HYBE Corporation, the label and management home of K-pop superstars BTS, turned in revenues of $158.7 million and a profit of $14 million in the first quarter of 2021, the company announced Tuesday (May 4).

Without tours or big music releases, HYBE needed gains in what it calls “artist indirect involvement” for a 29% jump in revenue compared to the first quarter of 2020. Merchandising, licensing, content and fan club revenues rose 123% while “artist direct-involvement” — recorded music and concerts — fell 24%.

These positive first-quarter results don’t, however, come close to the company’s impressive previous quarter, Q4 2020. Then, still without touring income, HYBE produced livestreamed concerts and had strong music sales — 159% greater than 2021’s first quarter — and closed 2020 with quarterly revenue of $278 million and a $23.7 million profit.

HYBE didn’t provide guidance on concert revenue in 2021, saying “with pandemic conditions still in place, forecasts are still unclear on the possibility of in-person concerts in the second half of this year.” In the meantime, HYBE said it will offer more livestream concerts and “other diverse content.”

Much of the earnings release focused on HYBE’s acquisition of Scooter Braun’s Ithaca Holdings, which was announced April 2, noting it was the the largest acquisition “in history for a Korean entertainment company and the first acquisition of an international label.” It outlined how the deal helps HYBE’s “fandom expansion,” as HYBE calls it: Ithaca increases HYBE’s YouTube subscribers from 120 million to 290 million and social media followers from 440 million to 1.26 billion. HYBE plans to take Ithaca artists onto its WeVerse platform, which had 4.9 million monthly active users in the first quarter.

HYBE’s earnings presentation also laid Ithaca’s business segments: SB Projects is talent management; Big Machine is the record label and publisher; Silent Content Ventures houses premium content such as TV shows, documentaries, movies and other content that can now leverage HYBE artists; and Venture & Consumer houses “consumer brands based on artist IP.”

In March, HYBE changed its name from Big Hit Entertainment and restructured itself into three segments: Big Hit Music houses the labels BELIFT Lab, Source Music, PLEDIS Entertainment and KOZ Entertainment; HYBE IP and HYBE 360 encompasses HYBE Edu and Superb; and WeVerse is HYBE’s social media platform that had 4.9 million monthly average users during 2021’s first quarter, up from 2.4 million a year earlier.

Except for the total revenue figures, the below metrics are provided in Korean won (KRW) and can be converted at $1 to 1,125.9 won.

Financial metrics:

• Revenue: 178.3 billion KRW ($158.7 million) in Q1 2021 — up 29% from 138.5 billion KRW ($120.6 million) in Q1 2020; down 43% from 312.3 billion KRW ($277.9 million) in Q4 2020.
• Operating profit: 21.7 billion KRW in Q1 2021 — up 9% from 19.9 billion KRW in Q1 2020; down 39% from 256.7 million KRW in Q4 2020.
• Net profit: 15.8 billion KRW in Q1 2021, up 11% from 14.2 billion KRW in Q1 2020; down 41% from 26.7 billion in Q4 2020.

Revenue streams metrics: 

• Albums: 54.5 billion KRW in Q1 2021 — up 33% from 80.8 billion KRW; down 61% from 80.8 billion KRW in Q4 2021.
• Concerts: 0 KRW in Q1 2021 — down 100% from 100 million KRW in Q1 2020; even at 0 KRW in Q4 2020.
• Ads and appearances: 13.0 billion KRW in Q1 2020 — up 63% from 8.0 billion KRW in Q1 2020; down 5% from 13.8 billion KRW in Q4 2020.
• Merchandise and licensing: 64.7 billion KRW in Q1 2021 — down 89% from 34.3 billion KRW in Q1 2020; down 4% from 67.3 billion KRW in Q4 2020.
• Content: 37.2 billion KRW in Q1 2021 — up 360% from 7.2 million KRW in Q1 2020; down 54% from 80.9 billion KRW in Q4 2020.
• Fan clubs and other: 8.9 billion KRW in Q1 2021 — up 24% from 7.2 billion KRW in Q1 2020, down 6% from 9.5 billion KRW in Q4 2020.

Guidance for Q2 2021:

• Operating expenses will increase “slightly” compared to the first quarter due to expenses related to the Ithaca Holdings acquisition and preparation for second quarter music releases.
• If concerts resume, HYBE expects second-half revenues “to greatly outpace not only the first half but the second half of the same period last year as well.”

