How Music Catalogs Became the Smartest Investments in Entertainment w/ Golnar Khosrowshahi

Britney Spears, Taylor Swift, Miles Davis, The Weekend, Bob Dylan, and Whitney Houston. What do all these artists have in common? They have all bought or sold part of their musical catalogs over the last few years for high watering prices. We're here today in New York City to learn more about why that is and where the catalog market is going in 2026. Welcome back to On The Record. I'm music business podcast from Billboard and Sickbird Productions. As always, I'm your host, Kristen Robinson, and today I'm joined by the one and only Golnarr Kosher Shahi. She's the CEO and founder of Reservoir Media. Since its founding in 2007, Reservoir has become one of the most prominent independent music companies in the game, especially when it comes to the realm of catalog buying. In recent years, Golnarr's company has acquired rights to songs recorded by John Denver, Cheryl Crowe, Hans Zimmer, Miles Davis, Snoop Dogg, Day Lessl, and so many more. She was very early to recognize music as a smart, and viable investment. And since getting into this game, the music industry has changed drastically. What was once a small market with a handful of players, mostly from the traditional music companies like the majors, it has since become a feeding frenzy where music companies regularly go head to head with financial giants, like Shamrock or KKR for catalogs. And as part of this, it drives up the prices to astronomical levels that we've never reached before. Those high bidding words have encouraged a lot of artists to cash out for hundreds of millions of dollars. In most cases, artists and songwriters are thrilled by this giant payday, and they do it on their own volition. But of course, the most famous catalog sale of all time is when Taylor Swift's masters were sold by her original label, Big Machine, to Shamrock Capital. And that's something she says she did not condone. It was a very unfortunate situation, and we'll be sure to get into that too. Before we get started, though, if you're a newcomer, I did want to quickly go over a couple key definitions that you're going to need to know for this conversation. So if you don't already know, there are two copyrights associated with every track that comes out. On one hand, you have the master recording, and then on the other hand, is publishing. It can also be called a song or a composition copyright. To explain this, I like to use an example like a natural woman by Aretha Franklin. That song was written by songwriters, Carol King and Jerry Goffin. And so those two created the publishing copyright, or the song at the composition copyright. So that's the melody and the lyrics. Then Aretha took that song and created a specific master recording that we all know and love for the song. So she has that master recording. Sometimes the recording artist is also a songwriter, so they might have access to both their master and their publishing. But that's not always the case. You'll hear us talking about sales on the master and publishing side today, so I thought it would be important to lay that out now before we get started. Anyways, I think that's all you need to know going in. And if there's anything else confusing, we're going to share definitions on the screen. Let's go ahead and bring out my guests today. Please welcome to the show Golnar Koster Shahi, CEO and founder of Reza Park. Golnar Koster Shahi welcomed on the record. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks for being here. I'm really excited to have you because I don't know if you know this, but you're like my first ever video interview when I got to Billboard in 2021, 2022. It was women in music. Yes. I remember you had like amazing lighting and at this amazing setup and I was like in my living room with like no lights on. And I was like, oh my gosh, I should have prepared for this more. So we got the lighting here now. Okay. Great to be here. So today we're going to talk about like all things catalogs. You've been working in this market for a very long time through Reza Park, your company which you founded in 2007, right? Yes. Okay. So I want to start there actually. Let's get some background before we head into what's happening in the catalog market in 2026. You founded Reza Park in 2007 at a time when this was not as hot of a market as it is now. So tell me about why you decided to start your company then and what you saw in the catalog market then that poses a great opportunity. That hot is an understatement of what what characterizes and how to describe the market in 2007. I wish I could tell you that it was with some great foresight in the future of value of assets that at the time we were buying at two, three, four times multiples. But that's not the truth. The truth is that the business was attractive because of the value of copyright and the long term value of copyright and this characteristic around perpetual cash flow. And so from just a business perspective, that was attractive, a continuous cash flow generating asset. But you're right. I mean, it was the not hot darkest days of the music business. And there was the threat of piracy and there was the threat of uncertainty around future monetization and there was a threat of whether streaming was going to become the platform through which people consume music. I think people weren't convinced of that by any means. And so all of that uncertainty led to an industry that contracted significantly in revenue from what it had been. We certainly saw it as an opportunity. But not with some magic or not through some sort of crystal ball that said, you know, in 15 years, that two, three, four times multiple that you're paying today is going to translate into a 20 times multiple for that same asset. Yeah. And can you explain real quick what you're referring to when you say multiples? Yes. So the value of these assets is determined by the cash flow that they generate industry has terms for it. But from a business standpoint, you're just looking at a gross profit line. So these, these assets generate a certain cash flow. And the multiple is essentially valuing what the future cash flow is. And you are paying two times that gross profit line. Or today, anywhere from 15 to 20 times and has been higher for some other assets. Man, that's crazy. And so the catalog market started to become really hot in like, what would you say? The late 2010s or so? What was that inflection point when you started to notice that there were a ton of new entrants who are trying to buy music catalogs and the prices were starting to rise higher and higher? I mean, I think you're right. I think certainly there was compelling data. The compelling data really stuck when we hit this inflection point where the industry was no longer in this state of digital deflation. Meaning that there was some growth now that was going to outpace essentially the suffering from the years prior. I agree with you that that's certainly when you saw new entrants. I do want to point out though that KKR for example had been in this business since the late 2000s. Oh, wow. So at that time, they were already in the business. They had a joint venture with BMG. I also want to point out that the Dutch pension fund was in the business. So investors that had very much