Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) Acquires Live

Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) has acquired LiveOne, Inc. for an undisclosed amount. This corporate acquisition sees BMI, a global leader in music rights management representing songwriters, composers, and music publishers, expand its footprint into direct-to-consumer content and digital entertainment. LiveOne, Inc., headquartered in Los Angeles, California, is an award-winning, creator-first music, entertainment, and technology platform. It specializes in delivering premium experiences and content worldwide through memberships, live, and virtual events, and operates subsidiaries including Slacker Radio and PodcastOne.

The strategic rationale behind this acquisition centers on integrating BMI's extensive music rights expertise with LiveOne's robust content delivery and fan engagement capabilities. BMI gains direct access to a significant distribution platform and a large audience base, offering new avenues for its represented artists and their works beyond traditional licensing. This move allows BMI to diversify its revenue streams and enhance its presence in the rapidly evolving digital content landscape. For LiveOne, the integration with a major music rights organization is expected to streamline content acquisition, improve licensing efficiencies, and potentially expand its content pipeline.

LiveOne brings to BMI a substantial operational scale, including a combined paid and free ad-supported membership base of 2.5 million. Its platform has streamed over 2,900 artists, boasts a library of 30 million songs, 600 curated radio stations, and over 300 podcasts/vodcasts, with PodcastOne alone generating more than 2.1 billion downloads per year. This acquisition marks a significant step for BMI into direct consumer engagement and content monetization. The combined entity is poised to create a more integrated ecosystem for music creators and consumers, leveraging BMI's rights management with LiveOne's content delivery platforms to enhance value for artists, publishers, and audiences in the digital entertainment sector.