘ROUND THE ROWLyndsay Church joined Columbia

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Nashville as regional promotion manager. A senior legal analyst for Loomis, Sayles & Company in Boston, she previously worked at Capitol Nashville. She will relocate to Music City … Three Round Hill Music A&R staff members were promoted within the Nashville office. Mark Brown rose to senior vp from VP, Josh Saxe was upped to director from associate director, and Bob Squance became manager, shedding his senior coordinator title … Reviver is in the market for a publicity manager. Interested parties can send résumés to this email address with the subject line “Reviver Records Publicity Manager” … Speaking of Reviver, the label signed Kayla Adams to its artist roster … Singer-songwriter Jerrod Niemann signed a recording deal with Curb … Singer-songwriter Alyssa Micaela signed a publishing agreement with Warner/Chappell and … Neste Event Marketing president Gil Cunningham won the Academy of Country Music’s Don Romeo talent buyer of the year award, and Live National Country Music president Brian O’Connell claimed promoter of the year. They’ll receive their honors on April 2 in Las Vegas at an event hosted by Charles Kelley. Go here for the entire list of ACM Industry Award winners … The Source Awards, which honor significant women in Nashville’s music business, will be presented Aug. 30 at the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum at Municipal Auditorium … Former Bobby Roberts Booking Agency president Bob Younts died March 21. His clients through the years included Mel Tillis, John Anderson, Merle Haggard and Bobby Bare.

GOOD WORKSWith the 51st annual Academy of

Country Music Awards on deck for April 3, the organization’s ACM Lifting Lives is getting lots of attention. Chris Stapleton, whose seven ACM nominations make him the leader going into the CBS telecast, played a March 24 homecoming concert in Paintsville, Ky., that saw Ram Trucks and Lifting Lives partner to build an outdoor performance space at Johnson Central High School.

Chris Janson announced a day later the establishment of Harmonicas for Health, an initiative of the Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder Foundation, which is funded by ACM Lifting Lives. Meanwhile, preparations are underway for the annual ACM Party for a Cause Festival, a Las Vegas fundraiser for the academy’s charitable efforts. Stapleton and Janson are both on the bill, as are Carrie Underwood, Kenny Chesney, Dierks Bentley, Lee Brice and Martina McBride, among a slew of acts.

One of the programs previously associated with the festival, Outnumber Hunger, continues. Jennifer Nettles appears on boxes of General Mills products this spring as part of the campaign, created in conjunction with Big Machine Label Group and Feeding America.

This article first appeared in Billboard’s Country Update — sign up here.

ASCAP Taps John Mellencamp for Founders AwardBY LARS BRANDLE

John Mellencamp will be presented with the prestigious Founders Award at the 33rd an-nual ASCAP Pop Music Awards next month in Los Angeles.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer will be honored at the society’s April 27 gala at the Loews Hollywood Hotel.

“For the last four decades, John Mellencamp has captured the American experience in his songs,” said ASCAP President Paul Williams in a statement. “His infectious melodies and compassionate lyrics, wrapped in workingman’s rock, crystallize life’s joys and struggles and illuminate the human condition. A national treasure, he’s also one of the truly great music creators that

can make us care, move, clap and sing along.”

The Founders Award is bestowed each year to “pioneering” ASCAP songwriters who have made “exceptional contributions to music by inspiring and influencing their fellow music creators.”

Mellencamp’s trophy cabinet is as well stocked as that of any artist in the business. He’s a Grammy winner, a recipient of the John Steinbeck Award, ASCAP Foundation’s Champion Award, The Woody Guthrie Award and Americana Music Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award and he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008. Mellencamp’s 22nd LP Plain Spoken dropped in October 2008, peaking at No. 18 on the Billboard 200. Not bad for a guy who was initially determined to make it as a painter.

Previous winners of the Founders Award include Ashford & Simpson, Burt Bacharach & Hal David, Jackson Browne, Elvis Costello, Billy Joel, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley of KISS, Annie Lennox, Sir Paul McCartney, Joni Mitchell, Tom Petty, Smokey Robinson, Carly Simon, Patti Smith, Steely Dan, Rod Stewart, James Taylor, Steven Tyler & Joe Perry (Aerosmith), Tom Waits, Ann & Nancy Wilson (Heart), Stevie Wonder and Neil Young.

Also on the night, Walk the Moon, the pop band behind the ubiquitous hit “Shut Up and Dance,” will be rewarded with the ASCAP Vanguard Award, which “recognizes the impact of musical genres that help shape the future of American music,” according to ASCAP.

“It’s an honor and an awesome feeling to be recognized by ASCAP and the music-making community,” said Walk the Moon’s singer and keyboardist Nicholas Petricca. “Our fellow artists and those who surround and support us somehow create more and more stylish, original work each year, and we are very proud to receive this award in such an exciting time, among such prolific people.”

