Paul Hourican announced Thursday (Feb. 22) that he is leaving TikTok, where he served as global head of music operations.
“After four and a half amazing years and with a lifetime of memories and achievements in the bag, I've made the decision to leave TikTok,” Hourican wrote on LinkedIn. He didn't say what his next job would be, writing only, “See you very soon.”
A representative for TikTok declined to comment.
After working at YouTube for nearly five years, Hourican joined TikTok in the fall of 2019. At the time, many artists and labels were still hesitant to adopt the app. That began to change quickly — spurred in part by the pandemic, which pushed more users to TikTok and motivated more artists to focus on digital marketing efforts.
“With any new product that comes into an ecosystem like music, it takes time for everyone to acclimate to it,” Hourican said in 2021. “It takes time for artists… their teams and the industry to understand the platform and the capabilities. her. ”
During his time at TikTok, Hourican helped launch SoundOn, its distribution arm. He cited “helping take SoundOn from a sketch to a whiteboard to full product launch (and naming it along the way)” as one of his “personal highlights” from his time at the company. He also wrote that he played a role in “some incredible activations, collaborations, [and] award-winning projects,” including “the record-breaking TikTok In The Mix [concert] in Arizona late last year.”
TikTok's ability to influence music discovery and listening behavior has made it an essential tool for most artists and record labels. However, rights holders' frustration with the platform's low payouts has been steadily increasing since at least 2022. Recently, licensing negotiations between TikTok and Universal Music Group (UMG) collapsed, meaning that UMG's music was not available on the platform from the beginning of February.
