The figure places Jackson atop this year’s Highest-Paid Dead Celebrities list—and also gives him the largest single-year payday by any entertainer, living or dead, ever recorded by FORBES. Most of that cash came from this year’s sale of Jackson’s half of the Sony/ATV music publishing catalogue, home to valuable copyrights of the Beatles, Taylor Swift, Eminem and others. The sale was announced in March and closed late last month.
“This transaction further allows us to continue our efforts of maximizing the value of Michael’s Estate for the benefit of his children,” said estate co-executors John Branca and John McClain in a statement. Added Sony Entertainment chief Michael Lynton: “This acquisition will enable Sony to more quickly adapt to changes in the music publishing business.”
Those in charge of Jackson’s estate and Sony weren’t the only ones who felt the move was a landmark agreement.
“It was certainly a deal that will go down in history,” says Jeff Jampol, who manages the estates of Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin and others. “I think to take a big payday like that … and divest their holdings, and be able to spread it out across other investments, is smart.”
The acquisition wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for Jackson’s own underrated business savvy. He purchased the original ATV catalogue for $47.5 million in 1985, a move questioned at the time by some of Jackson’s most trusted advisers—including music executives Walter Yetnikoff and David Geffen—and initially lambasted by many observers.
But ATV’s value burgeoned rapidly, strengthened by the enduring value of the catalogue’s Beatles copyrights, and a decade later Sony paid Jackson $115 million to become partners on Sony/ATV. In the years that followed, the publisher turned into a multibillion-dollar behemoth, accumulating north of 2 million copyrights in total.
“Turns out that it was a very lucrative investment,” Yetnikoff told me in an interview for my book, Michael Jackson, Inc. “So I would have to say that his business acumen is better than mine.”
Even after the Sony/ATV sale, Jackson will continue to be a publishing mogul from beyond the mortal realm: his estate retains control of Mijac Music, the entity that contains his own copyrights. That catalogue also includes some of his favorite songs by other artists, acquired over the years separately from Sony/ATV.
“He had a kid’s heart, but a mind of a genius,” Motown founder Berry Gordy once explained to me. “He wanted to do everything, and he was capable. You can only do so much in a lifetime.”
Fortunately for the King of Pop, he’s found a way to keep setting new records, even in the afterlife.
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While the Pearly Gates seemed to welcome an unusual amount of celebrities in the past year (David Bowie, Prince and Arnold Palmer, to name just three), the long-departed King of Pop had the time of his afterlife.
The March sale of Michael Jackson’s half of the Sony/ATV music publishing catalog, famous for its library of Beatles tunes, for $750 million puts him at the top of our annual ranking of the top-earning dead celebrities, an ironic finish given that many critics and even advisors once derided the catalog as a badly overpriced investment. Jackson’s total pretax payday of $825 million ranks as the biggest annual haul by any celeb dead or alive.
“He was always doing stuff that was the best, the greatest, the biggest,” says Jeff Jampol, who manages the estates of Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and others. “That was a big fight when he wanted to buy that catalog … it turned out to be one of the greatest investments ever.”
In 1985, Jackson paid $47.5 million ($140 million in 2016 dollars) to buy the Beatles-packed ATV publishing catalog. Ten years later, Sony paid him $115 million to form a 50/50 joint venture, then purchased his remaining half in March. In all, the sales (and accompanying distributions) gave Jackson’s estate, which is overseen by lawyer John Branca and music exec John McClain, a 30% annualized return on investment.
Peanuts creator Charles Schulz claims the second spot with $48 million. The cartoonist died of colon cancer 16 years ago, but lives on through the franchise—and its licensing revenue, boosted by last year’s well-received 3-D Peanuts movie. Golf legend Arnold Palmer rounds out the top three with earnings of $40 million, most of which was accumulated in the mortal realm, as he passed away just days before our cutoff.
Our set of 13 Halloween-spooky estimates are for pretax income from October 1, 2015, through October 1, 2016, before deducting expenses for agents, managers and lawyers. Sources include Nielsen SoundScan, Nielsen BookScan, PollstarPro, IMDB and interviews with estate experts.
Recently deceased superstars Prince and David Bowie also rank high on the list. The Purple One passed away while still at the top of his touring game (grossing nearly $2 million per show) and sold more than 2.5 million albums over the past year, more than any other dead musician. Bowie, meanwhile, released his final album, Blackstar, just two days before his death; the ensuing sales spike helped him outsell Jackson and Elvis Presley (No. 4, $27 million) in the last year.
Presley’s total represents a 50% drop from last year’s figure (a change in how we accounted for Graceland ticket sales, not plummeting demand, accounts for the change). The King of Rock n’ Roll still moved more than 1 million albums on the year—most of them physical, not digital—remarkable for someone who’s been gone for nearly 40 years.
As for Jackson, the Sony/ATV payday gives him the last laugh over doubters. But a decade ago, he already knew what a good deal he’d made, as detailed in my book Michael Jackson, Inc. On a 2007 conference call, the King of Pop reminded Sony/ATV chief Marty Bandier of the acumen that had earned him a nine-figure return on paper by that point.
“See,” he told Bandier. “I told you I knew the music publishing business.”
Full List: The Top-Earning Dead Celebs Of 2016
1. Michael Jackson (d. 2009) -- $825 million
2. Charles Schulz (d. 2000) -- $48 million
3. Arnold Palmer (d. 2016) -- $40 million
4. Elvis Presley (d. 1977) -- $27 million
5. Prince (d. 2016) -- $25 million
6. Bob Marley (d. 1981) -- $21 million
7. Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel (d. 1991) -- $20 million
8. John Lennon (d. 1980) -- $12 million
9. Albert Einstein (d. 1955) -- $11.5 million
10. Bettie Page (d. 2008) -- $11 million
11. David Bowie (d. 2016) -- $10.5 million
12. Steve McQueen (d. 1980) -- $9 million
13. Elizabeth Taylor (d. 2011) -- $8 million
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