{"id":2365404,"date":"2026-04-09T11:44:39","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T11:44:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2365404"},"modified":"2026-04-09T11:44:39","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T11:44:39","slug":"secretly-buys-babel-ops-in-latest-indie-indie-consolidation-move","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/secretly-buys-babel-ops-in-latest-indie-indie-consolidation-move\/","title":{"rendered":"Secretly buys Babel Ops in latest indie-indie consolidation move"},"content":{"rendered":"<br><div>\n\n\t\t\n\t\t\n<p>Independent consolidation isn\u2019t just about majors buying indies, nor is it just about acquisitions involving labels. Consolidation focused on tech platforms is also a trend in 2026 \u2013\u00a0and an encouraging one.\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/p><p>The latest example sees Secretly Distribution acquiring tech firm Babel Ops, including its analytics subsidiary Entertainment Intelligence, whose service is being used by more than 55k labels to pick through their data.\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/p><p>Partisan Records, Reservoir Media, Secret City, MNRK and Exceleration are among those clients, but also Secretly Distribution \u2013 whose in-house repertoire-management system was built by Babel Ops.\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<p>Secretly said that Babel Ops will continue to serve its other clients after the acquisition, which is being presented as a move that strengthens the wider independent community.\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/p><p>\u201cWhat drew us to Secretly is a genuinely shared ethos: a belief that independence should be supported and strengthened, not absorbed into dominant systems,\u201d said Babel Ops founders Greg Delaney and Erik Gilbert.\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/p><p>\u201cNow, more than ever, if you want to stay independent \u2014 and help others stay independent \u2014 you must vigorously protect your ability to do business on your own terms, according to your values,\u201d added Secretly boss Darius Van Arman.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/p><p>\u201cIt\u2019s not enough to safeguard independent routes to market; you must have access to market-leading technology that enables you to compete against the largest companies.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/p><p>This points to the bigger picture around this deal. Strong independence needs three things: good ears and bold risk-taking when signing artists; financial muscle to grow on your own terms; and a tech stack enabling you to punch above your weight against the biggest industry players.\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/p><p>The first of those defines the independent sector, but the latter two have proved challenging \u2013\u00a0but there are a number of initiatives underway to crack them, from new providers of finance to mergers and tech-focused acquisitions like this one.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<\/p><p>For all the concerns about major-led consolidation in the sector, some indies see working with the majors \u2013\u00a0joint ventures or distribution partnerships rather than all-out acquisitions \u2013 as their pathway too.\n\n\n<section id=\"block-35\" class=\"below-content widget widget_block\"><nav class=\"jp-relatedposts-i2 wp-block-jetpack-related-posts\" data-layout=\"grid\" aria-label=\"Related Stories\"><h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Related Stories<\/h3><\/nav><\/section><section id=\"block-32\" class=\"below-content widget widget_block\"><aside>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<\/section><section id=\"block-25\" class=\"below-content widget widget_block\">\n\n<\/section><\/div>\r\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\r\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source musically.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Independent consolidation isn\u2019t just about majors buying indies, nor is it just about acquisitions involving labels. Consolidation focused on tech platforms is also a trend in 2026 \u2013\u00a0and an encouraging one. The latest example sees Secretly Distribution acquiring tech firm Babel Ops, including its analytics subsidiary Entertainment Intelligence, whose service is being used by more [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2365405,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[26605,459648,21737],"class_list":["post-2365404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-acquisitions","tag-secretly-group","tag-top-stories"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Secretly-buys-Babel-Ops-in-latest-indie-indie-consolidation-move.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2365404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2365404"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2365404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2365406,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2365404\/revisions\/2365406"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2365405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2365404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2365404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2365404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}