the same characteristics as investors today, institutional pension funds, long hold, people who were older, these long hold assets. They were always interested in this because the constant despite how the industry has changed, the constant has been that these are assets that generate a continuous perpetual annuity type cash flow. And that's always attractive to an investor. So the sophisticated investors were always there. Interesting. Yeah, because when I think of before the big catalog boom, I think there are probably just a lot of bidding wars between your majors, reservoir, a few other places and that's about it. But it sounds like. No, I mean the other investors were there. Some of them, you know, you can replace one pension fund with another. But I always point that out because it wasn't this mad rush in of private equity and institutional investor. They were certainly hovering at that time. Yeah. So it sounds like what you were saying is as streaming started to mature a little bit, people started to get a little bit more comfortable with buying music catalogs and more people started to come in then. What about hypnosis? I feel like people always point to hypnosis is entrant into the market as a turning point where the prices started to raise really high. So can you tell me about when they entered the market and how that impacted things? The impact was something that we all reaped benefit from, which was a significant amount of education to a main street investor and to a retail investor. And we all benefited from that because, you know, 20 years ago I would have been left out of the room if I was talking about music royalties. And today people know what you're talking about. You don't really need to explain it because there is so much coverage and also because of what people like you have done and educated people about the industry. So we all benefited from that education. It became a whole lot easier to raise money. It became a whole lot easier to dispel the fear around investing in something that is driven by consumer taste. Because that's what people are scared of, right? Or investors are scared of. And so I think that was pretty significant. And then the other significant impact is that they were paying more. So that drove the prices up. And these assets became more and more and more in demand. Yeah. So hypnosis was, I mean, at least the story goes that hypnosis was always kind of coming in really hot on a lot of these deals. Yeah. I imagine that made it really hard to compete at a certain point. I imagine that you're right. It never really impacted us because we have historically done most of our significant deals on an off-market basis. What does that mean exactly? Meaning that we weren't really, we weren't really transacting through auction processes. Our business is based on relationships. Our business is one that has an active platform. So we're not just a financial investor collecting rent on music IP. And we have creative services and we have management services and we have other services that are unique and pertain to music industry clients. We do all of our administration. You know, all of this goes into being a music company versus being an investor in music IP. That along with some other dynamics has created a moat around our business and has enabled us to execute on deals off-market build relationships sometimes over years. And not really be in that hamster wheel of the bidding wars. So how do these deals come to you? You just hear it through the grapevine. Someone tells someone who tells you like, "Hey, by the way, I'm about to go on the market with my catalog. I'm this big legacy act. I'm ready to sell." So is that usually how that goes? I mean, listen, it is the most unregulated disenfranchised deal flow structure of a business of this size or of an industry of this size. You're right. There's no portal. There's no standard mechanism through which these deals transact. The larger ones certainly go through representatives and agents. The lawyers do quite a bit of the facilitating of these transactions. Business managers involved family members are involved. It really depends on who's running your business. Sometimes you're getting a call. Your team members are getting a call. You're getting contacted by lawyers, by managers. I mean, any of those representatives are the ones contacting. I think that these people are selective about who they want to involve in a process. I think that seller motivation and seller priority really plays into this. As you know, we're talking about somebody's creative body of work and that is very, very personal. There are sellers that are looking for the biggest check. That's completely fine. They want an exit. It's certainly a lot easier to divvy up a dollar than it is to divvy up a copyright. That makes sense from an estate planning perspective. There are sellers who want to continue to retain a stake and be a partner with the company that is going to house their music and be the sewers of their legacy. They have different priorities. That's definitely the seller to whom we appeal because we have creative services because we do the administration. Even if we buy out a catalog, we consider that person to be an ongoing client of the company. Interesting. I imagine that when you're buying catalogs, you're often dealing with the estate family members, stuff like that. A lot of the catalogs that get bought and sold are from older artists or deceased artists. I imagine that it's really challenging sometimes to work with these family members, especially when they don't have a lot of music business knowledge. Have you ever encountered difficulties in dealing with family members or estates? How did you navigate a difficult moment? We really have it. I know. I'm trying to think. Our most recent estate deal is with the Miles Davis estate. I can't say enough good things. So far as how that relationship has evolved, now they run themselves very professionally. They have goals and they have objectives and it is a very positive working relationship. We are in the centennial year and so there's a lot of activations around that which requires us to work very closely with the estate to execute on that and really take advantage of this moment that is his 100th birthday. The smaller ones that are estates, I'm just trying to think we've really never had an issue but we've just generally not had a lot of drama in our business. I know. I know. I think we've been lucky. I really just think we've been lucky because it's the music business. There is a lot of drama. I know. But we really just haven't had that kind of drama. I can think of very few clients who are no longer with the company. So most of our clients, when there is a moment where we have to establish a new relationship, renew a contract, etc. We've always done that. Fair enough. I mean, I do think that also sometimes drama attracts drama and maybe you guys are just straight-shooters. We're not very dramatic. I'll tell you that. Well, okay. So I think, well, Miles Davis is obviously one of the all-time greats. So that's an incredible legacy to uphold and it's an incredible responsibility as well. So how are you guys dealing with his centennial, his hundredth birthday? And how are you finding new ways to bring life and to bring fans to his catalog? So