WMG’s New CEO Robert Kyncl Outlines Vision for Music Industry Amid ‘Tough Quarter’

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WMG's new CEO Robert Kyncl addressed the future of both Warner and the business at large, commenting on AI, subscription streaming and TikTok.

“We will continue to invest in new artists and songwriters, our catalog and our global expansion,” he said. “At the same time, we plan to thoughtfully reallocate some resources to accelerate how we use technology and data to empower artists and songwriters, as well as drive greater efficiency in our business.” That, he added later in the Q&A section of the call, will come “with continued focus on financial discipline and cost containment.

That doesn’t necessarily mean layoffs, however; he noted that WMG “has actually been much more measured in its headcount growth, for instance, over the last few years than others in the industry who are now undergoing significant layoffs,” and had been addressing financial initiatives even before the recent fluctuations in the market.

On the topic of AI — which he called “probably one of the most transformative things that humanity has ever seen” — Kyncl said that the conversation falls into four buckets in how content owners need to work with AI platforms: “One is the use of existing copyrights to train generative AI. The second is sampling of existing copyrights as the basis for new and remixed AI generated content. The use of AI to help and support creativity — so an assistive way to do that.

Another benefit from his YouTube days, Kyncl says, is his experience being on the other side of the negotiating table from the major labels when it came to developing YouTube as a partner with and contributor to the music industry.

“At YouTube, we looked at this problem very closely, and we decided that music was very important to us, and that’s why we did it,” he said, referencing YouTube’s push into subscription streaming, tools like Shorts and improvements to ContentID, among other initiatives. “TikTok needs to do that. It’s the right decision for them to evaluate. And you can see from YouTube’s execution what the results of the finding was for us. But I can’t speak to what TikTok finds. That’s up to them.

 

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