🪐 Wasserman Music, The COVID Diaspora & The Changing Music Agency Universe
📊 Using data visualization to track COVID’s impact on the music talent/booking agency landscape
Last week, Paradigm’s NA music division became Wasserman Music. The shake-up comes at a time when everyone is hoping for a return of IRL shows after more than a year.
We thought we’d take this moment & use ROSTR’s data to look at…
📊 The data behind Wasserman Music
🪐 How Paradigm’s split impacts the agency universe
🚀 UTA’s recent tear
🆕 How COVID led to a diaspora of new agencies
Wasserman Music - The Data
At launch, ~50 agents represent ~1.3K artists.
Roster
Marquee artists include…
Genre Breakdown
Indie , Pop, & Dance / Edm are the most common genre tags on the roster.
🪐 How Paradigm’s split impacts the agency universe
To understand the impact on the ecosystem, we compared data from early 2020 (pre-COVID) with data from this week; the top 100 agencies by roster size, the average artist size & the total audience size (Spotify Listeners).
2020 Data (Pre-Covid)
💡 Hover or tap to interact with the chart
4️⃣ CAA, WME, Paradigm & UTA stand out with rosters 3–5x the size of the next biggest & significantly larger artists.
🏆 WME & CAA had a clear lead. They occupied a similar (sweet) spot: large rosters with the largest artists.
🐘 In 2020, Paradigm had by far the largest roster (~ 3K) but with relatively smaller artists than WME & CAA.
👈 We saw this volume in action when Paradigm dominated all but the very top rows of the Coachella 2020 lineup.
🖖 So what happens when you carve one of the largest agencies in two?
.🎳 The Paradigm split bunches the chasing pack. There was daylight between UTA & Paradigm, now, there are 3 very similar-sized agencies chasing WME & CAA.
🏆 WME & CAA are still significantly ahead. Will the fragmentation in the chasing pack help them extend that lead?
🚀 UTA jumped up & to-the-right since 2020, thanks to some aggressive moves during the pandemic (more on this next).
🎯 Bonus- hover over the bubbles towards the bottom-right. These are the elite boutique agencies; small rosters, EXTRA large artists. These include Cara Lewis Group, Marshall Arts & now One Finiix Live.
🚀 UTA on a Tear
Prior to the pandemic, UTA was some distance behind Paradigm, WME & CAA (at least by this data set). However, recent moves are changing the trajectory.
Agents 👉 UTA
UTA has picked up a number of notable agents:
(ex-WME)
Samantha Kirby Yoh
Robbie Brown
Carlos Abreu
Matt Meyer
(ex-Paradigm)
Jeffrey Hasson
Jenny DeLoach
Natalie Koe
Perry Gilman
(ex-CAA)
Brett Saliba
& they brought big artists with them…
Echo Location 👉 UTA
Last month, UTA acquired Echo Location — a UK agency led by Obi Osaka.
A few of Echo’s ~160 artists that joined UTA…
New Signings 👉 UTA
They’ve also signed some marquee artists…
UTA Growth
These moves have helped grow UTA’s audience from 1.75 to 2.6 Billion Spotify Listeners. +46% during the pandemic…
🆕 The COVID Diaspora — a wave of new agencies
The pandemic saw significant layoffs & furloughs across the sector. Some of those affected went on to set up their own agencies, others took the opportunity to jump to something new.
This has created an opportunity for a reverse of what had, up until COVID, been a long period of consolidation in the space.
We count 19 notable agencies created during the pandemic…
And, here’s where they fit in…
🎳 Most have relatively small rosters & artists, sitting in the clustered pack behind the medium-sized players.
📣 TBA is the largest. MINT & Arrival Artists have less reach, but similar scale.
💥 One Fiinix has by far the largest artists in this group including Ed Sheeran, Lauv & Anne-Marie.
🧮 Individually, each is a relatively small dot. However, combined (yellow bubble), they amount to an agency larger than ICM. With many of these agents & their artists moving from the majors, this is akin to taking an ICM sized chunk out of the major players & distributing it down the chain.
🤔 These are agencies that might not have existed if it weren’t for COVID, founded by agents with major agency experience & relationships. It’ll be interesting to see if these agencies drive increased competition from the bottom-up.
Ending on a personal note…
In the past year, I’ve seen so many “I’m now on furlough” or “This email address no longer exists” from the agency world. Still, I’m relieved that the vast majority of agencies have survived this far.
Myself, & the ROSTR team, are heavily rooting for the return of concerts so you can get back to getting artists on the road, and, for those who lost your jobs, hopefully, get back to work soon.
Mark Williamson
CEO/Co-Founder @ ROSTR
About ROSTR
ROSTR is a startup tracking artists, people, companies & data across the music industry. It’s free to use (request a free invite here). We also work on custom projects to help brands use our data to navigate the music industry. If you’d like to talk, please also email pro at rostr.cc
Here are some similar reports we’ve put out in the past…
Housekeeping / Data
- While we do our best to ensure accuracy, roster counts & the data associated with them are close, but not exact.
- Data for artists signed to multiple agencies are counted for all those agencies.
- Spotify Listeners is an imperfect metric (Spotify listeners ≠ tickets sold) but without any live data for the last year, we believe it is equal-opportunities imperfect.
- Some agencies are partnered with other agencies. We have NOT combined the data for these & are treating each brand individually.
- If you have any questions about any of the data or, if you’re an agency that wants to get in touch about your data please email data at rostr.cc