it's, as you can imagine, all cylinders, I think, you know, you put it perfectly. You have a responsibility to maintain the legacy. And you have a responsibility to create a relevance for a younger audience. And you also have this huge opportunity. So the activations range from the Lexus commercial that I don't know if you watched TV, but it's been on all over the place. There are product collaborations, fashion collaborations, and then specific performances, jazz festivals, et cetera. Those are all to be expected. Yeah. I think the challenge, and, you know, we'll know this in the next sort of nine to 12 months, is what we do, which we're working on, what we do to enhance the demographic of the Miles Davis listener, and to reintroduce everything that is just so incredibly cool about him. Yeah. And that is going to be through fashion and all kinds of other partnerships, but it's also going to be through social media platforms and other kinds of initiatives. Yeah. I mean, I feel like I've recently seen, and I don't know if this is like a digital marketing campaign that's happening behind the scenes. I don't know what about, but I feel like I've seen quite a few TikToks and posts on social media about Miles Davis's style, which I didn't realize how incredibly cool he was beyond just being a great musician. Yes. And the street style was insane. It was covered in the Wall Street Journal, and I believe it was a noctober. Okay. Maybe that's where it started. And so that sort of set off a little bit of retrospective, the rebirth of the cool. Yeah. Well, I love that. I love that because I didn't know anything about it, and it's getting me more interested to listen to the music, even though it's not directly like pushing you into Miles Davis's music. It just gets you acquainted with him as a person. And thus, you go back and listen to the catalog. Exactly. And all of these things is a path to grow the streaming numbers. Yeah. Right. It might have some summer immediate, some have immediate impact. A fashion collaboration might be sort of three steps from actually connecting to that increase in the streaming numbers, but you have to take a perspective that this is a global, global, global, not geographically global across initiative, um, activation so that you're driving into new demographic and new market segments, new listeners. So obviously, we're talking about Miles Davis, who is a great in the jazz world. I find the differences in how different genres are valued and treated in the catalog market to be really interesting. I feel like the, uh, well, I'm not sure if you're interested in the I've commonly seen at least and correct me if I'm wrong, is that the most valuable type of asset is kind of like an older classic rock kind of thing. And so you see those types of bands and acts fetching really, really high prices, like hundreds of millions sometimes. But then on the other hand, I've also heard that it's more difficult if you're a country artist, a dance artist, a pop artist, to sell your catalog for those same like eye watering numbers. Can you explain like why that is? Like what are some of the difficulties with some of these genres like country, dance or hip hop? And why it might be a little less attractive to a catalog buyer? Yeah, I don't know if I would say it's difficulties. I think I would say, if I were really to break it down, I would say how widespread is the listenership of the music? And how long is that going to last? For how long is this music going to strike a chord with somebody? And really what that gets you to is at what rate is the revenue on this music going to decay? Yeah. Right. Is it here forever? Is it taking me home country roads that you will keep listening to and you will be in a situation like we are today where there are hundreds of covers and user generated content or is it not going to stay with us forever? Yeah, some hits don't really stick around. And some hits are great and they are hits in the moment and they could be a culturally defining moment but that doesn't mean that they will sustain that cultural impact two decades from now. Got it. So if you're like a massive country artist, like a, I don't know, like a George Strait or something or a Willie Nelson that's been around and already stood the test of time, you can still fetch a really high price for something like that. Yes. And I think there are, there is a finite group of artists and songwriters across genre who will command that, premium. Yeah. But really with everything else, that's what you're asking yourself is this going to be worth, or what is this going to be worth in 10 years, in 15 years, in 20 years? Yeah. And I'm still going to be able to license, take me home, country road to Google. Yes. I think the answer is yes. You guys, you guys have that song, right? John Denver. We, yes, we do. And on the publishing side of the business and Google launched the Google Home product a few years back during the Super Bowl with an instrumental version of that song. Wow. What was the streaming uptick that you saw from that? Was there much of one? I mean, I'd have to, I don't know that number off the top of my head, that that song is pretty stable in the sense that you don't see significant upticks because it's licensed all the time. That's true. I also feel like, isn't it like at the University of West Virginia, something they always sing, I don't know, the state of West Virginia licenses that music? Really? Yes. OK. And I believe it's the state of West Virginia tourism board. And I'm sure they sing it at the University. I don't know. I just feel like it's not the lion's share of our income from taking home country roads is definitely not from the singing of West Virginia. Singing at the University. No, but it just embeds itself into American culture. And but I also wonder with a song like that, it's so American. Does it translate internationally as well? It does translate internationally. And there is a whole class of music that, for some reason, is really popular in different territories. That is completely-- it just stumps you. Miles is popularity in Japan and France. Japan kind of makes sense to me. Yes. But there are these pockets. Country music is very popular in France. There's pockets of genre geography and marriages that are very, very surprising. I kind of love that. That's great. I can't imagine someone in France putting on a cowboy hat and listening to country music, but hey, if they're doing it-- popular. Well, I've also heard that sometimes with genres, I mean, I'm keep using the country dance hip-hop examples. But there are less opportunities for film TV licensing as well, and that might impact things. I think so. I think lyrics has a lot to do with it. Yeah. It's got to be conducive to film and TV. Yeah. I mean, we see quite a bit of licensing, not for advertising across the genres. I think that if the music is in a certain caliber-- Yeah. --that you are going to get all the licensing opportunities. But I would agree with you that in looking at how we value something, we are going to be more or less optimistic on film and TV sink if we're looking at music that is built with exploitive. So that's not going to be easy. Yeah. Same with, I imagine samples too. Like, if you have a hit song, but it has a bunch of samples in it, and there's like 32 