SFX Team Up With Clear Channel To Bring The Beatport Top 20 To The Airwaves

Wow. When Shelly Finkel said at Holllywood’s IMS that SFX’s investment in electronic music in electronic music was far from over despite making a series of high profile acquisitions already back in April he wasn’t kidding. For the uninitiated SFX is the live music giant that over the last year decided to add beatport to its growing electronic roster for a cool $50 million before head of acquisitions for the music power house Shelly Finkel, made it clear that the shopping spree undertaken by SFX in the electronic market was far from over yet. Indeed over the last 12 months Finkel’s keen eye for the next big wave on the musical horizon has already seen him lead a highly publicized set of purchases such as Disco Donnie Presents, Dayglow Productions, Miami Marketing Group, Beatport, and most recently Dutch behemoth ID&T stating “I want to know who I missed, There’s plenty of money left. What’s Ministry Of Sound doing?” only half joked the music magnate.

Now with a further string of high profile acquisitions since then CEO Robert Sillerman has kicked off the new year by announcing a new partnership between his SFX company and radio giants Clear Channel Communications. It’s not the first time Sillerman has had dealings with Clear Channel, having previously sold the company his original concert promotions company SFX Entertainment for a cool $3 billion dollars. Now the second incarnation of the SFX brand has hooked up with Clear Channel for a market partnership on a number of initiatives including a hotly anticipated talent search competition for DJs that will air on stations nationwide and a weekly top 20 Beatport countdown of the biggest selling tracks from the music provider acquired by SFX back in 2013.

Exact details on the deal remain scarce with much of its contents undisclosed but Mr. Sillerman has been quoted as saying “It always stunned me that there wasn’t a closer relationship between radio and live entertainment”  and with John Sykes, Clear Channel’s President of Entertainment Enterprises showing an interest in looking for possible ways to connect with growing EDM culture saying “EDM is quickly becoming mainstream in our culture – we found ourselves looking for every possible way we could connect with our audience in EDM. The great thing about DJing is that consumers can connect to it personally – you can DJ in your basement. It doesn’t require a ton of money or schooling to pick it up” the partnership does seem a natural fit

Could history repeat itself and see Sillerman’s latest version of SFX be similarly acquired by Clear Channel? For the moment that looks unlikely if not a possibility in the future as ccording to Sillerman, “We always operate companies as if we’re going to own them forever.”