AKA
03-05-2002, 02:09 PM
Beatles Songs: From Jacko to Sony ASAP
By Roger Friedman
Fox News
The clock is ticking quickly now on the sale of the Beatles' songs to Sony Music.
I am told that Sony Music Publishing's President Richard Rowe is now in constant contact with Michael Jackson and his representatives. The reason? It's time for Jackson to relinquish his half of the Beatles' song catalog to Sony. (Jackson bought the catalog in 1985 from Sir Lew Grade's estate for $47.5 million. He sold half of it to Sony in 1991 for a reported $100 million.)
A nevertheless cash-strapped Jackson, as noted here and in other places for the last couple of years, borrowed $200 million from lenders in the mid-90s and used Sony as the note holder. Jackson — with debts incurred from out-of-court legal settlements and high personal expenses — needed the big bucks. Sony was more than willing to accommodate him.
Jackson's only collateral for such a loan was his 50 percent ownership in the Beatles' — meaning John Lennon and Paul McCartney's — nearly invaluable collection of hit songs. The catalog is valued at between $400 and $600 million and is the richest song catalog of any kind. "Yesterday" ranks as one of the most-played songs live and on the radio some 35 years after it was first released.
How rich and pervasive is the Beatles' inventory? "Let It Be," "Michelle," "Hey Jude," "And I Love Her," and "Penny Lane" all rank on the top of BMI's lists of three million or more all-time airplays. An astounding 14 more Lennon-McCartney compositions have 2 million airplays. An additional 20 or so Beatle tunes rank as BMI's "million-airs."
That comes to a total of 40 songs, or roughly a quarter of the total catalog.
Jackson had counted on sales of his Invincible album to bail him out of his debts. But Invincible — now in the bottom half of the record charts — has been a bust in the U.S. with far fewer than 2 million copies sold.
"Sony will either make him a cash offer for the catalog or just call the note," says a source familiar with the situation. "But it's going to happen. Richard Rowe is on the phone with them all the time."
Sony's fiscal year ends March 31, which is impetus for Rowe to work out the deal quickly. Sony Corp.'s stock price is just about half of what it was last May. The addition of such a rich asset as the Beatles would do a lot to — as McCartney once wrote — take a sad song and make it better.
Why, you might ask, doesn't much-publicized Beatle billionaire Paul McCartney step in and buy the songs? He's made two attempts in the last 20 years, but in each instance he and Yoko Ono, John Lennon's widow, were unable to come to any agreement about partnership. McCartney thinks that "Yesterday," for example, should carry only his name since he wrote it himself without Lennon. Ono has insisted that the songwriting duo's original agreement — that their names appear on all their songs together regardless of authorship — continue in place.
Regardless of who owns the catalog, by the way, the publisher still has to split the profits with the songwriters. So McCartney and Lennon's estate will still realize huge amounts of money once Sony takes over. Indeed, Lennon's estate, courtesy of copyright laws, will get an even higher portion than McCartney.
By Roger Friedman
Fox News
The clock is ticking quickly now on the sale of the Beatles' songs to Sony Music.
I am told that Sony Music Publishing's President Richard Rowe is now in constant contact with Michael Jackson and his representatives. The reason? It's time for Jackson to relinquish his half of the Beatles' song catalog to Sony. (Jackson bought the catalog in 1985 from Sir Lew Grade's estate for $47.5 million. He sold half of it to Sony in 1991 for a reported $100 million.)
A nevertheless cash-strapped Jackson, as noted here and in other places for the last couple of years, borrowed $200 million from lenders in the mid-90s and used Sony as the note holder. Jackson — with debts incurred from out-of-court legal settlements and high personal expenses — needed the big bucks. Sony was more than willing to accommodate him.
Jackson's only collateral for such a loan was his 50 percent ownership in the Beatles' — meaning John Lennon and Paul McCartney's — nearly invaluable collection of hit songs. The catalog is valued at between $400 and $600 million and is the richest song catalog of any kind. "Yesterday" ranks as one of the most-played songs live and on the radio some 35 years after it was first released.
How rich and pervasive is the Beatles' inventory? "Let It Be," "Michelle," "Hey Jude," "And I Love Her," and "Penny Lane" all rank on the top of BMI's lists of three million or more all-time airplays. An astounding 14 more Lennon-McCartney compositions have 2 million airplays. An additional 20 or so Beatle tunes rank as BMI's "million-airs."
That comes to a total of 40 songs, or roughly a quarter of the total catalog.
Jackson had counted on sales of his Invincible album to bail him out of his debts. But Invincible — now in the bottom half of the record charts — has been a bust in the U.S. with far fewer than 2 million copies sold.
"Sony will either make him a cash offer for the catalog or just call the note," says a source familiar with the situation. "But it's going to happen. Richard Rowe is on the phone with them all the time."
Sony's fiscal year ends March 31, which is impetus for Rowe to work out the deal quickly. Sony Corp.'s stock price is just about half of what it was last May. The addition of such a rich asset as the Beatles would do a lot to — as McCartney once wrote — take a sad song and make it better.
Why, you might ask, doesn't much-publicized Beatle billionaire Paul McCartney step in and buy the songs? He's made two attempts in the last 20 years, but in each instance he and Yoko Ono, John Lennon's widow, were unable to come to any agreement about partnership. McCartney thinks that "Yesterday," for example, should carry only his name since he wrote it himself without Lennon. Ono has insisted that the songwriting duo's original agreement — that their names appear on all their songs together regardless of authorship — continue in place.
Regardless of who owns the catalog, by the way, the publisher still has to split the profits with the songwriters. So McCartney and Lennon's estate will still realize huge amounts of money once Sony takes over. Indeed, Lennon's estate, courtesy of copyright laws, will get an even higher portion than McCartney.