Record Label Innovative Leisure to Partner with Clear Channel on Digital and Broadcast Revenue-Sharing
Home of Indie Favorites Hanni el Khatib, Rhye, and Classixx is the Latest Label to Join Clear Channel In Effort to Build Sustainable Internet Radio Business Model
LOS ANGELES, CA and NEW YORK, NY – July 25, 2013 – Clear Channel Media & Entertainment, the leading media company with a greater reach than any other radio or television outlet in the U.S., and indie music label Innovative Leisure today announced an agreement that will enable Innovative Leisure’s artists to share in broadcast and digital revenue. The label’s artists – including Hanni el Khatib, Rhye, Classixx, Nosaj Thing and others – will receive a share of revenue for airplay on Clear Channel’s 850 AM/FM stations in 150 U.S. markets as well as on its fast-growing iHeartRadio digital radio platform.
This agreement, along with Clear Channel’s similar partnerships with other record labels, is helping to develop a sustainable Internet radio business model for all stakeholders – artists, labels, music fans and radio.
Los Angeles-based Innovative Leisure, which launched less than three years ago, already boasts some of today’s most talked-about indie artists. Garage rocker Hanni el Khatib, whose album Head in the Dirt was produced by the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, has performed at some of the year’s top festivals, including SXSW and Coachella. The label was also behind the launch and success of soulful pop duo Rhye, whose debut album Woman was named one of the best albums of 2013 by the Los Angeles Times. Innovative Leisure will release seven full-length albums in 2013 – including music from Nosaj Thing, Classixx and Bass Drum of Death – more than doubling last year’s release total.
Billboard called Innovative Leisure “a prodigy among young record labels.” The label has forged partnerships with a number of major brands, including Audi, which featured Hanni El Khatib’s song “Can’t Win ‘Em All” in its Super Bowl ad, and American Eagle, which sponsored an animated billboard in Times Square to promote Classixx’s new album Hanging Gardens.
“Jamie, Hanni and I started this label to help cultivate artists that we feel passionately about, without confining ourselves to any specific genre,” said Nate Nelson, co-founder of Innovative Leisure. “Clear Channel’s reach and connection to music listeners will help bring our artists’ music to millions of potential new fans.”
“Innovative Leisure has shown they can think outside the box to move both their company and the industry forward,” said Bob Pittman, CEO of Clear Channel. “We are excited to share the music of Hanni el Khatib, Classixx, Nosaj Thing, Rhye, Allah-Las and the label’s other emerging talent with our listeners regardless of which platforms and devices they want to use to find them.”
Clear Channel’s partnership with Innovative Leisure follows the company’s landmark revenue-sharing agreement with Fleetwood Mac – the first direct performing rights partnership between a radio company and an artist. Clear Channel has also formed similar market-based agreements with Big Machine Label Group, Glassnote Entertainment Group, eOne, Dualtone, DashGo, rpm Entertainment, Robbins Entertainment, Naxos, Wind-up Records, Fearless Records, and Zojak World Wide.