Distribution Deal Prices Are Soaring as Competition for Artists Heats Up

The pop duo LANY released their first four albums on a major label. But when they completed their contract, they decided to hunt for a different kind of business partner, one that would give them more control over their operations. “Autonomy is the future,” manager Rupert Lincoln told Billboard. LANY ultimately chose to work with Stem, a distribution company. 

For decades, major labels demanded long-term contracts, obtaining multiple albums from the acts they signed, and made most of the money from those acts’ sales. The balance of power has shifted dramatically in the modern music industry, however, and so have artist contracts. More and more acts want distribution deals — short-term agreements where they retain ownership of their work and keep the majority of the income their music generates. 

As these have become more desirable, competition for high-performing artists seeking distribution deals has gotten fierce, according to a pitch deck Stem has sent to potential investors, which was obtained by Billboard. Stem “has lost numerous deals historically as it wasn’t able to be competitive with advances,” the deck states. 

Other companies have also seen prices rise. “It is a much more competitive market” than it used to be, says Jorge Brea, founder and CEO of the distributor Symphonic. “All distros have to be well-funded to ensure they can put up money for deals.”

Historically, digital distributors didn’t help artists much with marketing or radio promotion; they were basically tech companies that made music widely available on places like iTunes and Spotify in exchange for a small percentage of sales. These low-overhead operations were a world away from an old-school major label, which had lots of manpower to promote artists around the world.

But ironically, as the distribution landscape has become sexier — “There have been more entrants,” Brea notes — many of these companies are starting to resemble labels. Increasingly, they try to differentiate themselves from rivals by offering bigger up-front payments to artists and more label-like services: assistance with digital marketing, playlist pitching to streaming services, or radio promotion. 

Concerns about up-front payments and services feature prominently in Stem’s pitch deck. The company estimates that it lost out on $45.6 million dollars worth of business in 2022: $19.2 million in scenarios where Stem couldn’t meet an artist’s ideal “check size,” and $26.4 million in situations where it couldn’t compete on “check size + other services (Intn’l, radio).” 

By Stem’s count, the number of lost business opportunities ballooned in 2023, tripling to $134 million. (If accurate, this number helps demonstrate how popular distribution deals have become recently.) “We’re tracking all the lost deals that we were actually in the conversation on,” says Kristin Graziani, Stem’s president.

The pitch deck zooms in on two artists in particular whom Stem lost to rivals: Aaron May, a rapper with a laid-back delivery who took an advance of $2.2 million elsewhere, according to the deck; and 6arelyhuman, an electronic act specializing in glitchy, thumping tracks who took an advance of $1 million. (A source close to May contends the number cited in the pitch deck isn’t accurate.) In both these cases, Stem couldn’t match the final check, though the presentation doesn’t say whether those artists also wanted services that the company couldn’t provide — or picked a rival distribution outfit for another reason altogether.

In July 2023, Stem announced that it had set up a $250 million credit facility from Victory Park Capital to provide artists with advances. But “some of the dynamics of our deal with Victory Park were still a little bit constraining in terms of allowing us to win the type of deals that we were seeing,” says Stem CEO Milana Rabkin-Lewis. “There are many other types of capital out there that have less restrictions,” she continues, “and those are the conversations we’re having” now.

Other companies are doing the same — Billboard reported in August that at least half a dozen independent music distributors that have been fundraising or exploring a sale. That said, investors may be wary of providing some of these businesses with additional money to help them win bidding wars over talent, according to Erik Gordon, clinical assistant professor at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. 

Stem’s adjusted EBITDA — earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization — was negative in 2022 and in 2023, according to the company’s presentation; it’s projected to be negative in 2024. In Gordon’s view, “investors are likely to take three consecutive years of EBITDA that is negative, even after management adjusts it, as a sign of problems.”

Rabkin-Lewis says that, although “the distribution business is profitable, the overall Stem company is not because we’ve invested a lot into Tone, which is a newer product.” (The adjusted EBITDA for the distribution part of Stem’s business was negative in 2022 but positive in 2023, according to the deck.) “We’ve been prioritizing gross revenue growth,” Rabkin-Lewis adds; the deck indicates that gross revenue is projected to rise in 2024 over 2023’s number. In response to questions about the health of the business, Rabkin-Lewis also notes that “our overall portfolio performs at a very good [internal rate of return].”

Meanwhile, distribution deals for proven artists continue to get more expensive. “A lot of companies are throwing out cash-heavy distro deals that we have never seen before,” says Karl Fowlkes, an entertainment attorney. At Symphonic, Brea has watched some of his competitors enter into agreements he believes are “ridiculous.” “We’re aggressive when going after deals,” he adds, “but not to the point where it’s not going to make [economic] sense.”

Distributors have to be especially careful when it comes to chasing expensive deals, because the short-term nature of their contracts gives them little time to make their money back. And successful artists often decamp for a rival company, lured away by a bigger check or the promise of a more powerful services division that can propel them to even greater heights. Brent Faiyaz, who worked with Stem among other companies in the past, subsequently partnered with UnitedMasters, for example. 

On October 4, Stem updated its terms of service to say that it is guaranteed a five-year license on any new music uploaded through its system. (As always, artists with more leverage can negotiate a shorter term.) This change raised eyebrows in some corners of the music industry, because the ability for artists to disentangle relatively quickly is a big part of why they choose to work with companies like Stem. “We feel like we’re finally at a point, from a services perspective, where we can demand longer licenses,” Graziani says. A five-year term is more in line with what a major-label-owned distributor like AWAL would ask for in negotiations with an artist. 

This points to another lane for competition — not just check size and services offered, but license length. Independent distribution companies face an ongoing challenge: It can be hard to prevent artists from heading elsewhere without offering agreements that look more like the ones handed out in the major-label ecosystems. 

“The supply of distribution is now almost infinite — you can get it anywhere,” says Emmanuel Zunz, founder of the independent label ONErpm. “In order to make money in distribution, you have to create value elsewhere. If you’re unable to create additional value, you get stuck.”