writers on the credits, it's probably not going to be the thing that-- every one of the film and TV business is trying to license, because it's just too difficult, maybe. I mean, you want the clearest, straightest path to do your job. I mean, you all do. So yes, that can also be a little bit disruptive. I wanted to touch on film TV licensing a little bit more. When I think of country and having great sync opportunities there, I think of Yellowstone. That was one where we saw really, really big streaming upticks after any country song was synced on that show. But another one, kind of-- well, I mean, they really license everything. One of the big TV shows for streaming uplifts for music was Euphoria. It's coming back for season three this spring. But you guys actually have a song from your catalog that was synced in a really important part of season two, "Shenato Conners" drink before the war. I'm just wondering how that came together, and what kind of an uplift you see from a show as big as Euphoria. Can that really bring a song to a new generation in an instance? Absolutely. Especially with an artist like Shunade. That example particularly has had a few of these unsteady moments or moments where it just hasn't been steady performance because sadly, she passed away, as you know. And so there have been these moments with her music. There are so many examples of a reintroducing music. I mean, you can look at Fascar. You can look at the Johnny Cash movie. That was a huge moment in reintroducing music, as well as just having a spike for these events. I think Reza Anatomy really started this trend of not only being this show that everybody was glued to, but also being a place where people were discovering music. So they almost had to meet themselves every time. We certainly see that, and we see those spikes. And I think there are certain TV shows that have become or have captured this persona of having some sophisticated musical taste and being very, very deliberate about the music. Yeah. Euphoria is one of them, for sure. Euphoria is definitely one of them. I really feel like, honestly, people are still seeking gatekeepers. People are still seeking that taste maker, whether it's a TV show with a great soundtrack, or an influencer online, even though a lot of our typical gatekeeper institutions have fallen by the wayside. I do think that people are always looking for someone that they can trust that's always going to feed them something that they want. It's interesting that you said Reza Anatomy, though, because I didn't realize that that could be seen as a touch point, but I really feel like it could be. It was. I think at the beginning, I don't know if it is still now. I think it is still a little bit. People still watch such a crazy. But from a musical perspective, I think licensing to grays and being on grays was, I even remember, it was a goal for songwriters. Yeah. That's so crazy. And you mentioned the Johnny Cash biopic and how that led to a big uptick in his catalog and renewed interest in Johnny Cash's person. We've seen a ton of musical biopics in the last decade or so. Is that correlated to the fact that the catalog market has gotten hotter? And catalogs are changing hands. And new catalog owners are trying to increase the value and a legacy of the people that they purchased music from. I think it's partly that. I think it's partly that these stories are interesting. And people like to see interesting stories. I mean, right now, I don't know about you, but you can't look anywhere without seeing something about love story. Yeah. Right. So that is of the moment. And that's again, a real story. So it's interesting. And it captivates an audience. So generally, all of these biopics are rooted in stories that are just attractive to tell. These are not inexpensive projects. And somebody has to finance them. - I mean, getting Timothy Shalamay to play Bob Dylan is not a cheap thing. - And so I think just more liquidity and budgets because the business has grown, enables either rights holders or filmmakers adjacent to these music companies to underwrite these projects. And so I think that's why you're seeing more of these projects come to life. - I guess in general, you're probably just seeing across the board and film and TV just reviving old IP, whether it's musical IP. - It's safer. - Oh yes, so much safer. - When you not say, it's a form of sampling. - Ooh, I like that. I think that's true. - Because it totally is. - You sample, you know, you sample for artistic reasons. - Yeah. - But you'll also sample because you've got something that's tried and true. - Yeah. - In my mind, I equate the things a little bit because you know there's some equity in the story of that artist or that music that you're telling. - Totally, totally. And I'm glad you brought that up 'cause I think one of the most interesting things I've seen in the last five, seven years is this rise of flipping songs. So to describe this for people who are not familiar with what this is, I think you started seeing around 2021, 2022. A lot of artists were hitting the top of the charts with songs that had really heavy interpolations or samples of past songs. So, "Kiss Me More" by Doja Cat has the exact same melody as "Fiskyl" by Olivia Newton-John. First class by Jack Harlow, the whole chorus was basically "Glamorous by Fergie." There are tons more examples of this. And it turns out like I did some stories on this back when it got popular. But the reason why some of those happened is because people who owned the catalogs of these older songs were trying to revive them. And so they were like, "Hey, we'll easily clear "Fiskyl" by Olivia Newton-John for you. If you want to make it into something new, it would be a win-win. And I just found that to be so fascinating, but it's also a very labor-intensive way to market a catalog. So have you guys tried flipping like flip camps or offering songwriters and producers to try to get new songs made? And is it worth it? All of the effort that goes on. - We don't have an active flipping department. - Thankfully. - Yeah. - We certainly have benefited from this. - Okay. - So we own the Delphonic's catalog. In that catalog is ready or not. And I think the most relevant example in recent history is Bridget Mendler. And-- - Oh, yeah. - Yeah. - But that song has been interpreted many times and Fuji's rendition of that is certainly more popular than the original Delphonic's version of that song. - Yeah. - There is a group of cornerstones songs that are suitable for this and will continue to have this revival and this new life when you have that caliber of artists coming to do a new version. Beyond that, it's not something that, you know, we sort of have teams of people dedicated to creating. I think if you bring it back to the basics, you need to invest and create a catalog of really, really high quality music. The high quality music is determined by the number of people and the frequency with which they're listening to it. And so if you do that, those opportunities are going to come about. