BMG reported its H1 2025 results earlier today (August 28), with numbers that told a familiar story for the modern music business: complexity beneath the surface.
The Bertelsmann-owned company’s organic revenue dipped 4.4% YoY to EUR €424 million in the period, but said its underlying streaming revenue climbed by high single digits.
Meanwhile, BMG’s EBITDA margin jumped significantly to 28.7% – impacted by what Bertelsmann called a “strategic scaling back of lower-margin activities”.
For Thomas Coesfeld, BMG’s CEO since 2023, these results represent progress toward a more focused, efficient operation.
Under his leadership, BMG has doubled down on its core publishing and recorded music businesses while shedding lower-margin segments, including its involvement in live concerts.
Meanwhile, the company has embarked on its ‘BMG Next’ strategy, bringing digital distribution in-house and leveraging AI-powered tools.
The H1 numbers also reflect BMG’s continued M&A appetite: it pulled off 17 acquisitions in H1 2025, pushing its total music rights investments since 2021 to EUR €1.2 billion.
Notable recent successes at BMG include country superstars Jelly Roll and Lainey Wilson breaking through internationally; the firm’s ~$100 million 2017 acquisition of Broken Bow Records/BBR Music Group looks increasingly prescient.
Perhaps most tellingly for the wider industry, BMG’s results come as fundamental questions about music’s value proposition intensify. Spotify‘s recent price increases have sparked fresh debate about streaming economics, while AI companies face mounting legal challenges over their use of copyrighted material.
Here, MBW quizzes Coesfeld on BMG’s strategic direction, the price points of streaming services, and why he believes the wider music industry must work to ensure creators are “paid fairly and credited properly…”
What is the most interesting growth driver for BMG right now, and how can you expand on it?
One of the most interesting growth drivers for BMG right now is our BMG Next strategy, particularly the move to bring digital distribution in-house.
By expanding our direct licensing agreements, we gain improved access to listening data and audience insights, enhanced on-platform marketing opportunities, and greater transparency and control over how our artists’ and songwriters’ works are monetized. These capabilities more effectively promote our repertoire directly at the point of consumption, ensuring optimal visibility and reach.
In addition, the integration of AI-powered tools is already creating new efficiencies and unlocking opportunities for our artists on the Recorded Music side as well as our songwriters in Publishing — our core business and growth driver.
How do you foresee the balance between publishing income and recorded music income changing at the company in the years ahead?
Music publishing will likely remain the primary income driver for our business, and we plan to allocate additional resources to our successful and diversified publishing operations.
“We plan to allocate additional resources to our successful and diversified publishing operations.”
Signings, administration and buyouts remain strong engines of growth, especially as streaming expands globally.
Our strength lies in our focused model — publishing and recordings — which gives us resilience and flexibility as the market evolves.
We hear a lot about ‘expanded rights’ in music these days (merch, gaming, live etc.), often centered on ‘name, image, and likeness’ rights. How is BMG managing opportunities in this area of the business while sticking to your focus on ‘core’ music rights?
Our strategy remains firmly focused on our core businesses of music publishing and recorded music. We have intentionally scaled back from lower-margin segments, but we remain open to selective opportunities in expanded rights where they make strategic sense.
“we won’t chase distractions that don’t complement our core focus areas.”
When expanded rights create real value for artists and deepen fan engagement — like gaming tie-ins or brand partnerships — we’ll explore them. What we won’t do is chase distractions that don’t complement our core focus areas.
Your continued investment in US frontline music under Jon Loba continues to bear fruit. Have you noticed a growth in strength of US repertoire around the world in the past year, especially as local hip-hop’s dominance lessens and other genres — country, for one — grows globally?
We’ve seen incredible success with both Lainey and Jelly across key international markets, highlighting a broader trend: the global appetite for country music and other genres once considered US-centric is expanding rapidly. For example, Jelly Roll’s Beautifully Broken and Lainey Wilson’s Whirlwind showcase how our artist-first, international approach is delivering results well beyond the US.
