ΤΑ ΝΕΑ ΤΗΣ ΕΛΛΑΔΑΣ

Another one for English speaking visitors


NEW YORK — Michael Jackson's estate has generated at least $1 billion in revenues since the singer died a year ago, thanks in part to a lucrative new record deal with Sony Music and the most successful concert film of all time, according to Billboard estimates.

Through interviews with industry experts and some number-crunching, Billboard examines the various music-based revenue streams flowing into the estate.




Music sales — Value: $429 million

Since his death, Jackson has sold about 9 million albums in the United States, while the Jackson 5 and the Jacksons have sold about 800,000 units, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Outside the States, Jackson's album sales for the past year stand at around 24 million units. Based on a blended worldwide retail sales price of $11.62 ($12.30 per unit less mechanical royalties), Billboard estimates that Jackson's album catalog generated about $383 million in sales.

On the digital side, Jackson's songs have generated 12.9 million track downloads in the United States in the past 12 months, according to SoundScan. Based on those figures, Billboard estimates that the total number of worldwide downloads is about 26.5 million units, with a value of $34 million (net of mechanical royalties).
Jackson's ringtone sales totaled 1.5 million last year in the States, with the bulk coming after his death. Digital ringtones sales worldwide are about twice that stateside, which brings Jackson's global ringtone tally to 3 million. At $2 per unit, ringtone revenue was about $5 million last year (net of mechanical royalties).
Monies generated from subscription services and digital performance royalties typically amount to about one-third that of mobile revenue, so Jackson's catalog probably generated about $2 million from those streams.

U.S. digital performance royalties represent about 13 percent of the revenue generated by single track downloads. Applying that rate to global track sales, Jackson's recording catalog generated another $4.5 million from global digital performances.

Film/TV — Value: $392 million

Sony Pictures bought Jackson's rehearsal footage from AEG for $60 million. In retrospect, the price was something of a bargain. "Michael Jackson: This Is It" was released Oct. 28, 2009, and earned $72 million at the U.S. box office, according to BoxOfficeMojo.com, making it the highest-grossing concert film in history.
Overseas, the film earned $188 million at the box office; of that, $56 million was tallied in Japan alone. After AEG recouped the company's investment of more than $35 million in the canceled shows at London's O2 and the film, the bulk of the theatrical take — court documents indicate it could be as high as 90 percent — went to Jackson's estate.

On the home video front, the "This Is It" DVD has earned $43 million in U.S. sales, with 2.7 million units sold since its Jan. 26 release, according to The-Numbers.com, a division of Nash Information Services. Nash