This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim Stenebeck on Bloomberg Radio.
All Right, everybody this weekend. It's not the super Bowl, it's the Grammys, which I guess we could say is the super Bowl of the music industry.
Yeah, I think that's fair to say. Hey, we've got back with us Harvey Mason, Junior CEO at the Recording Academy. It's the organization that oversees the Grammy Awards. I gotta give, like you know, not just a brief intro of heart. Harvey Mason has done everything. Okay, check this out. He's not just a CEO. He's also a music producer and songwriter. He's worked with Beyonce, Bieber, Aretha Franklin, Elton, John Whitney, Houston, Ariana Grande. Okay, so he knows a thing or two
about music. He's a movie producer. He's done scores for many of the movies that you know and love. He recently produced the Aretha Franklin biopic respect He's working on other movies right now. I'm very pleased to have Harvey back with us. How are you, Harvey?
So good? Thank you? That intro was much too long, but I appreciate it.
Well, you've done a lot.
You have done a lot, and I didn't even mention at all. Hey, let's talk a little bit about the industry right now, because look, since we last spoke to you, a lot has happened. We saw touring just roar back over the last year. Big thank you to Beyonce and Taylor Swift. But those are only two huge artists. The vast majority of artists are not able to do what they're able to do. Talk to us a little about the environment out there right now.
It's definitely unique since COVID, there's just an appetite, there's a hunger for live experiences, and I think music has been thriving because of that. But as you said, it's not just Beyonce and Taylor, thank you, they had great seasons, great years, but it's also the other touring working musicians, the people who hang the lights, the people who you know,
set the microphones and work the soundboards. There's so many music people associated with big tours and small performances, So venue owners think about all the different people that are in this eCos. We're just thankful that we're through COVID and we're able to enjoy music. And what I like most about the live shows, whether it's the big, massive arena tours or intimate stages, it just brings people together. It gets people to sing and nod their head and
feel good and share a human experience. So happy to be doing music right now and involved in the environment.
Hey, we'll talk to us about the environment for award shows. You know, it's gone under some difficult times, whether we're talking about the Oscars or the globes, you know, in terms of diversity issues and just kind of being more relevant in terms of what is going on. We're broadly at the world. I feel like music, to some extent often is more in tune to culture, but it's had its own rough moments. How do you think about it as you approach this year's Grammys?
So much to unpack there. Actually it's probably a ten minute response I'd love to give you, but I'll start with the work we've done over the last four years around our membership. You know, we're twenty four thousand members. We've totally rethought and overhauled who our members are. We're now at almost forty per cent people of color, where over thirty percent women, which is totally different than we were four years ago. Our awards and the diversity around that,
the representation has changed. But to your point of making sure we're relevant, it means listening to what's going on in the music industry. It means listening to our creators, our members, and them telling us. You know, we can't sit back in a room and say, Okay, we're the Academy. We're going to do this and this and this. We have to make sure we're representing the music people and we're listening to what's happening. This stuff moves so fast.
As you said, music is driving culture. In order to keep up with that, we have to make sure we're paying attention, we're inviting the right people in to share their knowledge and their experience. It could be as small as one genre saying, Harvey, you and the Academy are totally missing this. Let's make sure we get a new category, which is great because we've done three new categories this year.
Which is very cool. Who are the right people when you say that, what does that mean?
The right people are the professionals in those different groups of music makers, whether they're songwriters' producers, engineers, but there's all these different genres, and it's also more complicated because genres are blurring and people are coming together, but reaching out to the different areas geographically speaking, gender speaking, genre and making sure that we have information coming to us from all the different constituencies.
Hey, how do you make the show the actual Grammy Awards more relevant in terms of viewers, in terms of getting people to tune in. I'm just reminding myself. We learned earlier this month that a new low in terms of ratings for the Emmy Awards, So people are definitely getting their content other places. The award shows are not attracting the audience that they used to. How do you change that?
