The rights to Queen’s catalog might quickly change palms for an estimated $1.1 billion, in keeping with a number of high-level music trade insiders.
The British rock icons are reportedly within the early levels of promoting their hefty catalog, Music Enterprise Worldwide stories. If the deal goes by way of, it will mark the greatest single-artist catalog sale in historical past by far, greater than doubling Bruce Springsteen’s $500 million sale of his masters and publishing catalogs in 2021. If it goes by way of, the money might be break up equally between the property of Freddie Mercury and surviving bandmates Brian Could, Roger Taylor and John Deacon.
A number of main music firms, together with Common Music Group, have been vying for the potential acquisition, together with personal fairness teams. One potential complication is the truth that Disney Music Group — which has a world distribution cope with Common Music Group — presently owns the band’s catalog in North America.
There is no questioning the business success of Queen’s discography, which contains 15 studio albums, 10 dwell albums and two soundtrack albums. The band has offered 300 million data worldwide and notched 9 High 20 hits on the Billboard Sizzling 100, together with two chart-toppers, “One other One Bites the Mud” and “Loopy Little Factor Known as Love.”
The band loved an enormous bump in streaming and bodily gross sales following the discharge of the 2018 biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, which grossed over $910 million worldwide towards a roughly $50 million price range. Queen Productions Ltd., the company owned by the band, posted record-high revenues of £72.77 million (roughly $89.84 million) in 2019, and £39.19 million (roughly $48.38 million) in 2021, with virtually all of it coming from royalties.
Rockers Who Have Offered Their Publishing Rights
As tune placement has grow to be commonplace and gross sales have decreased resulting from streaming, many traditional rockers have offloaded their publishing rights.
