MBW’s Stat Of The Week is a collection during which we spotlight a knowledge level that deserves the eye of the worldwide music business. Stat Of the Week is supported by Cinq Music Group, a technology-driven report label, distribution, and rights administration firm.
Final summer time, Music Enterprise Worldwide revealed that Queen’s music copyrights had been nonetheless making main cash, regardless of the band having final launched a brand new studio album (with Freddie Mercury) again within the mid-nineties.
We noticed a fiscal submitting revealed by Queen Productions Ltd, a UK-based firm that recordsdata its annual accounts for every fiscal 12 months to the tip of September.
That submitting revealed that Queen Productions Ltd. – which displays the band’s revenues generated by music copyrights – generated GBP £41.67 million (USD $53.5m) from royalties in FY 2020 (the 12 months to finish of September that 12 months).
(Queen Manufacturing Ltd. is owned by the band’s surviving authentic members, plus the Freddie Mercury property; the group’s touring earnings flows right into a subsidiary.)
In FY 2020, Queen’s annual copyright royalties had been nonetheless being boosted by the long-tail success of Bohemian Rhapsody, the Oscar-winning film, which was launched globally in October 2018.
How lengthy might the halo impact from that film final?
Effectively, it nonetheless appears to be lasting: Queen Productions Ltd generated £38.92 million ($53.5m) from royalties in its final fiscal 12 months (the 12 months to finish of September 2021), in accordance with newly-published UK annual accounts analyzed by MBW.
That determine was down by simply 6.6% year-on-year. (By way of USD fixed forex, it was flat at $53.5m, per annual trade charges from the IRS.)
Not unhealthy when you think about that Queen’s personal earlier annual accounts warned: “It’s anticipated there will probably be additional earnings from the [Bohemian Rhapsody] movie within the 12 months ended 30 September 2021… though that’s anticipated to lower year-on-year.”
Nonetheless a lot credit score you give Bohemian Rhapsody for fuelling Queen’s monetary surge prior to now three years, the group’s modern-day recognition stays spectacular.
Queen at present sits at No.44 on Spotify‘s checklist of its most-listened-to artists globally, with 40.3 million month-to-month listeners.
Queen has, nonetheless, in latest weeks been overtaken by one in all their contemporaries: Kate Bush – following the international increase her Operating Up That Hill obtained from a Stranger Issues sync – is now at No.34 on Spotify’s international month-to-month listeners’ chart, with 44.5 million of them.
(Queen additionally missed out on the IFPI‘s checklist of the High 10 largest revenue-generating recording acts around the globe in 2021 and in 2020 – having made the rankings in each 2018 and 2019.)
Nonetheless, whenever you look additional again on the earnings of Queen Productions Ltd, the beautiful latest soar within the band’s revenues – and the spectacular upkeep of its recognition – turns into obvious.
Again in FY 2016, for instance, Queen’s copyrights firm generated simply GBP £12.34 million in complete.
That’s lower than a 3rd of the determine that Queen Productions Ltd generated in FY 2021 (£39.19m).
This all clearly raises attention-grabbing questions across the worth of Queen’s catalog, and whether or not it might someday (particularly if recorded music and publishing are mixed) surpass the hallowed determine of USD $1 billion.
Including to the likelihood: Pink Floyd’s recorded music catalog (plus neighbouring rights and title & likeness rights) is at present understood to be attracting bids of upwards of $500 million from main report corporations.
Queen’s recorded music catalog is at present owned by the band exterior of North America (the place it’s owned by Disney Music Group). Ex-North America, Queen Productions Ltd licenses that catalog to Common Music Group as its distributor and report firm accomplice.
In line with Queen Manufacturing Ltd’s FY 2021 annual outcomes, the corporate paid £11.53 million ($15.9m) on Value Of Gross sales within the 12 months.
The corporate additionally paid an additional £10.84 million ($14.9m) in “administrative bills”.
On account of these deductions, Queen Productions Ltd. ended FY 2021 with £16.84 million ($23.2m) in pre-tax revenue, a revenue margin of 43%.
Queen Productions Ltd.’s homeowners withdrew a £17.07 million ($23.5m) dividend within the fiscal 12 months, following on from a dividend of £20.17 million ($25.9m) in FY 2020.
The corporate that owns Queen’s music publishing rights within the UK is Queen Music Ltd.
In line with filings, it paid £23.04 million in FY 2021 to ‘entities beneath the management of the administrators and shareholders’ – more likely to be a reference to Queen Productions Ltd.
Cinq Music Group’s repertoire has received Grammy awards, dozens of Gold and Platinum RIAA certifications, and quite a few No.1 chart positions on quite a lot of Billboard charts. Its repertoire contains heavyweights reminiscent of Unhealthy Bunny, Janet Jackson, Daddy Yankee, T.I., Sean Kingston, Anuel, and lots of extra.Music Enterprise Worldwide
