AIM announces new board members and knowledge partnership at AGM 2019

10 October 2019 - Press release

The Association of Independent Music (AIM), the non-profit trade body which exclusively represents the UK’s independent music sector, held its Annual General Meeting (AGM) in the Knowledge Theatre at the British Library in London today.

This year the theme of the AGM was ‘knowledge’. A full programme of events across the day included the Annual Report from AIM CEO Paul Pacifico, during which a new knowledge partnership was announced, as well as the launch of a distribution report, and statistics on the growth of the trade body’s membership.

As part of the formal business of the AGM, four new AIM board members were appointed. Representing a diverse range of companies within the AIM membership, the newly elected Board members are:

• Daniel Miller – Mute Artists
• Hannah Overton – Secretly Group
• Jeff Bell – Partisan Records
• Yvette Griffith – Jazz re:freshed

 

They replace the following retiring Board members:

• Ben Rimmer – Believe
• Jason Rackham – [PIAS]
• Snooky Grubb – Mute Records
• Tim Dellow – Transgressive Records

 

In keeping with the AGM’s theme, AIM took the opportunity to announce that it will work together with BBC Music on a Knowledge Partnership, through which AIM is planning to roll out assets and information to support new entrants to the market through BBC Music Introducing, demonstrating AIM’s commitment to supporting grassroots independents.

AIM also revealed a major new report named ‘Distribution Revolution’. Created in partnership with CMU Insights, the new report will provide a benchmark reference for the music distribution market by mapping the 21^st century digital supply chain. Its official launch will take place on the 13^th November. Anyone who wishes to receive it in digital format on that date can now sign up to do so here:https://www.aim.org.uk/#/events/distribution-revolution-workshop-and-launch

AIM’s CEO Pacifico took the opportunity to announce some encouraging statistics for AIM’s rightsholder membership, which has experienced strong net growth due to an increase in activity, member engagement and a drop in cancellations.

The keynote speech was given by Rachel Oldroyd, Managing Editor of The Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Before joining The Bureau, Rachel spent 13 years at the Mail on Sunday, where she ran the award-winning Reportage section in Live magazine. The section focused heavily on human rights violations and, under her editorship, won more than a dozen media awards.

Reflecting on the pillars of truth, trust and knowledge and their importance to journalism in her speech, Rachel said: “We’ve moved way beyond the time of alternative facts in just a matter of a few years and we now stand at the crossroads of truth and propaganda. It’s up to the news industry, my industry, to try to navigate us through along the right path … More than ever, we need the truth. We need to understand our lives better.”

AIM CEO Paul Pacifico chaired a panel which reflected on the themes of ‘knowledge, truth and trust’, and their social and business implications. He was joined by a group of experts including Judy Ling Wong CBE (Black Environment Network), Paul Sanders (state51, Consolidated Independent) and Caroline Julian (Creative Industries Federation). 

AIM’s CEO Paul Pacifico said: “Our theme for this year’s AGM was knowledge and its relationship with the truth and trust. We heard how this theme is reflected across society at large in climate action and journalism, and across the creative industries as a whole. We take very seriously AIM’s role as the heart of an essential network of trust and truth built on a platform of expert knowledge from within the team, our members, our friends and wider stakeholders.”