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Those opportunities are going to come about for artistic reasons, for creative reasons. And those are to me the right reasons because then it's about the music. - Yeah. - Yeah, that makes sense. And I think that all the stuff that we have just talked about, the biopics, the flipping, all of these kind of creative things that provide a huge uplift often for an older song, those are all great, but I don't really know how you can, like when you're in the buying process of buying a catalog, how you can really account for that, 'cause those are all things that it'd be great if they happened. But it's not like you can have like the euphoria of music supervisor on Speeddown be like, hey, can you do this for the next episode? It's not how it works. So how do you, I just like, I don't even really understand how valuations come about, how you reach that final number of, this feels like an appropriate number for this catalog. And also how do you account for those random blips on the radar that are really positive for a catalog? - You just swing it. - Yes. - I know there's so much that goes into valuing a catalog. - There is. I mean, you have to look at what has been done historically. Right? So you have to look at the percentage that of the revenue that is coming from actual licensing. You have to look at that is coming from licensing to advertisers or film and TV, et cetera. Has the catalog been neglected? Has the music been neglected? Not out of any ill intent. Maybe it was just, you know, sort of collecting dust. Who knows? Or maybe your inheriting or buying a catalog that has been maximized from that standpoint. So we are certainly not going to look at a catalog and say, oh, as soon as we take over, we're gonna do 20% better. Because that's just not always going to be true. You pointed out earlier, certain genres are conducive to certain licensing, some aren't. So that's not a, you can't just do that across the board. We actually do a lot of due diligence internally and sometimes externally to think about what the sync opportunities are. And our sync team is obviously very aware of what the trends are in that moment and what the licensing future is. And, you know, is this something that you want in the catalog? And do you think that you're gonna be able to do better? Marketing this music to all the music supervisors in your database. So we do factor that in. You could have music that has historically just said no to licensing. So that creates a whole bunch of opportunities. - So why do people say no? Is it just like they don't want to license it? They don't, they might have an issue with what the purpose of the license is. Again, it might just be neglected. People have different reasons for that. You could have music that was heavily sampled without cleared samples. - Interesting. - Can you go back in time and be like, "Hey, I'm the catalog owner now, pay up." - Well, we did. So we did that with Daila Sol. - Okay. - We purchased the catalog and we purchased Tommy Boy in June of 2021. The first call was to them. And then we spent 18 months clearing the samples. I wonder how that exercise would look different today. - Okay. - Because I wonder if 18 months would be one month because we would be able to use AI tools to help us clear the samples. - Wow. Wait, so is AI used in sample clearance a lot now? - I don't know. - Okay. - But I'm sure it can be. - Yeah. I mean, that's like one of the most tedious processes that no one wants to go through. - And it was run on an Excel spreadsheet with weekly phone calls and a lot of human interaction and recall, you know. Like, "Hey, do you remember what this was? Go find it, clear it, et cetera." That was an 18 month exercise to get the music ready for the first time that it was going to be distributed on digital platforms. That also opened up licensing for three is the magic number in the credits of Spider-Man, which happened the November before I believe. We released the first single in January and then we released the rest of the music on March 3rd because three and three. - There we go. - In 2023. - Man. I mean, that must have been such an undertaking not only to clear the samples, but also since they haven't been on digital platforms or streaming services, Daylissel kind of fell out of the public consciousness a little bit. They're one of the most pioneering groups and all of really hip hop. But yet, because it wasn't there on digital platforms, easily accessible to people today, I imagine there was a lot of marketing that also had to go into just reminding people, hey, Daylissel is here and he's your favorite artist, favorite artist. But another thing with the Daylissel catalog is you guys announced that you had acquired the catalog and then the next month, David from Daylissel passed away. - Yes. - And so I'm wondering how you handle sensitive times like that as someone who's just spent all of this money to acquire this catalog. You're so excited about it, but you also don't want to be disrespectful or push too hard during a time of mourning. So how did you guys handle that? - It was a very, very difficult time. And outside of just somebody has passed away for too soon. So outside of just the human emotional aspect of it, we were three weeks shy or two weeks shy of, releasing the music on the digital platforms. Okay. And personally, what makes me or and what made me the most sad at the time was that they wouldn't enjoy this moment together, the three of them and with their families. Yeah. Forget about, you know, buying the catalog or paying them, like that, that was, that's, that was just not a part of. Yeah. We were thinking it was, this was going to be such an important moment for them to enjoy the three of them together. And we went with Mace and Paul's, we went to Times Square where over the course of that day, I believe we had six or seven billboards. And just to be with them and, you know, with family and enjoy that moment, you really felt, you know, it would have been great if Dave had been there. Yeah. To, to enjoy that, to see that, to see how the legacy, what he meant to people where, you know, so that it was devastating. Yeah. Yeah. And so we've touched on like a lot of ways where a catalog can increase in value, whether it's a biopic, flipping, a cover that becomes really popular, but also, as we know, artists can be unpredictable and sometimes artists damage their own legacy. So when you're dealing with artists that are still alive, where there's a scandal that takes place, I think of like someone like a Kanye West or David or, like even something as small as like a relationship gone sour that makes them look bad in the press for a while, how can that impact the value of the catalog and how do you manage the uncertainty of a living artist? So before we haven't had a lot of drama and I mean, we haven't had a lot of drama. Now that's not to say people go through life for in business with people. Yeah. And people get divorced and people have breakups and, and we're in the music business. So maybe certain things are exacerbated and heightened and that's fine. We're using artists and songwriter interchangeably. Yeah. Right. So songwriters, a lot of them you wouldn't even know by name, not you, but most people. Yeah. Any changes that happen, that's not really a public event. For a songwriter. For a songwriter and for the company and for the business. Yeah. For the most part, I would say that life happens to people and we're sort of in business with these songwriters and things ebb and flow and that's all