Berlin, Germany. Photo Credit: Sabine Freiberger
Amid a continued reorganization, BMG generated over half of a billion dollars during 2024’s opening half, when digital revenue grew by more than a fifth year over year.
The Berlin-based music company’s Bertelsmann parent posted its H1 2024 earnings today, and BMG itself reached out with a detailed performance breakdown for the six-month stretch.
Universal Music-partnered BMG brought in $510.02 million/€459 million (up 11.1% YoY) during Q1 and Q2 2024, with 12.5% organic revenue growth and $135.57 million/€122 million in adjusted operating EBITDA (up 35.5% YoY), per the resources.
Behind the $510 million, digital achieved the initially highlighted 20.3% YoY boost and accounted for 77% of revenue in the recorded category, 67% of publishing, and 69% of overall revenue.
(During Q2 2024, Universal Music’s own digital-revenue makeup was closer to 70% for recorded and 61% for publishing; at Warner Music, recorded music’s digital share finished at about 71%, against roughly 64% for publishing.)
Meanwhile, regarding contributions from each segment, BMG continued to contrast the majors in H1 2024 by securing the majority (62%) of its revenue from publishing, attributing 36% to recordings and the remaining 2% to broader rights.
Shifting to the investment side, Thomas Coesfeld-led BMG essentially split spending down the middle between catalog buyouts and signings.
All told, BMG says it’s dropped over $1 billion (€900 million) on music IP during the past three years, with 10 plays having closed during H1 2024. Among other things, the total-transactions figure underscores the relatively large number of song-rights buyouts that aren’t announced publicly or that fail to make a media splash.
The former is presumably the bigger culprit; more than a few headlines have been dedicated to catalog deals on the year. But BMG has put out formal releases about only a handful of the purchases (involving the likes of Coconut Music and Dr. Alban) to this point in 2024.
In any event, as noted at the outset, the seemingly strong showing from BMG (which disclosed solid financials for all of 2023 as well) has arrived amid a continued organizational shakeup under Coesfeld.
Earlier in August, this far-reaching restructuring and strategic pivot brought about the exit of Maximilian Kolb, BMG’s EVP of repertoire and marketing for continental Europe, as well as the hire of Big Machine vet Jenn Dobbins as SVP of rights and royalties.
Most recently, evidently not shying away from external hires just yet, BMG on Monday tapped 10:22PM founder and UMG vet Celine Joshua as its first EVP of global marketing.
“The newly created position serves as the latest iteration of the ‘Local Where Necessary, Global Where Possible’ approach of the BMG Next Strategy,” BMG summed up in its release, opting also to mention 10:22PM, the professional home of Bored Ape “supergroup” Kingship, a grand total of zero times.
