Robert Kyncl (Photo Credit: Jimmy Fontaine)
WMG CEO Robert Kyncl Pens Letter to Shareholders
Says music is a “far more attractive category to invest in” than film and TV
Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl has penned a letter to shareholders, outlining the opportunities presented by AI and the fact that music is “a refuge in the storm rocking the broader media landscape.” The full letter is here.
Potential for profit:
Kyncl outlines three main levers to increase music’s value.
The first is increasing subscription pricing: he says the average American spent $14 a month on recorded music last year, compared with the $69 per month they spent on on-demand video streaming subscriptions. There is, he writes, “clearly more share of the wallet left for music.”
The second is audience segmentation, or tapping into the “superfan opportunity in the digital world.”
The third is direct digital licensing for music publishing, with Kyncl stating WMG is “actively pursuing commercial strategies to increase the portion of our music publishing rights which are directly licensed by us.”
The impact of AI:
Kyncl is bullish about the potential positive impacts of AI.
He outlines several key areas WMG is focusing on “to position ourselves favorably in a fast-evolving AI world.”
The first is “protecting value by ensuring AI models respect copyright, artist/songwriter consent when their likeness is implicated, and attribution.”
The second is creating new monetization frameworks “where AI becomes a licensed, additive layer to music, not a dilutive substitute for it.”
Another is “enabling creative tools that let fans engage with artists in fun, new ways.” He cites the difference between a passive listener who spends around 25 cents per hour listening to recorded music, and the two million subscribers on Suno paying $12.50 a month to create music, on top of paying for their listening subscriptions.
Other takeaways:
Kyncl points out that music companies are no longer dependent on the success of new releases, stating that 27% of US streaming consumption in 2024 came from new releases, versus 45% 10 years ago.
He says “music [will never] have a demand problem,” highlighting the fact that global on-demand audio streams reached 5.1 trillion in 2025, a more than five-fold increase compared to 950 billion in 2017.
Music is, he says, a “far more attractive category to invest in than film and TV.”
👋 Disclosures & Transparency Block
This story was written with information from WMG’s blog.
We covered it because it’s a personal message from the CEO about the company’s future priorities.