fine. On the artist side, we've been kept safe from notoriety in that we don't really have that notoriety on the artist roster. And I'll go back to what I said before. I think we've just been really lucky. Yeah. We're not only dealing in classical music for instance. So we're shielded from perhaps some of the things that you're thinking about. Yeah. So it just hasn't come up yet. It's just really we've been pretty protected on that front. I just think it must be so devastating when you decide to acquire something and then all of a sudden the value that you thought you were getting has completely changed or the artist's reputation has completely taken a downturn. But sounds like you haven't had to deal with it yet. And I'm figuring out how to see you don't want to see you. And this may not, I don't know, maybe maybe I'm not supposed to say this, but we do look at deals and we do say, okay, are these people we want to be in business with? I mean, the scenario that you are painting, we think about that. And there are deals that have transacted that we don't want to be a part of because that's not necessarily a client that we see would have that we would be the right partner for. I imagine that there's a lot of people who also go in with that exact same mentality. It's like, I mean, it's like how risk averse are you going to be when you're entering into a partnership with someone? But I imagine that does affect the value of the catalog. If there's a bunch of people who are not willing to bid on your catalog because they're worried about you, then I imagine that it probably has some adverse effect. It does, but I mean, you're going to find a class of financial investor that who wouldn't have any impact. Yeah. And that's something they care. We would care. We have an active platform. We are in the music business. We represent writers. We are looking at future relationship and collaboration. I do want to touch on that. I mean, you have your kind of financial investor types, your Shamrocks or KKRs, stuff like that. You also have your institutional music investors, your major labels, your reservoirs of the world. How did those two sides see catalog investing differently? What attracts the Shamrocks of the world? What are those types of companies looking for versus what your music companies are looking for? What do you value assets differently in so far as how we view the exit? So if I'm a financial investor or I'm private equity or I'm a pension fund, I'm an institutional investor, I am solving for a three to five year exit. However that exit materializes. And so I am looking at an investment and a return on that investment in that five year window. That's where there's a little bit of disconnect with these assets, particularly in that exit assumption. And I would say that financial investors have maybe shifted a little bit on that five year. In that these assets have a much better return in a 10 year window or a 15 year window than they do in a five year window. These are long hold assets. That's how they behave. And how you think about the exit and what return you're going to realize at that exit is the difference between the various platforms. As a music company, we are in it for the long term. So we're now running forecasts for 30 years because who knows what's going to happen in 30 years. But we're certainly looking at a 10 year window or a 15 year window versus if I'm private equity, I want to realize a mid teens unlevered return by year five. I just, I imagine there's a lot of artists who don't want to go for that. The idea of, okay, I'm going to sell my catalog. I'm going to pick who I want to sell it to. But then they might flip it around three to five years. Like, yeah, I mean, so are we seeing a lot of second sales now or third sales of catalogs from financial investors? Yes, we are. I mean, we're reading about it every day. But I mean, I understand what you're saying that if I'm an artist, do I want that? There's also some very large transactions and that makes sense, right? So some artists, I think it, I guess basically what you're saying is like it kind of depends on what the artist is looking for. If they just want the money, then yeah, great. And then that's great. You're maximizing value for a body of work that you poured your heart and soul into for decades. Yeah. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Yeah. And then I imagine there's some artists who want to be like kind of partners in it. Sure. And then I really go more for like a reservoir. Maybe. Yeah. I mean, that's you have different priorities and different, every seller and every asset class has a different priority. Well, one of the most famous catalog sales of all time or I guess you could probably call it the most famous catalog sale of all time is Taylor Swift's Masters being sold from Big Machine, the label that she originally signed to in the 2000s selling those masters to Shamrock. This was very upsetting for her. But I feel like it brought so much attention to the catalog market, which was already starting to rise a lot by that point anyway. Right. But did the notoriety from that experience have any impact on the overall catalog market or was that really more about public perception opening up to the catalog market? We didn't feel any impact. I think that it was a perfect storm of who was involved, first of all, and the numbers that were being thrown around and the impact on the person or at least that the way that it was written about the impact on this person who has such a huge fan base and who is so loved. But side of that, I think that for at least those who are more engaged in the business, it started to shed light on this bifurcation between the two different kinds of companies that have interest in music. And there are those with the platforms and there are the majors and they have platforms and there are those companies with ongoing financial interest in music that doesn't yet exist. And then there are financial investors. And it sort of shed a little bit of light on that, on who the players are. And what are the various businesses that these players are in? and a business of. cashflow acquisition. Again, nothing wrong with that. And summer in the business of preserving legacies and nurturing artists and developing new music. That situation also really put a spotlight on the fact that Taylor Swift did not own her own masters. This was very common at the time in the 2000s when she signed her deal. She was, I believe, a teenager. So not much leverage, brand new on the scene, signs a deal with Big Machine. And that was kind of how record label contracts looked at that time. And so it was within Big Machines right to do with the catalog what they wanted to. Nowadays, we're seeing much more artist friendly deals at these record labels. We're seeing a lot more artists, even really small young artists getting record deals where they will either have the ownership revert to them at a certain period of time or they get to own 50% of it or something like that. I imagine that as time goes on, five, 10 years, 20 years down the line, when these artists are current today looking to sell their catalogs in the future, you're going to be dealing with more artists who are selling their masters rather than the labels that they were with. Right. Yeah. How do you see