Sony/ATV Music Publishing

Sony/ATV Music Publishing is a music publishing company co-owned by The Michael Jackson Family Trust and Sony. The organisation was originally founded as Associated TeleVision (ATV) in 1955 by Lew Grade. In 1957, ATV acquired Pye Records as a wholly owned subsidiary. At the time, Pye Records was one of the three major record companies in the UK and, along with EMI and Decca Records, accounted for the vast majority of music records sold in the country. ATV Music Publishing was then created to exploit the catalogue of songs written by artists on the Pye Record label, and for the themes to Independent Television Corporation and ATV programmes. Grade established ATV's headquarters alongside those of Pye Records; off of Edgware Road, beside the Marble Arch in central London.

ATV Music Publishing and Pye Records were at the forefront of the British music explosion in the 1960s. The businesses held contracts with several US companies, allowing them to manufacture and distribute records in the UK. ATV Music Publishing and Grade acquired the rights to the Lennon/McCartney song catalogue, Northern Songs, in 1968. The catalogue featured nearly every song written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney until The Beatles' split in 1970.

Grade's fortune began to dwindle as the 1980s approached and by the mid-1980s, ATV Music Publishing and Pye Records were both up for sale. The companies were bought by Australian businessman Robert Holmes à Court, who disposed of them quickly and to his great...
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