Bug Music – Music Publishing, New and Old Skool
June 16th, 2009 by Lior Shamir
Billboard and Music Week recently released their 1st Quarter publishers rankings and share report. Bug Music ranks at #6 on Billboard’s Top 10 Publisher Airplay chart, holding 2.82% of the U.S. radio airplay chart share, a whopping increase of 70% over 4th Quarter figures last year. During the same period, Bug Music was responsible for 10% of the songs on the Billboard Country 100 and ranked #5 on Billboard’s Top 10 Rock Publishers. In the UK, a matching chart dominance and upward curve can be traced. CEO, John Rudolph, attributes revenue growth to the persistent drive of old skool music publishing activities in conjunction with new business model speculation.
“Bug Music is a music company made of amazing writers, artists, and songs. We recognized the need a few years ago to not only be aggressive in developing our traditional music publishing business, but to be more inventive in utilizing our partners and their songs by diversifying the role of an independent music company,” said Rudolph. “We believe the turmoil of the economic climate today has afforded us great opportunities to create new models for the future ranging from releasing records to developing brands around songs.”
For those in the know, Bug Music is a music publishing leviathan, most notably for its 2007 acquisition of Windswept Music and Trio/Quartet catalogs, adding 250,000 copyrights to its name including “The Real Slim Shady”, “Fever”, “What a Wonderful World”, “Stormy Weather”, “I Walk the Line”, “Summer in the City”, “Under the Boardwalk”, “Lust for Life” and many other mega-hits. Recent deals include a joint venture with Nashville-natives, Kings of Leon, and a co-publishing relationship with Kara DioGuardi, the American Idol Judge and one of the highest earning songwriters in the world.
Taking the company’s 34-year tenure and size into consideration, with offices in Los Angeles, New York, Nashville, London and Munich, Bug Music is refreshingly hip and open-minded, pursuing new technologies to cater to their publishing administration and publically detailing their approach to new acquisitions and client engagement.
Now, let’s check out DioGuardi’s bod again for those who missed it live:
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