Stock market:

• Market capitalization on May 4, 2021: $7.6 billion.
• One-year increase in HYBE’s share price: 149%

Tommy West, a music producer, singer and songwriter who played a major role in the short-lived career of musician Jim Croce, died of complications associated with Parkinson’s disease, his family said. He was 78.

West died Sunday in hospice care.

Born Thomas Picardo Jr. in Jersey City, New Jersey, he developed his musical talents after his family moved to Neptune, according to his friend Mike Ragogna.

“His musical career began in 1958 as co-founder of the doo-wop group, The Criterions, with childhood friend and future Manhattan Transfer founder, Tim Hauser,” Ragogna said.

West had met Croce while both were students at Villanova University in 1961.

West and Terry Cashman co-produced three albums for Croce in the early 1970s, which went on to platinum status. You Don’t Mess Around With Jim, Life and Times and I Got a Name included the Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 singles “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” and “Time in a Bottle.” You Don’t Mess Around With Jim topped the Billboard 200 albums chart for five consecutive weeks in early 1974. “Leroy Brown” received a Grammy nomination for record of the year for both Croce and Cashman & West.

Croce was killed in a plane crash in Louisiana at age 30 in 1973.

In 1972, Cashman & West had a top 30 hit on the Hot 100 as recording artists. The single, “American City Suite,” was a three-part suite that ran 7:44. They released it on Dunhill/ABC, which was Croce’s record label.

The team also wrote songs for the television musical sitcom The Partridge Family, featuring David Cassidy and his stepmother Shirley Jones.

West partnered with Mary Tyler Moore’s MTM Records in Nashville in the 1980s to produce for country artists including Holly Dunn and Judy Rodman.

In his later career, West operated his Somewhere in New Jersey studio from inside a barn in the northern part of the state.

He is survived by his wife, a daughter and two stepsons.

His funeral will be private, his family said.

Rapper YFN Lucci is among a dozen people charged in a wide-ranging indictment in Atlanta targeting alleged members of the Bloods gang.

A Fulton County grand jury on Friday handed up the 105-count indictment that resulted from a six-month investigation, Atlanta Police Deputy Chief Charles Hampton said at a news conference Tuesday. It includes racketeering, aggravated assault, murder, gun, armed robbery, property damage, theft and gang-related charges.

“We are serious about the violence in Atlanta,” Hampton said. “We are serious about holding people accountable.”

The indictment alleges that each of the 12 people charged is associated with sub-groups of the national Bloods gang. It says they had connections and relationships to each other and accuses them of committing a wide variety of crimes to protect and enhance the gang’s reputation and to gain and maintain control of territory.

YFN Lucci, whose given name is Rayshawn Bennett, is charged with racketeering, violating the state’s anti-gang law, felony murder, aggravated assault and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.

Atlanta police previously announced murder charges against Bennett in January, saying he was the driver in a December gang-related drive-by shooting that left one man dead. The felony murder charge in last week’s indictment is based on that incident.

“He’s not guilty of any crime that’s referenced in the previous charge and now in this indictment,” Bennett’s lawyer Drew Findling said in a phone interview.

The indictment says one of the Atlanta gang sub-groups of the Bloods, known by the initials YFN, was “centered around” Bennett.

“The YFN studio located on West Peachtree Street in Atlanta is a central point for the group and a notorious stronghold. YFN has continued to attract additional associates as Bennett gained notoriety,” the indictment says.

“He’s absolutely not a gang member, and this indictment — neglectfully or purposely — fails to say that Mr. Bennett is a nationally and internationally recognized musical artist,” Findling said.

Among Bennett’s biggest hits is the 2016 song “Key to the Streets” featuring the Atlanta rap group Migos.

The indictment also cites social media postings by Bennett and others, as well as song lyrics, alleging they are proof of gang involvement and other criminal activity.

“To sit and analyze somebody’s social media account and to try to somehow find some evidence of a crime is ridiculous when people are just really expressing themselves through social media,” Findling said.

More than four years after going head-to-head with the IRS in U.S. Tax Court, Michael Jackson’s estate has emerged largely victorious — with a federal judge finding the artist’s worth at the time of his death to be much closer to its estimate than the government’s and declining to issue any penalties.

The dispute centered on how much Jackson’s image and likeness were worth when he died in 2009, which would determine how much in taxes the estate would owe the IRS. It also includes the worth of Jackson’s interest in New Horizon Trust II, which included his stake in Sony/ATV Music Publishing, and New Horizon Trust III, which included Mijac Music, a publishing catalog that owned the copyrights to compositions Jackson wrote or co-wrote and works by other songwriters. (The estate and IRS generally agreed on the value of the other assets.)

