Industry Noize: Big Machine’s New Radio Play

Scott Borchetta’s Big Machine label and Cumulus Media have entered into a business agreement that will see Big Machine clients on unique brand of radio, with concerts and television events blended in.

Cumulus is in the process of combining its 68 country music stations into a brand called “Nash.” Some of those stations, with the help of Big Machine, will be named “Nash Icons.”

Those stations will feature heritage acts like Garth Brooks, George Strait, Shania Twain and The Judds, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Big Machine will co-own a new Nash Icons record label that will obviously benefit from the programming, the paper said. To that effect, Borchetta is in advance talks to sign a handful of ’90s icons to the label, he told the WSJ.

Reba, signed to the Big Machine-affiliated Valory Music Co., could move to the label, he added.

No money is expected to change hands and Big Machine will not get a piece of the radio advertising revenue, but it will get 50 percent of the profit from Icon-related live events and television shows.

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