By now you’ll likely have heard about Warner Music Group getting its chequebook out again, acquiring Dutch dance-music company Spinnin’ Records yesterday.
WMG is thought to have paid more than $100m for the label, publishing and management firm, with rumoured competition from rivals including Sony Music for the deal in recent months.
Spinnin’ CEO Roger de Graaf will remain as CEO, working with WMG’s EVP, global A&R and marketing, dance music Bart Cools.
The key here isn’t just about WMG beefing up its dance-music credentials though, as incoming CEO of recorded music Max Lousada made clear in his statement on the acquisition.
“Roger and the team aren’t just world leaders in dance music, but pioneers of new ways to break artists and build music brands,” said Lousada.
That’s the context in which Music Ally has written most about Spinnin’ Records in recent years: it’s one of relatively few music companies to have success on YouTube by playing to the strengths of that platform.
In April 2017 it was the 51st biggest channel on YouTube according to rankings published by industry site Tubefilter, with Spinnin’ generating just under 229m views that month. Its channel currently has 18.4 million subscribers, and 11.23bn lifetime views.
There’s a pattern here for WMG: what Spinnin’ brings in its YouTube savviness is similar to what past acquisitions X5 Music and Playlists.net brought in their knowledge of the dynamics of audio-streaming playlists.
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