TuneCore paid artists US$32.7M in Q3, hires MTV’s SVP

TuneCore has announced strong Q3 2014 artist earnings and has highlighted several new key initiatives to support independent artists.

The Brooklyn-based company’s US$32 million Q3 2014 earnings signify a 13.2% increase over last year’s Q3, bringing the total amount paid to distribution clients since 2006 to US$471.5 million. The figure is based on 10.6 billion combined streams and downloads, with the amount of streams increasing by 154% when compared to Q3 2013.

TuneCore also revealed that hip hop stands as its top genre by both quality of distributed releases and revenue paid with 1.6 billion downloads and streams and US$59 million in artist earnings since the company’s inception in 2006.

During Q3 2014, TuneCore Publishing Administration’s creative team successfully secured and negotiated several high-profile sync deals for songwriters. These placements included the critically acclaimed Sundance award winning documentary The Overnighters, Budweiser’s Made in America content series and MTV’s teen comedy, Awkward.

Accompanying these high profile sync deals was the launch of TuneCore’s Artist Services portal that acts as a selected portfolio of music-oriented resources. Through the use of this service, promotion and the establishment of new connections are made easier for independent artists as they exploit additional tools like Track Smarts, Twimusic, MerchLink and Banzgoogle.

Joe Cuello, former Senior Vice President Music Services at MTV, has joined TuneCore as Chief Creative Officer. Cuello’s 20+ years of experience in music has seen him be responsible for the incorporation of music within the MTV network’s long-form programming. He also has acted as music supervisor on numerous MTV and VH1 projects including Pimp My Ride, Making the Band, Newlyweds and Bands Reunited.

With a new Chief Creative Officer and initiatives that maximise international opportunity for clientele, TuneCore’s CEO Scott Ackerman has stated that the company views the positive growth as “validation of our vision of artists as entrepreneurs who can take charge of their own careers.”