Walk the Moon join a cadre of previous Vanguard Award honorees including The

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All-American Rejects, Arcade Fire, Band of Horses, Beastie Boys, Beck, Björk, Sara Bareilles, Diplo, fun., Jack Johnson, The Killers, Modest Mouse, The Strokes and St. Vincent.

Nederlander CEO Alex Hodges on His Belmont Theatre Deal, Paragon’s Strategy in AustinBY ANDY GENSLER

Paragon Presents, in association with Nederlander Concerts, yesterday an-nounced an exclusive agreement to promote, produce and program Austin’s Belmont, a newly remodeled 1,000 seat capacity venue located in the heart of the city’s downtown area. During the SXSW, the indoor/outdoor performance space has hosted shows by several marquee acts including John Legend, Ludacris and Lil John and held corporate events sponsored by Google, NBC and Syfy among others..

The news marks the second such announcement in four months by Paragon, a new joint venture between independent promoters the Austin-based TAG Presents and Nederlander Concerts. In November, Paragon announced an exclusive contract to book and produce concerts at the 7,000-capacity Skyline Theater at the Long Center (last week city’s Austin American Statesman newspaper acquired the naming rights, it’s now known as the Statesman Skyline Theater at the Long Center) along with its indoor 2,400 capacity Long Center. The announcements point to Paragon’s ambitious live music strategy for Austin.

“We’re being aggressive toward growth,” Nederlander CEO Alex Hodges tells Billboard, who only began discussing

the new venture with TAG founder and Paragon president Paul Thornton last February. “We had an idea, we shared a vision, we made a partnership with Paragon Presents and now we have our first shows and we’re expanding that footprint with the Belmont.”

And Hodges says they’re not done yet — the promotions company is considering deals with other venues “up and down the ladder.” Hodges notes that this includes everything from stadiums and arenas to mid-size venues and small clubs and working non-exclusively with venues. “I can’t name some of the places we’ve looked at because our competition will swoop in,” he says with a aigh.

Known as the “Capital of Live Music,” Austin is a dynamic music market with a population of roughly two million in the metropolitan area offering both opportunities and stiff competition. The Texas Music Office lists some 90 Austin booking agencies and includes C3 Presents (which Live Nation acquired in 2014) and Transmission Events (which put-on the Fun Fun Fun Fest) — none of which deters Hodges.

“We’ve all been in business a long time and you find that today’s competition is tomorrow’s partner,” he says. “We’ll co-promote with anybody anywhere anytime, we’re very open. There’s a ton of independent promoters who are surviving and doing well — and that’s a good thing.”

María M. Iturriaga Named Executive Director of Berklee ValenciaBY JUDY CANTOR-NAVAS

María Martínez Iturriaga has been appoint-ed executive director of Berklee Valencia in Spain, the music college’s first internation-al campus. Iturriaga, a native of Spain, has

worked at Berklee since 2008, most recent-ly as the associate executive director and dean of admissions at Berklee Valencia. Berklee vice president of global initiatives Guillermo Cisneros previously served as the Valencia campus executive director.

“María has shown a remarkable ability to work collaboratively across areas and divisions of the college while delivering strong outcomes,” Berklee President Roger Brown said in a release from the college.

Prior to Berklee, Iturriaga worked in New York with AEA Consulting, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and New York City Center, and as a music agent on international projects. She received her MA in performing arts administration from New York University, and has an undergraduate business administration degree from Madrid’s Autonomous University. Iturriaga also graduated from the Madrid Royal Conservatory with a degree in piano performance.

Lauren Daigle’s ‘Trust in You’ Triumphs on Another Christian ChartBY JIM ASKER

Lauren Daigle’s co-written “Trust in You” ascends to the top of Billboard’s Christian Airplay chart (dated April 9). The third sin-gle from her debut full-length album, How Can It Be, climbs 3-1, up 8 percent to 10 million audience impressions, according to Nielsen Music.

“Trust” is Daigle’s second No. 1 on the ranking, following (aptly) “First,” which led for three weeks last fall. A year ago, the How Can It Be title track reached No. 6. The set has sold 272,000 to date. A deluxe version, which will include two new tracks, arrives May 6.

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“It astounds me that this song is making such an impact,” the 24-year-old singer/songwriter from Lafayette, La., tells Billboard. “Tragedy collides with hope every time we choose to trust Him beyond our circumstances. I’m so thankful for yet another outlet to shine a little light in times of difficulty.”

As “Trust” crowns Christian Airplay, it logs a third week atop the airplay/sales/streaming-based Hot Christian Songs chart (where it’s Daigle’s first No. 1) and Christian Digital Songs (where it’s her second topper, following “First”), with 9,000 downloads sold.

“Every once in a while, you have the privilege to work with an artist that is bigger than the plans and strategies,” says Steve Ford, GM of Daigle’s label, Centricity. “Lauren was like that. To see her fans respond with such energy and excitement is so rare. It’s all been quite rewarding.”

Meanwhile, on Top Gospel Albums, Jonathan Nelson’s fifth entry, Fearless, bounds in at No. 1 with 5,000 sold in its opening week. The 14-track live set is Nelson’s second leader, and second to launch at the summit, following 2013’s Finish Strong (8,000).

