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Australia’s music industry is on the verge of seismic upheaval, following the appointment of the first woman to chair the body that oversees the industry’s annual night.
ABC’s head of music and events Natalie Waller has been appointed president of the Australian Recording Industry Association (Aria), succeeding Denis Handlin, who lost his right to sit on the board when was removed from his role as CEO of Sony Music Australia. in May.
The nomination signals a significant change in the representation of women in the music industry; as recently as 2019, Aria’s board of directors was made up entirely of male executives.
While Aria takes care of advocacy, copyright, licensing, and a myriad of other functions typical of a leading industry body, her public face is largely the prestigious annual Aria Music Awards, which have been criticized in recent years for not reflecting the cultural diversity in the music industry and the contribution of women artists.
Annabelle Herd of Aria, who took over from Warner Music Australasia president Dan Rosen earlier this year, promises a change.
“[Waller] and I’m on the same page about where we want to go, and the board is very supportive, they are very excited about this new era for Aria, ”she said.
“We’ll be making Aria pricing announcements shortly… and we’ll see some development.”
Following sustained criticism, Aria recently conducted a review of her juries.
“The results are in and they’re not surprising,” Herd said.
“We will therefore work to restore the balance of our juries and do all the work we need to do to move forward on issues of cultural diversity and cultural awareness… to reflect the true diversity of the industry.”
Herd dismissed suggestions that the live broadcast of the annual Aria Awards could find a new home at the ABC, given the new president’s leadership position for a decade with the public broadcaster.
“The potential interests of the president’s individual employer do not dictate Aria’s direction,” she said.
Prior to Waller’s appointment, the Aria chair had always been occupied by a male executive representing a major commercial record company.
Coming from a career in television [as Channel 10’s chief operating officer], Herd said it was “pretty obvious” as soon as she joined Aria that the treatment of women working in the music industry was a “huge problem.”
“And it’s not just focused on one sector, part of the industry, it seems to be generalized.”
In May, University of Technology scholar Jeff Crabtree released his report Tunesmiths and Toxicity: Workplace Harassment in the Contemporary Music Industries of Australia and New Zealand.
This report found that intimidation and sexual harassment of women in the music industry – “perpetrated by patrons, peers and influential people” – had become widespread and “normalized”.
The music industry has since formed a task force to tackle the problem and recently issued a call for expressions of interest to form an expert panel.
Control of the board of directors
The reshuffle at Aria follows Handlin’s departure from Sony Music Australia.
A Guardian Australia investigation released in May detailed several complaints from former employees alleging a toxic work environment in the global company’s Australian operations. Broadly targeting the culture of the workplace rather than individual individuals, the complaints included allegations of sexual harassment at work events, bullying behavior, alcohol abuse and unfair treatment of women in the workplace. .
None of the former Sony employees Guardian Australia spoke to made any allegations of sexual harassment against Handlin himself, although they criticized the workplace culture at the company while Handlin was CEO.
On May 21, the headquarters of global brand Sony Music Entertainment in New York City announced Handlin’s departure from the company.
Handlin’s name has now been removed from Aria’s website as a member and chairman of the board. It only remains to recognize that in 2014 he was crowned an icon of Aria, an industry gong that he himself lobbied on Aria’s board to established a year earlier.
During its three-month investigation into Sony Music Australia, Guardian Australia heard some people talk about Handlin’s perceived dominance as chairman of Aria’s board.
Breaking from his stance of not commenting on any media since leaving Sony, Handlin told Guardian Australia in a statement on Tuesday: “Like all directors, including the directors of Aria, I am bound by the confidentiality of the board in regarding board discussions and decisions made. by the board of directors when I was a director.
A board member who spoke to Guardian Australia said that “Denis liked things organized in a particular way and that was how it was organized. “
“He liked everything to be prearranged and pre-organized, he didn’t like surprises… so you just keep arguing over something that could mean a lot to him, which ultimately doesn’t mean a lot to you.”
“Nobody, not even the big multinationals, wanted to fight with him, because you have better things to do with your life. And that was the sentiment on the board.
Another board member who agreed to speak with Guardian Australia said that did not mean the board had never engaged in vigorous debate on more important issues.
“But I don’t think it’s fair to say that [Handlin] exercised [undue] control, ”said the board member.
“The council votes on things.”
During his 37-year tenure at Aria, Handlin managed to create a few new Aria Awards – the aforementioned Aria Icon Award which, in his first year in 2013, went to Michael Gudinski – the man who, at the very least, throughout his career, consistently denied the Sony boss the title of “most powerful” in the industry – before Handlin himself was awarded it in 2014.
The Icon Award is presented to Industry Titans at the discretion of Aria’s Board of Directors.
No icon awards were given in 2015.
Then, in 2016, Handlin managed to split an award in two, with the aim of having the vocal group Human Nature recognized, which at the time celebrated its 20 years in the Sony team.
The strategy did not work. Human Nature failed to get enough votes to even be nominated.
“Like any board member of any business or organization around the world, Mr. Handlin regularly made suggestions for new initiatives and changes which were then considered by the entire board. Aria, ”Herd told Guardian Australia.
“All decisions of Aria’s board of directors are made by the board of directors, not by an individual, regardless of title. Mr. Handlin was only a member of Aria’s board of directors and all members have always had an equal voice.
Possibility of major change
With nearly four decades of Handlin at the top now at its apparent end, the Australian music industry is closely watching how the company’s US parent company, Sony Music Entertainment, will mop up the puddle of messy public perception.
“I think Sony has a substantial opportunity,” said an industry insider.
“It’s a very powerful and internationally successful music company, and I would expect it to make substantial changes to the way it runs its business. “
A current member of Aria’s board, speaking ahead of the latest announcement, said the way Sony Music Australia is reinventing itself now could have a significant impact on the music industry as a whole.
“There are a lot of great women who could run this business, they have the opportunity to do it. And if they do, then all of a sudden you have a woman in a position of power who then joins Aria’s board.
Until 2019, the board of directors was exclusively male. That year there was a wave of female nominations. Of the four women recruited, one was from each of Australia’s three major record companies – Universal, Sony and Warner. Only ABC’s Waller, one might argue, was a truly independent director.
This meant that six of the nine voting directors on the board were from Australia’s three biggest record companies. The three female representatives were all subordinate to the male label representatives.
An inclusive board hasn’t necessarily made different decisions over the past two years, an Aria director said.
But Herd strongly refutes any suggestion that the sudden increase in female representation was somehow symbolic.
“I think it is quite disrespectful to say that just because [these women] work for the same company as their boss, they have no voice, opinion or contribution to make, ”she told Guardian Australia.
“You’re going to have a very small board of directors if you only have the CEOs of the majors, and you have to remember that [Aria] is a membership organization, representing the recording industry – majors and independents. The Board of Directors therefore reflects this membership, as is the case for any other organization in the industry. “
Music industry watchers will now be watching closely for signs of change at Australia’s national music rights management and publishing organization, Apra Amcos, where the 12-member management team employs just two women. . Apra’s 12-member board has three female directors, while Amcos’ 12-member board remains all male.
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