Third quarter numbers are in from music publishing companies (via Billboard) and two bodies come out on top: Sony/ATV Music and...Sam Smith?
The British crooner had a number of factors going for him this quarter. The first, of course, is his hit single "Stay With Me," received the most spins on radio this quarter, one of the largest sources of publishing royalties for musicians. The song received more than 350,000 radio plays as well as 3 million downloads. He also gets a cut of the royalties for Disclosure's "Latch," which was the no. 5 overall most played radio track during the period. He's also the fifth-ranked songwriter on last quarter's list, giving him an edge over musicians who strictly perform.
Sony/ATV has at least some bit of ownership in 64 of the Top 100 radio songs from the last quarter, including "Stay With Me," so needless to say it came out on top. According to Billboard, it gathered 31.25 percent of publishing earnings during Q3.
Kobalt—a music publisher that just made headlines for announcing that its Spotify earnings outdid its iTunes earnings for the quarter in Europe—was the second highest earner overall, bringing in 17.57 percent of the share, thanks much to the continued success of Maroon 5. The no. 3 earner was the Universal Music Publishing Group, which came in with 16.73 percent of the share. MAGIC! was split between all three of the aforementioned publishers with its hit "Rude" (different rights within a song—digital performance, mechanical, public performance, et al—can all be handled by different agencies. It gets confusing).
Every quarter features the occasional fluke, based on what's been released during that span. Most noticeable during Q3 was Big Loud Bucks, which gathered a nearly 4 percent share based almost entirely on Kenny Chesney's new album The Big Revival.
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