Also debuting in the Top Gospel Albums top five is jazz/gospel artist Cory Henry’s chart debut, The Revival (No. 5, 1,000).

On Top Christian Albums, F I R S T, the six-song launch EP from Saddleback Worship, the inspirational music collective based at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., jumps in at No. 11 (3,000). New at No. 12 is the compilation WOW Hits: 20th Anniversary (3,000). The set’s 39 songs are from genre stars including Francesca Battistelli, Hillsong United, Plumb and Matthew West.

Twenty One Pilots ‘Ride’ to No. 1 on Alternative Songs ChartBY KEVIN RUTHERFORD

As twenty one pilots’ “Stressed Out” contin-ues its three-month stay in the top five of the Billboard Hot 100 (where it rose to No. 2), the Ohio duo’s newest single has fol-lowed its predecessor to the top of the Al-ternative Songs radio airplay chart.

“Ride,” the third single from twenty one pilots’ album Blurryface, rises 2-1 on Alternative Songs (dated April 9) to become the pair’s second No. 1 on the chart. “Stressed” spent 12 weeks on top from November through February (and remains in the top 10, at No. 9). The act, Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun, is the first in nearly four years to spend time atop Alternative Songs with two titles in the same year; in 2012, two acts doubled up: The Black Keys, with “Lonely Boy” and “Gold on the Ceiling,” and fun., with “We Are Young” (featuring Janelle Monae) and “Some Nights.”

“Ride” also passes “Stressed” for twenty one pilots’ fastest flight to No. 1 on the ranking: 11 weeks for “Ride” vs. 13 for “Stressed.”

Earlier this month, “Ride” became the twosome’s fifth Alternative Songs top 10. “Holding On to You” and “House of Gold,” both from Blurryface predecessor Vessel, each reached No. 10, in 2013 and 2014, respectively, while lead Blurryface single “Tear in My Heart” peaked at No. 2 for eight weeks beginning last July.

Blurryface is approaching its one-year anniversary. The album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 (dated June 6, 2015) with 147,000 album equivalent units in its first week (134,000 in pure album sales, according to Nielsen Music), becoming twenty one pilots’ first leader on the list. It has gone on to sell 792,000 copies in the

U.S. to date. It led the Top Rock Albums chart for six total weeks and Alternative Albums for eight.

‘The Passion’ Top-Selling Songs: Chris Daughtry, Trisha Yearwood & MoreBY KEVIN RUTHERFORD

Following the March 20 premiere of Fox’s The Passion — the live musical retelling of the story of Jesus Christ set in modern-day New Orleans — a number of the show’s songs impact Billboard’s charts. In addition, the tracks from the pop-cov-er-laden special sold a combined 35,000 downloads in the week ending March 24, according to Nielsen Music.

Chris Daughtry’s cover of Evanescence’s 2003 hit “Bring Me to Life” sold the most digital downloads following the show’s airing: 6,000. The total was enough to earn Daughtry, who played Judas Iscariot in the special, a debut on the April 9-dated Hard Rock Digital Songs chart at No. 2, his first entry onto the chart, and No. 21 on Rock Digital Songs, his best rank since 2011 when “Renegade” (credited to his band Daughtry) debuted and peaked at No. 14. The “Bring Me to Life” sales alone were enough to place it at No. 38 on Hot Rock Songs, also the singer’s maiden voyage onto the chart, which began in 2009.

Daughtry’s other vocal performance from The Passion, a duet of Imagine Dragons’ “Demons” with Latin pop singer Jencarlos Canela (as Jesus), was the second best-selling song of the week from the soundtrack, moving 5,000 downloads. It bows at No. 24 on Rock Digital Songs and No. 21 on Alternative Digital Songs, along with a No. 43 entry on Hot Rock Songs.

Trisha Yearwood (as Mary) sees her

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rendition of Lifehouse›s «Broken» sell 4,000 for the week (up 324 percent). It was the third-biggest selling song from the special. That number adds to the song›s overall total of 8,000 downloads, as the song arrived to retail on Feb. 26.

Speaking of versions released before the March 20 premiere, Seal’s “Mad World” — a cover of Tears for Fears’ original (but done more in the vein of Michael Andrews and Gary Jules’ piano-led cover for the 2001 film Donnie Darko) — moves 3,000 (down 3 percent) to bring its overall total to 6,000. “Mad World” was the fourth biggest seller from The Passion. Rounding out the top five sellers from The Passion is Jencarlos’ redo of Katy Perry’s “Unconditionally,” which, like Seal’s “Mad World,” sold 3,000 downloads.

As for the 16-track soundtrack, it debuts at No. 8 on the Billboard 200 with 31,000 equivalent album units, 28,000 of which were from album sales. It also hits No. 1 on Soundtracks albums chart.

Disclosure: Billboard is an affiliate company of one of The Passion’s co-producers, Dick Clark Productions.