On Monday, after a lengthy deliberation process, U.S. Tax Court Judge Mark Holmes issued a more than 250-page ruling that begins by acknowledging the complexities of the situation.

“From the time he was a child Michael Jackson was famous; and there were times in his life, testified his executor, when he was the most famous person in the world,” writes Holmes. “There were certainly years when he was the most well-known popular-music star, and even after his death there have been years when he was the world’s highest-earning entertainer. But there were also many years when he was more famous for his unusual behavior and not his unusual talent. And there were some years where his fame was turned infamous by serious accusations of the most noisome acts. We make no particular judgment about what Jackson did or is alleged to have done, but we must decide how what he did and is alleged to have done affected the value of what he left behind.”

The IRS valued Jackson’s likeness and image at about $434 million, while the estate said it was only worth about $2,000 at the time he had died. The reason? Jackson struggled to rehabilitate his image amid allegations of child molestation. In fact, one of the estate’s experts estimated that in the final six months of his life Jackson only made $24 in image and likeness-related revenue. (After further expert consultation leading up to the trial the estate would increase its valuation to around $3 million.)

Holmes notes that, in a situation like this, it’s vital to separate what the value was at the time of Jackson’s death from what the value would later become because of the estate’s management of those assets.

Because there’s no seeing the future, the estate’s experts compared Jackson’s posthumous prospects to those of other departed celebrities, specifically Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Bettie Page, Jackie Robinson, Princess Diana and Elvis Presley. It also factored in public perception, balancing respect for his artistic talents against damage to his reputation. Holmes notes that the “stigma is reflected in his lack of endorsements or merchandise agreements unrelated to a musical tour or album from 1993 until his death.”

The IRS, however, gave greater weight to “foreseeable opportunities,” including themed attractions, branded merchandise, a Cirque du Soleil show, a film and a Broadway musical. Again, Presley was used as a bit of a template, as were other celebrities with brand deals (Tony Hawk, Paris Hilton, Regis Philbin, Jennifer Lopez and Tyra Banks). Meanwhile, the Cirque show became a factor because Jackson’s ex-manager Tohme Tohme said negotiations were underway before Jackson’s death.

Holmes found the hypotheticals to be “unreliable and unpersuasive” — and notes that the government’s expert failed to account for any costs of managing the likeness rights and seems to have ignored the hit Jackson’s reputation had taken. He writes, “Any projection that finds a torrent of revenue, and not just a trickle, from such a man’s image and likeness — especially one who in the last two years of his life was so unpopular he did not even have a Q score — is simply not reasonable.” (Then, there’s the whole perjury thing.)

Ultimately, Holmes found Jackson’s likeness to be worth approximately $4.15 million at the time of his death, his interest in New Horizon Trust II (which included the Sony/ATV stake) to be valueless because at the time he died its liabilities exceeded its assets by about $89 million, and his interest in New Horizon Trust III (which included Mijac) to be just more than $107 million.

Holmes doesn’t fault the estate for its valuations and found no penalties are warranted.”

Jackson had outlived the peak of his popularity, but in the decades before his death he kept spending as if he had not,” writes Holmes. “Popular culture always moves on. There will come a time when Captain EO joins Monte Brewster and Terry Forbes as names that without googling sort of sound familiar, but only to people of a certain age or to students of entertainment history. And just as the grave will swallow Jackson’s fame, time will erode the Estate’s income. It resurrected and then sold what became its most valuable asset to Sony before trial. The value of what it has left, no matter how well managed, will now dwindle as Jackson’s copyrights expire and his image and likeness shuffle first into irrelevance and then into the public domain.”

John Branca and John McClain, co-executors of The Estate of Michael Jackson, on Monday issued this statement in response to the decision: “This thoughtful ruling by the U.S. Tax Court is a huge, unambiguous victory for Michael Jackson’s children. For nearly 12 years Michael’s Estate has maintained that the government’s valuation of Michael’s assets on the day he passed away was outrageous and unfair, one that would have saddled his heirs with an oppressive tax liability of more than $700 million. While we disagree with some portions of the decision, we believe it clearly exposes how unreasonable the IRS valuation was and provides a path forward to finally resolve this case in a fair and just manner.”

The estate was represented by attorneys from Hochman Salkin Toscher Perez; Hoffman Sabban & Watenmaker; Freeman Freeman Smiley; and longtime Jackson estate lawyer the late Howard Weitzman of Kinsella Weitzman Iser Kump.

This article was originally published by The Hollywood Reporter.