Sony Music has made another artist-friendly move.
The major has launched its Artists Assistance programme globally today for all Sony Music artists on the roster.
A letter has been sent to all eligible artists announcing the expansion of Artists Forward, Sony’s new initiative “prioritising comprehensive support for music creators in all aspects of their career development”.
“Building on our recently announced Legacy Unrecouped Balance Programme, which pays through qualifying earnings to many of our long-standing artists and participants without regard to their recoupment status, we now are furthering our commitment to our active roster artists with a new program called Artist Assistance,” the major wrote to artists. “This is a broad global effort aimed at promoting wellness for our signed talent and providing them with relevant information and key resources for their careers.”
Sony Music is making a significant annual investment into the programme in order to provide free, confidential counselling services from an external provider to address stress, anxiety, depression, grief, family and relationship matters and more. In an emergency, there’s a hotline with support in 70 different languages.
On-roster artists around the world can connect with a dedicated, licensed therapist at no cost and use of the programme is completely confidential.
In the UK specifically, further to the existing artist support services provided by Sony Music, more investment will be channelled into wellbeing provision for artists and employees, with in-house dedicated resources to oversee, promote and develop available support programmes. The other majors also have mental health and wellbeing support programmes in the UK.
In addition, for the US, artists are eligible to access qualifying health care and retirement services via Sony’s affiliations with artist organisations including unions. The major is looking at similar offerings in other countries too.
This is a broad global effort aimed at promoting wellness for our signed talent
Sony Music
Other initiatives in the pipeline include resources and advice on earnings statements, payments and guidance on how to see royalties and streaming data via Sony Music’s Artist Portal.
A global induction program for newly signed artists will cover how Sony Music works with its artists to secure music placements with digital partners, how to avoid pre-release leaks and how to prevent last-minute creative changes due to clearance issues
Sony Music’s Artists Forward initiative will now be overseen by Susan Moultrie, SVP for artist initiatives and business administration Moultrie's hire marks a return to Sony Music, where she first worked between 1991 and 1993 as manager A&R administration.
The Artist Forward programme includes the Legacy Unrecouped Balance Programme, which earned Sony praise and hit headlines in major news outlets in the summer.
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