Warner Music Group (NYSE: WMG), one of the world’s leading music companies, today announced an agreement with Hulu, an online video service that offers hit TV shows, movies and clips at Hulu.com and other online destination sites — anytime in the U.S. The agreement brings an artist-focused online video experience that features music videos, artist interviews, live concerts and rare behind the scenes footage from WMG’s world-renowned artists and labels including Atlantic Records, Rhino Records and Warner Bros. Records. Warner Bros. recording artists Muse are the first artists featured under the agreement. Recently, Hulu launched an all Muse artist page (www.hulu.com/muse) that features the band’s appearance on Saturday Night Live’s December 19th holiday episode as well as content from Muse’s sold out tour dates at Wembley Stadium, exclusive interviews and rare deep-catalog videos.
Hulu will also launch artist pages for Atlantic’s multiple Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter Jason Mraz and for Fueled By Ramen/Atlantic’s multi-platinum, Grammy-nominated rock band Paramore in the coming weeks. More artist channels will be announced in early 2010.
In making the announcement, Michael Nash, Executive Vice President, Digital Strategy and Business Development, WMG, said, “We’re pleased to be working with Hulu as we expand our premium ad-supported video strategy to provide our artists with a customized and flexible approach to marketing and monetizing their music, by leveraging the most powerful partnerships and platforms in the industry. Hulu has been a leader and innovator in this space, and we look forward to working with them on creating compelling, content-rich artist channels that will provide a dynamic experience to their fans, while introducing our artists to new audiences online.”
Muse will launch their U.S. tour in February 2010 in support of their fifth studio album, “The Resistance,” which earned them their highest-ever debut on the Billboard album chart when it debuted at No. 3. “The Resistance” debuted at No. 1 in 20 countries around the world. Their current single, “Uprising,” has topped Mediabase’s Alternative Radio chart for the past 16 weeks, breaking the record for the longest No. 1 track at Modern Rock for 2009.
Jason Mraz most recently released an all new live CD/DVD titled “Jason Mraz’s Beautiful Mess – Live On Earth” recorded at the Chicago stop on his Gratitude Café Tour. This comes on the heels of his third studio album, the platinum-certified “We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things.,” which has received multiple Grammy nominations, including most recently Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for “Make it Mine” and Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals for “Lucky.” Additionally Jason’s song, “I’m Yours,” set the record this year as the longest-running song on Billboard’s “Hot 100” in the 51-year history of the chart.
Paramore’s new album “Brand New Eyes” is the follow up to their 1.8 million selling “RIOT!” The album, which was produced by Rob Cavallo (Green Day, Kid Rock) and co-produced by Paramore, debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and features the hit single “Ignorance.” Paramore also contributed two songs to the soundtrack for the box office smash “Twilight,” including the Grammy-nominated focus track “Decode.” The band’s “THE FINAL RIOT!” DVD has been certified gold by the RIAA, making it the first Atlantic Records video/DVD release to be certified gold in more than 10 years. The band just wrapped up a sold out UK tour including a stop at London’s Wembley Arena.
