19 GUY MOOT

CO-CHAIR/CEO

CO-CHAIR/COO

WARNER CHAPPELL MUSIC

CARIANNE MARSHALL

Warner Chappell’s 2023 revenue totaled almost $1.1 billion, a 66% increase from the $653 million the publisher generated in 2019, the year Moot and Marshall were tapped to run the company. The duo also turned heads when WCM’s third-quarter market share of Hot 100 songs eclipsed Universal Music Publishing Group’s, 18.2% to 18%, putting it at No. 2 behind Sony Music Publishing — the first time it held the position since Billboard began tracking publishers’ shares of Hot 100 songs in 2019.

With business on the upswing, Marshall says the publisher is focused on adapting to new digital music challenges. “We’re trying to figure out the best way to make sure our music gets heard the way people consume music currently, but it’s very fractured,” she says. “You have to do so much more work in order to get something to actually stick.” The executives are hopeful that the content licensing deal that WCM’s parent company, Warner Music Group, negotiated with TikTok in July will raise the visibility of their creators.

Marshall says that “digging deeper in our catalogs” and using digital consumption data may also help a wider range of songs earn money. Moot adds that deals with legacy artists, such as the global publishing deal that WCM closed with Foreigner’s Mick Jones in December after a “seven- or eight-year — maybe longer — pursuit of his catalog,” are expected to be consistent earners, as are the catalogs of Madonna and the late David Bowie and George Michael. Marshall also says that with the lucrative synch market facing challenges due to the Hollywood strikes and Netflix and Disney content cutbacks, future success depends on ensuring “we have the best relationships, not just with music supervisors, but anybody who could possibly license content.”