Cardi B has a crazy weekend at a few festivals, BTS’ V dances and jams out to Lizzo’s ‘About Damn Time.’ Harry Styles and Bad Bunny stay on top of the charts and more!
Disney and BTS are getting into business together.
The Walt Disney Company and BTS’ studio home Hybe revealed a new global content partnership Tuesday that will see the companies work together to produce five streaming titles, including three exclusive projects featuring BTS or BTS members. Aligning itself with the world’s most popular K-pop group is undoubtedly a coup for Disney, as it seeks to both ramp up global subscriber counts and catch up with Netflix as a destination for bankable Korean entertainment.
The three upcoming titles featuring the K-pop stars include:
BTS: Permission to Dance on Stage – LA: An exclusive cinematic 4K concert film featuring BTS’ live performance at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., in November 2021. Performing “Butter” and “Permission to Dance,” both No. 1 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, this was the first time in two years since the pandemic that the band met fans in person.
The radio world is mourning the loss of revered programmer and consultant Steve Smith, who died suddenly last Thursday (July 7). He was 62.
Tim Richards, Smith’s partner in Smith Richards Collective who first met Smith in 1992 at the MTV Awards in Los Angeles during a Westwood One broadcast, wrote on his Facebook page, “Steve was (that’s so hard to type) an incredible man. He was a radio innovator and one of the kindest and most creative programmers I’ve ever learned from.”
Smith’s family confirmed his death in a statement to radio trade All Access, writing, “Steve unexpectedly passed away peacefully at home, in his sleep on July 7…Steve’s highly successful career spanned 40 years and has broken countless records, won countless awards, and has irrevocably changed the landscape of American radio for the better.”
Smith, renowned for his long blond locks as much as his programming savvy, had more than 34 years of major market experience programming stations and managing programming staff, but was particularly credited with launching the hip-hop format with New York’s Hot 97 in the mid-’90s.
“The first time I saw Steve Smith was in 90’s walking up Broadway in NY, I knew immediately who he was,” Jeremy Rice, program director for XL 106.7/Magic 107.7 Orlando, recalled on his Facebook page. “Steve was already a famous PD with his trademark hair posted all over industry publications. Steve signed on Hot 97 in the ‘90s. This was the first hip hop station in the country. My first meeting with Steve was when we went hip hop in Orlando in 2004, I was really excited because he was a top tier consultant who worked with stars in N.Y., L.A. and everywhere. Steve and I went on to be great friends and worked together on Long Island, Atlanta, Miami, Tampa to name a few… Steve could sum up your radio station in 15 minutes. With Steve it was never analysis by paralysis, it was right to the point!
Smith’s radio career began in 1987 when he worked as director of programming at Hot 97.7 in San Jose, Calif. after graduating from Pepperdine Law School. Following three years as vp of programming at Phoenix’s KKFR, he moved to the corporate level, holding positions at AM/FM Radio Group, Emmis Communications, Clear Channel (now iHeart), CBS Radio and Cox Media Group.
Smith shocked the radio industry in November when he resigned as Cox’s vp of programming after 10 years at the media group, only to resurface this April as a founder of Smith Richards Collective with Richards and digital marketer Heidi McIvor-Allen. The consulting group handles programming for groups of stations of all formats, and also offers talent coaching and brand growth services. He has previously run his own consulting company from 2007-2011 between corporate stints, winning three Billboard awards for radio consultant of the year.
In a November interview with All Access’s Joel Denver, Smith recalled the origins of Hot 97 and the potential of the hip-hop format when he was still in Phoenix in 1993 before heading to New York, saying that despite the widespread popularity of Public Enemy‘s Fear of a Black Planet, “nobody was playing anything off of this album, there was no radio airplay. We started playing more hip-hop in Phoenix.”
Joe Riccitelli, founder of Golden Retriever Entertainment and former label promotion executive with RCA, Jive and other labels, remembers Smith from that pivotal era, telling Billboard, “I met Steve in the early 90’s and knew immediately he knew exactly what was going on. When he got to NYC, he really put Hot 97 on the track to make them the brand they are today. As a programmer he was ahead of the curve on so many levels. There is no doubt he made me a better promo guy in my early years [and] always challenged my teams as well. Not only did we lose an entrepreneur for our entire industry, we lost a soul of a human being. God bless you, Steve, you touched so many people in such a positive way.”
Former label promo executive Ken Lane, who is now with Primary Wave Entertainment and Right Lane Management, LLC, met Smith around the same time. “Steve was a true leader in his field on every level. I remember meeting him in the early 90’s and making the immediate connection that his best friend growing up in Great Neck, New York was my college roommate at Tulane,” he says. “Steve had a wonderful ear for talent on both sides of the music spectrum from rock to rap. For a guy that looked like Sammy Hagar, I always got a kick out of his passion for rap music.”
Indeed, Smith used his resemblance to Hagar to great effect, Rice recalled. “I did countless pranks with Steve at restaurants telling the manager, ‘Shhhh, Sammy Hagar is coming – NO Autographs!’ Once I got an airline pilot to believe Sammy Hagar was on the flight and he announced to the entire plane!”
Smith is survived by a son, two siblings and his fiancé.
Silvio Pietroluongo provided assistance on this story.
In the wake of Billboard‘s report that Meek Mill has parted ways with Roc Nation Management, the chart-topping rapper took to Twitter to issue some clarifications.
