Licensing-Publishing Companies Cue Up Merger

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They’re scaling up for more deals: Two L.A. music licensing and publishing houses merged last month to create Riptide Music Group of Culver City.

The group is a combination of Riptide Music and Pigfactory, which have both been in business for about a decade. Riptide Music Group is now working to grow the list of up-and-coming musicians it represents in licensing deals for commercials, movie trailers and TV shows.

Keatly Haldeman, chief executive at Riptide, said the company is in the hunt for new music. The merger will allow the company of 15 to expend more resources pitching music to decision-makers.

“Scale is benefiting us all around,” he said. “Anyone who is in our catalog is getting double (the attention).”

Before merging, both companies specialized in pitching music to be used in ads, video games and movie trailers, among other venues. Recent placements have included trailers for “The Wolf of Wall Street” and “Iron Man 3.” They’re called “sync” companies because they synchronize music to video.

Pigfactory also had a specialty in collecting royalties worldwide from the radio or Internet downloads as well as mobile platforms such as Spotify.

If a firm has actively pitched the music to a production, it typically makes a commission on the licensing deal of between 25 percent and 50 percent. If the company is simply collecting a royalty for a song, it takes a commission closer to 10 percent or 15 percent of the deal.

Riptide, whose clients include Fatboy Slim, has recently worked to bolster its roster of musicians who might have just signed a record deal but are still under the commercial radar.

The company sent staff to the South by Southwest festival last week to scout new acts. Also, some of the company’s clients were playing there, such as British house trio Dirty Vegas and R&B singer Jarell Perry.

Now, the company is hoping to raise money in the next year to be used toward paying artist advances on future deals. For example, the company might pay $25,000 for the rights to exploit an artist’s album. For a royalty collection deal, the company will typically pay a multiple of what the music has generated in sales over a previous time period.

Haldeman said he thinks that with the right financing the company’s proactive approach can make it competitive with larger firms.

“If we are able to have enough financial backing, we can compete for the talent and the catalogs better than many of the publishing companies out there,” he said.

Register Launch

The parent of Orange County Register, Freedom Communications, has firmed up plans for the launch of a daily L.A. newspaper.

The Santa Ana firm announced last week that the Los Angeles Register will launch April 16. The company also confirmed plans to publish a wide array of weekly print papers in Los Angeles.

Single copies of the Los Angeles Register will cost $1.50 on weekdays and $2 on Sundays; the paper will be available at about 7,500 retail and news rack locations. Home delivery will cost less than $1 a day, or $19.99 for an initial four-week subscription. Subscribers to the Long Beach Register will receive the paper.

In addition, Freedom will begin publishing about a dozen new monthly community newspapers in areas such as Manhattan Beach and Pomona. The strategy began with a deal earlier this year that has the company managing the weekly and monthly papers for Easy Reader of Hermosa Beach.

Freedom also announced this month that it would publish a Spanish-language weekly in Los Angeles called Unidos en el Sur de California.

Freedom will send about 50 editors and reporters into Los Angeles for the daily’s launch, with about 40 of those jobs already filled, according to a post on L.A. Observed.

Freedom Chief Executive Aaron Kushner has also been spreading word of the launch at panel discussions, first at USC earlier this month and then at an event at the Petersen Automotive Museum.

Comings and Goings

The Los Angeles Times has named Stacey Leasca social media editor. … AEG Facilities has promoted Charles Steedman to chief operating officer. … Nerdist Industries has named Adam Rymer president and Jack Herrguth head of development. … Genius Brands International of Beverly Hills has appointed Anthony Thomopoulos to its board. … Source Interlink Media has named Peter Englehart chairman.

Staff reporter Jonathan Polakoff can be reached at [email protected] or (323) 549-5225, ext. 226.

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