BMG Appoints Tom ‘Grover’ Biery as EVP Recorded Music, North America
Tom 'Grover' Biery will join BMG as EVP of recorded music to oversee the growth of the company's S-Curve Records, Rise Records and recently-acquired BBR Music Group.
After just four years of operation in the recorded music market, BMG Rights Management’s U.S. bureau now makes 25 percent of its revenues from recordings. While BMG’s strengths still lie in publishing — aside from the majors, BMG is now the world’s largest publisher by market share — the company has equally strong ambitions to scale its recordings arm and announced today (Nov. 14) the hiring of Tom ‘Grover’ Biery as EVP of recorded music to help lead this growth.
Biery will be based in Los Angeles, reporting to BMG US’ president of repertoire & marketing Zach Katz and overseeing the growth of BMG’s S-Curve Records, Rise Records and recently-acquired BBR Music Group.
In joining BMG, Biery concludes his brief, year-long career as SVP of streaming marketing at Concord Music Group — which has recently embarked on its own acquisition spree and currently ranks behind BMG and the majors as the fifth-largest integrated music company in the world. Billboard reported in June 2017 that BMG had offered to buy Concord for a price tag of $500 million, undercutting the latter’s asking price of $700 million.
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Prior to Concord, Biery served as EVP and general manager at Warner Bros. Records, where he relaunched the label’s vinyl business and helped the label become a founding sponsor of Record Store Day in 2007. In between his stints at WBR and Concord, he worked as an independent management and marketing consultant for companies like Artist Partner Group and Kobalt Label Services, and resurrected reggae artist Jimmy Cliff’s career as part of management company The Collective until it shut down in 2014.
“Grover is a heavy hitter with a wealth of experience navigating the new music business in both streaming and value-added physical formats,” Katz said in a statement. “We look to him to help guide our Los Angeles and New York teams to new heights as we pursue our strategy of giving proven talent the attention it deserves while also seeking breakout successes.”
Billboard estimates that BMG’s music unit ended Q3 2017 with $424 million in revenues — a 29 percent increase year-over-year, driven by its recent acquisitions in production music and legacy rock catalogs. The company also recently scored four simultaneous top 10 hits on Billboard’s Independent Albums chart (Big K.R.I.T., Hollywood Undead, Granger Smith and Hanson), its highest such tally in a single week.