that impacting the future catalog market? I agree with you. And that you have a more sophisticated seller. You have better representation. You have an industry that has been essentially democratized because people have access to so many different things and people can do so much more on their own than they used to be able to. All of that being said, you're still going to see the same cycle of very high quality music that has a long life ahead of it. I don't think all of a sudden we're going to see a deliage of opportunities like that. I think that's going to be a finite group and there's a scarcity around that group, but you're just going to see a lot more catalogs. Sure. Yeah. Do you want to buy them? I don't know. Yeah. I think one of the most interesting things about the Taylor Swift catalog situation is that she decided to re-record her masters in retaliation, which I think when she announced that most people were probably scratching their heads wondering how this could possibly work. Right. It worked. Somehow the Taylor's version stuff like everyone switched over to Taylor's version and were loyal to her in that. And then we started to hear at Billboard that there were major labels who were starting to add clauses into contracts against re-recording to try to prevent what Taylor Swift had just done in the future. I thought that was super fascinating. But I also just kind of think like could anyone else ever actually do that? Well, it's a thing. It's a unique situation because of who she is. Yeah. I just don't think that most people have the fan bases that would switch just when you say, "Hey, this is wrong. I want you to listen to my new version." Yes. But I guess it does pose a risk to a catalog. If you say that you're investing in these certain masters and then they go ahead and do another version, that could be risk. But that artist has completely changed the structure of how you connect with your fan base. She completely changed how you establish a fan base and then connect with your fan base. So when she then follows that up years later with, "Okay, now I'm going to do Taylor's version," she's already talking to an existing group of people who are just out there supporting her. Yeah. You know? So there's a lot of legwork that went into being able to have a message like that that would stick. Yeah. Have you ever heard of any other like re-recording projects working? A non-like that. Yeah. I feel like the only thing I can think of is Deaf Leopard, rerecorded some stuff. And I think it was for the purposes of film TV licensing or something like that. Well, I mean, that happens all the time. They'll be trail-trailerization of music. There are companies out there that trail-or-rides music for use in trailers. Sure. Yeah. Those revisions are not meant to replace the existing tracks on a DSP that you would listen to. So one of the things about the catalog market that always kind of irritates me, I guess, is someone who reports on this area. Is that I'll see people online. They'll see the headline. And they'll say, it'll say, yeah, I guess one of them is like Justin Bieber sells this catalog for 200 million or something like that. They don't read past the headline to see exactly what was bought the sold. Right. And so you'll look at one catalog deal and compare it to another one and be like, well, why did Justin Bieber get this price? And this other artist got a totally different price. Isn't this person more popular? And I'm like, okay, we got to think about what they actually were selling. Because when you see a catalog deal, that doesn't mean it's always a 100% of the exact same rights. And I mean, we were talking about Taylor Swift. Her deal was about big machine selling her masters. But you can also sell your publishing, which is the songwriting rights. Those are two different things. So masters versus publishing, a lot of people want one or the other or both. Tell me about what the difference is in buying masters versus buying publishing. How do you treat that differently once you own that catalog? We're looking at different teams on those two different businesses. So the recorded team is different than the publishing team. There's a recorded marketing team. There's overlap on the digital side, but it's not the same people doing the same work. As far as our desire for either or I would say in the early days, the masters were, I mean, in the early days because there was so much risk the publishing was far less risky. Today, I would tell you that these assets are trading at parity. But you need, if you're going to take on publishing rights or master rights in an un, in an active way, not in a passive way, you're going to need to release final. You're going to need to have promotion and marketing on the record side, which is an entirely different business than what you would do on the publishing side. You're not releasing physical product on the publishing side. Publishing is more like a, I want checks to come in the mail. Yes. Versus masters are like, I'm out there. I want to market. I want to make it more valuable. I guess you also have to consider if you're the one who's looking to buy publishing, for example, who owns the masters and are they doing a good job? Do I trust that they're going to keep marketing it? Is that something that interests you? We definitely look at who, you know, who does own the master masters. I'm not sure if it's, are they going to keep doing a good job versus are they going to keep doing any job? And, you know, because that's what you really want to know. And are you looking at a major or are you looking at, you know, a record label that might not be here? And it also depends on the age of the music, right? So if it's a complete unknown, you're, you're going to think twice about it. We look into it to gather the knowledge we don't necessarily. It's not really a major factor in how we value it. Asa. Yeah. And one of the biggest deals of the last few years was Queen, Queen's old to Sony music publishing. It was over a billion dollars. It really sets what was reported. I imagine there's a finite number of artists who can really get for a billion dollars. I think that's the biggest one I've ever heard of. I'm wondering, like, is there a time when we kind of run out of the very, very top, top tier catalogs that are on the market? I worry about that all the time. Really? And I worry about at what point is a song, a catalog that is 30, 40, 50 years old? At what point does it just transition out of cultural mainstream? Yeah. At what point is it just no longer relevant? Are we listening to the music from the 20s or 30s? No. But I'm just going to name an artist from the 20s. I, well, maybe if you give me enough time. But like, yeah, I think that's really fair. I think also recording technology was not very good until probably about the 40s, 50s. Yes. But I feel like the 60s onward. Yeah. Maybe even like you could lump in late 50s because you have like Elvis then. Right. A Dion is someone that you guys work with. I feel like the popular music can and kind of starts there. Right. But it's like, yeah, does it does it ever become? Absolutely. People use it. Well, that's what I'm saying. So I do think about what you're saying a lot because we also have shorter attention spans. We also have much more music that we are exposed