Posted inNews

Fuga boss sees bright future in local DSPs and blockchain technology

Fuga boss Pieter van Rijn has been outlining where he sees future revenue growth coming from, in his speech at the Music Ally China Digital Summit.

“The continuous rise of UGC and social platforms in combination with the emergence of significant locational DSPs in, for instance, Asia and Latin America is really important and it will continue to unlock growth and value for existing and future content,” he said, before predicting that the music industry’s data analysis capabilities will enable it to be “more predictive and more prescriptive”.

Van Rijn also cited blockchain technology as encouraging. “The word that at some point was very popular, then became a bit of a swear word, and is now back on the table again,” as he put it.

Posted inNews

COVID-19: Time to turn disruption into innovation (guest column)

This is a guest column from Pieter van Rijn, CEO of FUGA:

“All around the world we are facing an unprecedented crisis, the likes of which haven’t been seen on this scale since before most of us were born. Like most industries, this also has also had implications for the music business, some parts more than others. We are getting all too used to hearing of festival, tour and conference postponements or employees losing their jobs.

Against these truly overcast skies, there are ways to make the best of the situation. We’ve all been forced to refocus on what we do and why, as we reimagine our workforces working from home. While disruptive, this focusing process not only enables us to cope best in the short term but to emerge stronger once the clouds clear.

Of course, working from home presents its challenges; for those looking after children normally at school, for singles and even more so single parents. But most of us who traditionally commuted to the office every day have been surprised by how much can be achieved. We have also quickly shaken off some outdated norms — a video conference with a baby or pet being introduced at the start of the meeting is if anything quite charming.

In this period of disruption, taking the time to revisit your objectives and key results provides an opportunity to clarify staff members’ priorities. And in fact, being removed from the general melee of an office can make it easier for team members to focus more clearly on their individual objectives.

Posted inNews

Downtown Music Holdings’ latest acquisition is… FUGA

Downtown Music Holdings, the parent company of Downtown Music Publishing and Songtrust, is buying distributor and music/tech services company FUGA, for an undisclosed amount.

The deal comes just 10 months after Downtown made a splash with the acquisition of AVL Digital Group, whose subsidiaries included CD Baby, AdRev, DashGo and Soundrop.

AVL is the entity making the acquisition of FUGA, which means that the latter will now be a sister company of CD Baby under the AVL umbrella. Downtown says that FUGA will “continue to function as a standalone business” within the group.