eResonate Media Corporation announced that the accomplished industry veteran of film, television, music, games and the metaverse, Jeffrey Yapp, has joined the eResonate team. Mr. Yapp is also participating as an investor in eResonate’s current ‘Series A’ round.
“Entertainment has become democratized,” said Mr. Yapp. “eResonate is decentralizing income for talent and venues to better align with today’s fandom, inside an exciting new social networking environment.”
eResonate’s next-generation media platform creates network-wide opportunities for brands, venues, and artists. eResonate will increase revenue and scale engagement across all live performances, so that venues and talent will share in a much larger and more sustainable revenue stream. Other music services only share in licensing revenue (or pay-per-view), which remains largely unrecognized by artists. Over $120 billion is spent annually for online advertising, much of which is focused on fans of live entertainment. eResonate will provide venues and talent with access to audiences and engagement previously inaccessible through traditional live performances, while also unlocking significantly larger and more sustainable income for both.
eResonate Founder Gary Kucher commented, “I’ve known Jeffrey for over 20 years and he’s maintained a consistently impressive career of successfully scaling media business opportunities, amounting to billions of dollars in new revenue creation. That’s a uniquely valuable skill set, given the number of businesses I’ve seen unable to scale quickly enough to outpace their own growth. eResonate’s proprietary design emphasizes viral growth through a systematic and quantitative approach. We’ll need a team in place that’s prepared for growth that might greatly exceed our economic modeling expectations.”
Over the course of his respected career, Mr. Yapp has been committed to bringing innovation to the corporate environment. He served as Viacom’s Executive Vice President of Program Enterprises, where he was responsible for leading MTV, VH1, CMT and LogoBrands into new businesses and platforms. In just four years, Mr. Yapp grew the division from $15 million to over $1.4 billion in revenue. He oversaw several development groups responsible for an extensive array of ventures and new content opportunities including movie studios, gaming, sports, home entertainment, consumer products, radio networks and publishing. His accomplishments also include developing the highly successful Vice Media. Shane Smith, Founder and CEO of Vice Media, said, “Jeff Yapp is a true visionary, and I mean that literally. That word gets bandied about a lot these days, but I have firsthand proof. It’s called Vice.”
Mr. Yapp was also instrumental in NBC Sports joint venture with MTV and the Dew Tour, Guitar Hero 1, Rock Band 1 and 2, the Beatles Rock Band game among others. He oversaw movie studios for MTV, VH1 and CMT, Mr. Yapp received two Emmy nominations as executive producer for the film, DALE, the authorized true story of Nascar legend Dale Earnhardt, the highest rated movie in CMT’s history at the time. He greenlit and oversaw the production of Crazy Heart starring Jeff Bridges, Robert Duvall, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Colin Farrell, which earned three Academy Awards nominations and won two Oscars. His team also received an Emmy for its achievements in the 3-D avatar-based metaverse worlds, Virtual Laguna Beach and Virtual Hills.
Mr. Yapp also served as President of Retail for the $4.3 billion Cablevision as well as President and Chief Operating Officer of Hollywood Entertainment. At 20th Century Fox, he served as President of the International Home Entertainment business before being promoted to Worldwide President of Distribution. While at Fox, Mr. Yapp worked with Lucas Films on the reintroduction of the Star Wars franchise, which became one of the most successful campaigns in the history of home entertainment.
He received a Master’s degree with honors from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
