BMG, the music rights group owned by German media giant Bertelsmann, has agreed to acquire Benelux electronic dance music publisher Talpa Music.
The companies announced the deal Monday, but didn’t disclose financial details.
Talpa Music was formed in 2005 by Dutch media entrepreneur and reality TV producer John de Mol and Dutch music publisher Tony Berk. De Mol had founded TV firm Talpa Group in 2004 after selling independent production giant Endemol (Big Brother, Deal Or No Deal) in 2000.
The deal comes amid continuing consolidation in the EDM space, driven by such companies as Robert Sillerman‘s SFX Entertainment.
Talpa Music owns more than 37,000 songs, including from such EDM stars as Afrojack, Tiesto, Fedde Le Grand, Laidback Luke and Bakermat. Overall, it handles the publishing rights to over 500,000 songs.
Recent hits featuring Talpa Music writers include Give Me Everything (Tonight) by Pitbull ft. Ne-Yo & Afrojack, Titanium by David Guetta ft. Sia, Bang Bang by Will.i.am, As Your Friend by Afrojack ft. Chris Brown, I Could Be The One by Avicii & Nicky Romero and Run The World (Girls) by Beyonce.
As part of the deal, BMG will also acquire Canal Music Publishing, a venture that exploits compositions from contestants of hit music competition The Voice, which now airs in more than 150 countries. The deal also covers Talpa stakes in such companies as music library firm MusicDIRECTOR, which specializes in music and sound effects for radio and TV.
The acquisition is expected to be finalized later this month when BMG will merge its operations in the Netherlands with Talpa Music and use the name BMG Talpa Music there.
BMG CEO Hartwig Masuch said: “This is a very significant acquisition of one of Europe’s leading music publishers…it not only further builds our position in the Benelux, making us the leading publisher of local repertoire, particularly in the EDM category.”
Said Berk: “The new company BMG Talpa Music will be a great force in our exciting and constantly evolving music publishing industry, with its internationalization of copyright exploitation and the changes of collection of its various income streams from all kind of existing sales and usages, as well as from new great online media opportunities.”
Berk, current Talpa Music president, BMG Benelux managing director Frank Bruens and Talpa Music vp Pieter van Bodegraven will continue to play “an active role” after the deal, BMG said.
E-mail: Georg.Szalai@THR.com
Twitter: @georgszalai