“All I seen today was meek and roc part ways,” he tweeted Monday (July 11). “…I’m personally handling my own business so I can take risk and grow ..we came to that agreement together.” The rapper continued that he’s still tied to the larger Roc Nation company, including a label deal for his Dreamchasers imprint, his work with Reform Alliance — a non-profit organization he created with Roc Nation founder Jay-Z that’s set on eliminating unjust sentencing laws in the United States — as well as “many other investments” with Hov.
In another tweet posted minutes later, Meek continued that he doesn’t want his very public issues with his label, Atlantic Records, conflated with his departure from Roc Nation Management. “And roc nation is my family don’t mix my post aimed at Atlantic mixed up with roc or MMG …they ain’t stop nothing I’m doing we made about a 100m together des mike and Hov saved my life b4 And put a lot of energy into it I’m not behind on my favors in life wit my people I’m good.”
The rapper, who expressed his frustrations with Atlantic earlier this year by tweeting in part the label “didn’t put nothing into” his Billboard 200 No. 3 album, Expensive Pain, “and then said I can’t drop another project for 9 months at the end of my contract after I made them 100’s of millions ….. how would can anybody survive that … most rappers can’t speak because they depend on these companies ‘I don’t.’”
Meek continued lambasting Atlantic on Monday, tweeting that despite being signed with “Atlantic/MMG since 2014” while the label was under Warner Records, he only made $11 million of “like a 100m.” He also reiterated that he “only could drop [new music] every 9 months something a lawyer never explained to me and they removed me from all festivals also.”
While not too thrilled with his label dealings as of late, Mill said he’s confident he can rebound, adding in another tweet, “Luckily I built my money and resources up they woulda starved me out…. Ima make that 11 million dollars one project … s— might be sponsored by a bank or one of my friends! Let’s see what happens lol.”
Meek, who first signed a management deal with Roc Nation in 2012, is no longer featured on the company’s website and has been removed from its social media pages.
New York City radio personality Shaila Scott, who was fired by R&B station WBLS in May after nearly three decades on the air, is now suing her former employer for discrimination and retaliation.
In a complaint filed Friday in Manhattan federal court, attorneys for Scott (real name Amilee Cattouse) accused station owners MediaCo Holding Inc. and Emmis Communications Corp. of discriminating against the longtime host on the basis of both age and gender.
Among other things, they say managers at WBLS — a popular urban adult contemporary station in New York — “ridiculed” her for age, telling her not to play “old Negro spirituals” on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and not to create a concert lineup that was “too geriatric.”
“Despite her outstanding rankings, on or about May 9, 2022, MediaCo fired Cattouse, claiming that it was going in a ‘new direction,” Scott’s lawyers wrote. “MediaCo replaced Cattouse with an on-air personality in her thirties.”
The lawsuit claims Scott was also paid substantially less than her male colleagues with similar on-air roles at Hot97, a popular sister station also owned by MediaCo, despite her “superior ratings and ability to generate revenue.”
In technical terms, Scott says her firing amounts to both discrimination and retaliation under federal and state labor laws. The lawsuit did not seek a specific amount of damages.
“I am shocked and saddened that WBLS decided that when I reached 59, it was time to discard me,” Scott said in a statement released by her law firm. “I hope my decision to speak up will shine a light on the realities that women still get paid less than men for the same job and at a certain age, they are no longer valued.”
A spokesperson for WBLS did not immediately return a request for comment on Monday.
Read Scott’s full complaint here:
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One of the jurors in the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard defamation trial served improperly, an attorney for Heard alleged in a recent filing that asked the court to declare a mistrial and order a new trial.
“Newly discovered facts” show Juror No. 15 in the six-week trial was not the individual summoned in April to serve in the case, Heard’s attorney wrote in a five-page memo filed Friday (July 8) in Virginia’s Fairfax Circuit Court.
Instead, the filing suggests Juror No. 15 was a younger individual with the same last name who “apparently” lives at the same address.
“As the Court no doubt agrees, it is deeply troubling for an individual not summoned for jury duty nonetheless to appear for jury duty and serve on a jury, especially in a case such as this,” the filing said.
Depp sued his ex-wife over a December 2018 op-ed Heard wrote in The Washington Post describing herself as “a public figure representing domestic abuse.” Much of the testimony focused on whether Heard had been physically and sexually abused, as she claimed. Depp said he never hit Heard and that she was the abuser.
After a televised trial that turned into a spectacle, the jury found in Depp’s favor on all three of his claims relating to specific statements in the 2018 piece.
The jury decided Depp should receive $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages, but the judge reduced the punitive damages award to $350,000 under a state cap.
Heard has previously said she plans to appeal the verdict.
News of Friday’s filing was first reported by Deadline, which posted the document online.
The memo expanded upon earlier post-trial motions filed by Heard’s legal team that asked the judge to throw out the verdict against her. Those motions had raised the possibility that one of the jurors may not have been properly vetted by the court.
The latest filing said a “jury panel list” in the case included a person who would have been 77 at the time of the trial. Voter registration information lists two individuals with the same last name “apparently” residing at the same address, said the filing, in which the names were redacted.
“The individual who appeared for jury duty with this name was obviously the younger one. Thus, the 52-year-old … sitting on the jury for six weeks was never summoned for jury duty on April 11,” violating Heard’s due process rights, the filing said.
The Associated Press sent emails seeking comment Sunday to a representative for Depp and two of his attorneys.
