NBC’s ‘Songland’ partners with BMG

BMG will handle distribution and publishing for new songwriting competition series

Songland, NBC’s groundbreaking new songwriting competition series, has signed a global recordings and publishing partnership with BMG. Under the agreement, BMG will serve as worldwide distributor of Songland Records and the administrator of the show’s publishing company Eligible Music for the songwriter contestants’ original music created and recorded during the show.

In each episode of Songland, one winning songwriter will have their song recorded and released by a superstar guest recording artist that same night. As part of the partnership with Songland, BMG will also release the music written and recorded by the two runners-up immediately following the airing of each episode.

The superstar recording artists who will appear in Songland this season include John Legend in the premiere episode, as well as Jonas Brothers, Charlie Puth, Meghan Trainor, will.i.am, OneRepublic, Kelsea Ballerini, Macklemore, Aloe Blacc, Old Dominion and Leona Lewis.

“I’ve worked with BMG for a number of years in many capacities and have seen how passionate they are not only about creating success for their writers but their persistence in changing an industry by creating transparency for their writers and artists,” states Dave Stewart, co-creator and executive producer of Songland. “Thomas Scherer is a force of nature, always positive and seeing every opportunity through to results. I’m sure the whole team at BMG will put their global strength behind Songland’s songs and artists, creating a whole new paradigm shift in the way a TV show dedicated to songwriting will deliver success for new songwriters, many of whom will be artists in their own right.”

Each week on Songland, four unknown songwriters will pitch and perform their original songs to one mega recording artist and a panel of producers responsible for today’s biggest hits: Ryan Tedder (lead singer of OneRepublic and Grammy Award-winning producer of Taylor Swift, Adele, Beyoncé), Ester Dean (Grammy-nominated songwriter and producer of Rihanna, Katy Perry, Nikki Minaj), and Shane McAnally (Grammy Award-winning songwriter and producer of Kacey Musgraves, Kelly Clarkson, Sam Hunt with 40 No. 1 country records). Three songwriters will advance and team up with one of the producers to go in-studio to develop their songs. Then, at the end of the episode, the featured recording artist will ultimately choose one song to record and release for a global audience that night, with BMG also to release the tracks by the two runners-up that same night.

Songland is executive produced by Emmy Award-winning producer Audrey Morrissey (The Voice), director Ivan Dudynsky, Eurythmics co-founder Dave Stewart, Chad Hines and Grammy award-winning recording artist and Maroon 5 lead singer Adam Levine. Josh Gummersall will serve as producer along with Ryan Tedder. The concept was devised by Stewart, Morrissey and Dudynsky.

Songland is produced by Live Animals in association with Universal Television Alternative Studio, Dave Stewart Entertainment and 222 Productions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH9b-tBvbNg

Buddy Iahn
Buddy Iahn

Buddy Iahn founded The Music Universe when he decided to juxtapose his love of web design and music. As a lifelong drummer, he decided to take a hiatus from playing music to report it. The website began as a fun project in 2013 to one of the top independent news sites. Email: info@themusicuniverse.com