Well, we're actually trending the other direction. We were up thirty percent last year and we continue to grow our audience. But it's an interesting point something we have to consider. Consumers aren't necessarily always watching linear or traditional television. We have to make sure we're going out to where people are absorbing their content, taking in their content that could be digital, that could be social, that could be streaming.
And we're doing all that, and we're really happy and proud that our engagement is higher than it's ever been. More people are taking in Grammys and the music related content than ever before.
Yeah, it's interesting. You know, I was thinking about the super Bowl.
Which are you thinking about?
I was thinking about Taylor Swift. You know what's so funny. You know, we did this whole story about, you know, the Tailor and Travis combination, and you know, folks have done some calculating of kind of that brand and the impact it's having on the NFL and the super Bowl coming up a week after the Grammys. But I mean, when you think about the brand that is Grammys, what do you hope people think that it is?
Well initially and on the surface, we hope people really enjoy the show and say, wow, that was incredible. I saw something on stage that blew me away, or I'm so amazed. But my hope and our messaging and the more I reach out and talk to people, I would love it if they would understand what the Academy does. You know, the other three hundred and sixty four days of the year, which is advocate for music people make sure they have a safe and healthy ecosystem to operate in.
We are doing Music Cares, our health and human services organization. We gave out over thirty five million dollars during COVID, and then our museum and the education, the preservation of music, making sure the next generation of people like me or like our members have music at their fingertips to make sure they're learning and understanding. And so it's a wide range of things we do at the Academy. Yes, the
Grammys are here. It's exciting, it's amazing. Please enjoy it, but also know this is a not for profit organization that does everything within our power, within our mission to serve and uplift music.
I love what you said, and there's so many You started off the conversation about all the people behind the scenes and often the musicians, And I think about years ago I was in college and our college radio station was all about jazz here in New York and the jazz musicians who for years were never paid and there were a lot of them where that were homeless, Like
it was really upsetting. And I just think about, you know, being an advocate for those who are behind the scenes, right that aren't necessarily the front singer, if you will, or what you but that's a really important part of this.
And knowing your audience, Bloomberg, I'll talk a little bit about that, making sure that musicians are paid fairly and there's equitable system for royalties and ownership of intellectual properties. Whether it's the jazz musician who's working a day to day gig job somewhere, or it's a superstar and all the team that works with them, we have to make sure there's legislation in place. We're advocating federally and locally for laws and things that we passed to protect the
art form and protect the work. That's very important. And then, as I touched on music cares, when a musician is falling on hard times, do they have a safety net? They have somebody that they can call for support, for help financially or otherwise. And so that's what I'm proud about the Academy. For sixty five years, We've had ups, we've had downs. People have been happy with us, they've
been angry with us. But what's been consistent that we have not missed is the opportunity to serve our music community and will continue to do that.
Hey, Harvey, I just want to end with kind of people understanding more of how you do things, because I'm kind of still in awe of everything that you're able to do not just see the recording Academy, but outside of that job, how do you make sure that you're dedicating enough time to your CEO position but also pursuing these projects, including songwriting, producing, and then also working on these films.
Well, that's a delicate bouncing a good question. I don't know quite yet how I do it myself. I spend a lot of the time juggling. I do do the CEO thing pretty much all day every day, and then the evening comes to the music comes to me, and I can get into the studio and create. So it's a juggling act. My kids are growing up. I don't have pets, I don't have any hobbies. I love to work.
I love that. Is there any AI involved? Just got about ten fifteen seconds.
AI's definitely involved. A I has always been involved, not always, but in the last ten or so years, it's been involved in how I make music, how people write, how people create, and it's going to continue to go that direction. We have to make sure we're figuring out how to put some guardrails around that and protect the human creative community.
It's a really good point.
Listen.
We're looking forward to the Grammys this week, and thanks for finding some time for us. We know you're really busy. Harvey Mason, Junior Chief executive Officer at the Recording Academy, As we said, oversees the Grammy on Grammys, excuse me on Zoom from La