to. We have much more choice. We have much more ease with which we can listen to music and find music. So are we listening to our tried and true artists on repeat the way we used to? Even though we're listening to more musical hours per week, I don't think that I would be surprised. if you told me that we were listening to the same concentration and not to a more diverse concentration. Yeah. I don't know what the data is. When people are valuing catalogs and trying to come to that number where it feels like an accurate representation of how much the music will be worth and how much it's worth at that moment, people rely on streaming data a lot for that. But what happens if 5, 10 years down the line, there's something past streaming that we're not really aware of yet. Is that scary? Because that risk is. That is. It's, yes. But that's exactly where we were 20 years ago. In that something came along that people didn't realize was going to come along. I don't think the conduit matters as much as the rights protection and the, and just the importance of copyright and maintaining copyright. Whether it was ringtones or CDs or streaming or roblox or peloton, fundamentally, the business is one where IP is licensed and revenue is derived from that license. So that unknown distribution vehicle that could come about in the next 10 years, we need to make sure and focus on the IP being licensed. AI generated music. That's today's version of what that unknown is. We need to make sure that that music is compensating the IP on which it is trained. So the principle remains the same. And the precedent that we set on IP licensing will determine how well or poorly we do in the future. Yeah. I remember a couple of years ago, I started asking around because I cover both publishing and AI. And so I started asking around with various catalog buyers, lawyers, etc. asking, are you valuing or factoring in the rise of generative AI into your catalog valuations? At that time, people were saying no. Is that still the answer? Are people still meaning an upward? I mean, they're just like, I'm not super concerned about it. We are not, I mean, we are not projecting because we don't have compelling data, not because we don't have faith, but we're not projecting a any licensing income as yet from those platforms. But we're also not projecting cannibalization because there are whatever the number is now hundreds of 150 whatever that number is of the number of tracks that are added to platforms on a daily basis. So we're neither creating uptake assumptions nor cannibalization assumptions because of it. Yeah. The one area that I have been told before is an area where maybe AI is projected to cannibalize is stuff like production music, which is essentially just like background music that's easily licensed. It's not really tied to any artist is just kind of like library music. I also have heard that about like wellness ambient, that kind of thing. Is that also what you've heard? It is. And we're really not big in either of those businesses. I would, you know, production music has historically been a very labor intensive time intensive business. It labor because just to create the music and then it needs a sales team to actually sell the music even before this threat and before where we are today as far as creating generating music automatically, we've never been compelled by that business. Yeah. So we just don't have anything significant outside of some big theme songs of which aren't getting replaced but are existing. We've never invested in that business as an on an ongoing basis. But I completely agree with you that there is a certain class of commodity music that will be or has been wiped out. Yeah. Yeah. And one of the things that I've been talking with with my co-workers over the last year is that there weren't a ton of like big headline deals in 2025, at least not that ended up in the press. Maybe some of them happened behind the scenes, but I were also hearing though that the catalog market is just as hot as ever. So is that true? Okay. So we're still reporting over a billion dollars in our deal flow. We're still seeing processes that are competitive and we're still seeing some pretty significant size deals on the market. Got it. Okay. So we're nearing the end of our time here. I wish I could talk to you for a longer time about like all of the kind of new revolutions and how people are financing these deals and stuff like that. But I think we'll just have to have you back on for another time to talk about ABS and all those fun topics. But for now, I wanted to end off our show with what we do at the end of every episode of On the Record, which is what would you cue? And so I did give you these in advance. You could prep on this part because I never want to blindside someone with asking them about their favorite music. I feel like that's tough. So actually somebody in music in music. Exactly. I hear all the time from people that this is the hardest part of the interview for them and they're like, "I can eyes over it for hours." So okay. What would you cue to take you back to your childhood? Video kill the radio star. Great answer. Okay. What would you cue to represent your favorite era of music? The 90s and I'm going to cheat a little bit. Dela stole me myself and I. That's okay. But still the 90s. Yes. Popularized maybe in 1990, maybe. Exactly. We'll do that. Okay. What would you cue to remember the best concert you ever went to? Interestingly, it's recent, which not recent, but it's not like 20 years ago. We as a team went to see Soxonic in Las Vegas. Fun. It was amazing. I wanted to go to that residency so bad. My mom's like a huge fan of, well, I put her on to Anderson Pack and she was a big fan of Bruno Mars. I feel like every mom is a fan of Bruno Mars. Of course. Yeah. And so I wanted to take her to that and we never did. And I still regret it. I still regret it. They put on it. It was incredible. They need to do a reunion so we can go. I know. Okay. And a bonus specific to you is what would you cue to represent the reservoir catalog? Havana and Senorita. I know you said just one. Okay. But female song writer, Ali Tamposi, turning point for us for sure from just being on the charts. And I have all the respect and time for her. And you know, she's one of our long, long standing clients. So she's incredible. And I have to shout out another woman. Yeah. I love it. Well, Golanar, thank you so much for coming to the record. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much to Golanar, Kososhahi for joining me to talk about the year ahead in catalog sales and how we got here. Thanks so much for listening to this week's episode of On the Record. And if you like today's show, give us a follow on Instagram @BillboardOnTheRecord where you can find new clips of this show every single week. We'd also appreciate it if you rated our show on your favorite podcast platform because all of these things help on the record grow bigger and better than ever. Also, if you like the kind of content that we have on the show, you might like Billboard Pro. So maybe consider giving it a subscription head to our website for more information on that. And again, I'm your host, Kristen Robinson, tune in next week for another peek behind the curtain of the Music Business. I'll see you then.