Media data company Gracenote announced that John Batter starts immediately as new CEO. Stephen White, former president of Gracenote, stepped down from that role in May.
Batter comes from streaming movie company M-GO, where he was CEO & Director. M-GO is jointly owned by Dreamworks Animation and Technicolor.
Batter’s published responsibility at Gracenote is “setting the strategic direction and driving growth for Gracenote’s core music and video metadata and technology businesses, as well as leading the company’s day-to-day operations.”
Gracenote has been the leading music metadata company for years. Metadata include the identifying facts of a music (or video) track, such as song title, album, and artist. Metadata are the coordinates that position a recorded track in the global music catalog. Gracenote’s Rhythm product, launched in January, took the company into the music recommendation space where it competed with The Echo Nest, before that company was acquired by Spotify.
Last December, Gracenote was acquired by Tribune’s media services division.