Sony/ATV Music Publishing - History - Recent History

Recent History

Timeline of Sony/ATV Music Publishing
1955 Associated Television (ATV) is established by Lew Grade.
1957 ATV acquires Pye Records as a wholly owned subsidiary.
1957 ATV Music Publishing is created to exploit the songs owned by ATV.
1968 ATV Music and Lew Grade acquire the rights to the Lennon–McCartney song catalogue, Northern Songs.
1982 ATV Music Publishing and Pye Records are put up for sale. They are bought Robert Holmes à Court.
1985 ATV Music Publishing and its assets, Pye Records and Northern Songs, are again put up for sale. Singer Michael Jackson acquires them for $47.5 million.
1989 Sony-owned CBS Records (now Sony Music) buys Tree International Publishing, Sony's first music publishing venture outside Japan.
1995 Jackson merges ATV Music Publishing with Sony. He earns $90 million in the venture.
May 2001 Jackson declares that The Beatles' songs "will never be for sale."
November 2001 Sony/ATV Music Publishing acquires Tony Martin's Baby Mae Music catalogue of 600 songs.
July 2002 Sony/ATV Music Publishing buys country music publisher Acuff-Rose for $157 million. The venture includes publishing rights to 55,000 songs.
2007 Sony/ATV Music Publishing acquires the Leiber and Stoller catalogue, which includes the Elvis Presley hits "Hound Dog" and "Jailhouse Rock," and Famous Music, a music publishing business with a song catalogue of more than 125,000 songs.
2012 Sony/ATV leads a consortium that acquires EMI Music Publishing, the world's largest catalog with over 1,300,000 rights to songs, making Sony/ATV the world's largest music publishing corporation with over 2,000,000 songs and about 1.26 billion dollars in revenue per year.

In May 2001, Jackson denied rumours that he was planning to sell the Beatles' song catalogue. Rumours had circulated that the singer was to sell them in order to finance the upkeep of Neverland Ranch and to cover legal bill expenses. The singer announced in a statement, "I want to clarify a silly rumour – The Beatles catalogue is not for sale, has not been for sale and will never be for sale. Sony/ATV Music Publishing continued to acquire song catalogues in the 21st century. In November 2001, the company signed country singer Tony Martin to an exclusive songwriting and co-publishing deal. Through the deal, they acquired Martin's Baby Mae Music catalog of 600 songs, which includes Joe Diffie's "Third Rock from the Sun" and Jeff Carson's "Not on Your Love". In July 2002, Sony/ATV Music Publishing bought veteran country music publisher Acuff-Rose for $157 million. The venture included music publishing rights to 55,000 country music songs, including the music of Hank Williams, The Everly Brothers and Roy Orbison as well as the master recordings of the defunct label Hickory Records. Sony/ATV revived Hickory Records as the in-house record label imprint in 2007, with distribution handled by Sony Music's RED Distribution. Sony/ATV also owns the masters of Dial Records, Four Star Records and Challenge Records.

In 2006, Sony gained operational control of Sony/ATV and obtained an option to buy half of Jackson's stake in the company at any time for a fixed price of $250 million. Sony has not exercised the option.

Digital sheet music provider Musicnotes.com announced in June 2006 that it had signed a long-term distribution agreement with Sony/ATV Music Publishing. Musicnotes.com would produce and sell digital sheet music and guitar tablature for songs from Sony/ATV's extensive catalog. "As a music publisher, we are always looking for new and innovative ways to promote our songs and songwriters," Sony/ATV chairman and chief executive David Hockman announced in a statement. Another company acquisition was made in 2007, when Sony/ATV purchased Famous Music, a music publishing business with song catalogue of more than 125,000 songs including "Moon River" and "Footloose." The deal, sought by Viacom, included the assumption of around $30 million of debt. The company purchased the business for $370 million. The song catalogue also includes the hits of Eminem, Akon, Linda Perry, Björk, Shakira and Beck. With this acquisition, Sony/ATV acquired the rights to publish music from films released by Viacom's Paramount Pictures subsidiary, which had founded Famous Music in 1928 to publish music from its films. This also included films released by DreamWorks, which Viacom acquired in 2006.

Following Jackson's death in June 2009, it was revealed that Sony/ATV Music Publishing would keep control of the Beatles' songs. Upon his death, Jackson's entertainment attorney, Joel Katz, commented on the singer's work as a businessman. "Michael Jackson was a perfectionist and his business affairs are worldwide. Many of them are quite ongoing and will be dealt with appropriately." Ivan Thornton, a private-wealth adviser who worked with Jackson and his family, also commended the business side of the musician. "His business mind was fascinating. We’d go to meetings with bankers and Wall Street people and once I explained the language to him, he totally got it. There was no formal education there, but his natural knack was off the charts."

In November 2011, Citigroup announced a tentative deal to sell EMI, with the recorded music arm going to Vivendi's Universal Music Group for $1.9 billion and the publishing business going to a Sony/ATV-led consortium for around $2.2 billion. Other members of the Sony consortium include Blackstone and Abu Dhabi-owned investment fund Mubadala. In March 2012, concessions were offered to the European Union to help win approval of the consortium's purchase. The deal won European Union approval on April 19, 2012.

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