BMG is rising its share of the world’s fourth largest music market by buying German unbiased powerhouse Telamo, the nation’s largest indie imprint and market chief in Schlager music, a type of straightforward listening Europop.
Berlin-based BMG didn’t reveal monetary phrases of the deal, which the Austrian Federal Competitors Authority nonetheless must approve earlier than it may be accomplished. BMG says it’s the firm’s largest label funding since it acquired Nashville-based BBR Music Group in 2017. That deal was value round $100 million, in keeping with sources on the time.
In 2021, BMG generated revenues of €40 million ($40.6 million) in Germany throughout its recorded music and publishing divisions, in keeping with mum or dad firm Bertelsmann‘s year-end monetary report, with recordings accounting for round half of that complete. Billboard understands the acquisition of Telamo will roughly double BMG’s recorded music revenues in its dwelling market.
Germany’s recorded music market grew 12.6% to $1.6 billion in 2021, sustaining its long-held place because the world’s fourth-largest recorded music market and second largest in Europe, behind the UK, in keeping with IFPI’s International Music Report 2022.
BMG’s chief content material officer Dominique Casimir says the settlement to accumulate Telamo “redraws the map of the German music business, creating a brand new power exterior the normal enterprise.”
Based in 2012 and with places of work in Munich and Berlin, Telamo makes a speciality of Schlager music, a kitsch and nostalgic fashion of mainstream pop – typically described as Germany’s reply to nation music – that’s massively widespread in Germany and elements of Central Europe and continuously represented on the Eurovision Track Contest. Based on evaluation by Germany music business commerce group BVMI, Schlager is the second-most widespread style in Germany after pop-rock with a 15% market share.
This week, veteran Schlager act Die Amigos, who’re signed to Telamo, are at No. 1 on the Official German albums chart with Liebe Siegt – the duo’s 14th chief. One other Telamo artist, Eric Philippi, is at present quantity two on TikTok Germany’s Scorching 5 chart and is “Scorching Artist Of The Week” together with his single “Schockverliebt.”
Different big-selling Schlager/Deutschpop artists signed to Telamo embrace Giovanni Zarrella, Eloy de Jong, Marianne Rosenberg, Ross Antony, Thomas Anders & Florian Silbereisen, Daniela Alfinito and Fantasy.
BMG says its acquisition of Telamo will develop the corporate’s share of Germany’s recorded music market to round 8.5%, based mostly on the most recent market knowledge from German music commerce publication MusikWoche. The deal additionally contains the digital model Schlager für Alle, which acts as an internet neighborhood for followers of the style and has over 1.7 million customers through its Fb, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok channels.
Telamo’s 29 workers and co-founder/managing director Ken Otremba will stay with the corporate following the acquisition, says BMG. Telamo’s different co-founders, Kathleen Herrmann and Marko Wünsch, will proceed to behave as consultants for the label.
“Over the course of the previous 10 years, Telamo has skillfully taken Schlager into the digital age,” says Maximilian Kolb, BMG’s govt VP of repertoire and advertising in continental Europe. Bringing the label into BMG and the broader Bertelsmann group, which additionally contains broadcaster RTL Group and e book writer Penguin Random Home, will open up new alternatives for Telamo’s artists and “have a significant influence on the German language music market,” he says.
“There’s an appreciation that the one worldwide music firm owned and managed from Germany is committing to the way forward for Schlager within the streaming age,” Kolb tells Billboard. “But in addition, that we commit to take action with precisely the identical respect for artists we apply to each style.”
The Austrian Federal Competitors Authority is anticipated to ship its ruling on the acquisition earlier than the tip of the month.