“the global appetite for country music and other genres once considered US-centric is expanding rapidly.”
Jelly Roll is breaking through as a global phenomenon, with chart-topping debuts in the UK, Canada, and Australia, along with his first international tours across Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
Meanwhile, Lainey Wilson continues to cement her status as country music’s leading global female superstar, with Whirlwind topping the charts in the UK, breaking into the Top 20 in Canada and Australia, delivering multiple international No. 1 singles, and headlining sold-out shows across Europe, with Australia and New Zealand on the horizon.
Speaking of which… looking back, that 2017 Broken Bow/BBR acquisition looks like a bargain?!
We’re incredibly grateful to have Jon [Loba] and the BBR team as part of BMG.
BBR has been both a cultural and creative win, proving the strength of our approach in combining entrepreneurial labels with the scale of BMG.
Your M&A strategy: What are the main criteria for catalogs or companies that BMG is looking to buy in the 2025 marketplace? Are you finding that assets are noticeably cheaper than they were 2-3 years ago?
Fueled by Bertelsmann’s Boost program, our investment strategy continues to be a bright spot, with 17 acquisitions in the first half of 2025, bringing total investments in music rights catalogs since 2021 to EUR €1.2 billion and consistently delivering strong returns.
When evaluating catalogs or companies, our main criteria include the quality and lasting relevance of the repertoire, the strength and track record of the artists and songwriters, and the potential to create incremental value.
We continue to take a disciplined, value-driven approach to acquisitions.
You’ve long been both positive and cautionary on how AI will use music. With Suno and Udio now being sued — and Anthropic facing a lawsuit over lyrics — where do you think the ecosystem ends up, and will it be materially additive to music’s bottom line?
Innovation has always been part of BMG’s DNA, and we see real potential for GenAI to accelerate what we can achieve. That said, copyright protection and fair remuneration for artists and songwriters are non-negotiable.
With partnerships such as Google Cloud and OpenAI, we are already using AI to make our operations more effective, while advocating for a framework that ensures AI evolves in a way that is both responsible and additive to the music ecosystem.
These initiatives will help establish much-needed clarity for rights holders, and we welcome regulation that ensures innovation does not come at the expense of the creators’ rights.
Streaming Price rises: We’ve seen a move by Spotify recently, but when you look at the world of audiovisual, is the price of music’s services moving fast enough, often enough?
Spotify’s recent price increases have reignited an important conversation about the value of music and the people who create it.
Every stream reflects the time, talent, and dedication of artists and songwriters, and they deserve fair compensation to build sustainable careers.
“Compared to audiovisual, music has historically been slower to adjust pricing and remains undervalued relative to the value it delivers.”
Compared to audiovisual, music has historically been slower to adjust pricing and remains undervalued relative to the value it delivers. Encouragingly, subscriber numbers have stayed strong even as prices have risen, showing just how deeply people value music.
As an industry, we must continue to evolve pricing models to properly reward creativity and ensure they are fair for all stakeholders.
Outside of price rises and AI, is there any issue in particular you wish the industry could ‘put right’ as things stand today?
One of the industry’s biggest challenges is making sure creators are paid fairly and credited properly.
Too often, revenue flows lack transparency, and inaccurate metadata means royalties don’t always reach the people who earned them.
“we need to go further as an industry to build a system that is fair, accurate, and sustainable for all artists and songwriters.”
Every artist, songwriter, and producer deserves to know how their work is monetized and to see their contributions recognized.
At BMG we’ve invested in better data practices. But we need to go further as an industry to build a system that is fair, accurate, and sustainable for all artists and songwriters.
Some financial media, both in Germany and globally (including THE FINANCIAL TIMES), seem very interested in whether you’ll be crowned the new CEO of Bertelsmann in the future. How can you block out this noise to solely focus on results for BMG?
I remain fully focused on BMG and our incredible team dedicated to serving our artists and songwriters.
“There’s never a question where my priorities lie.”
There’s never a question where my priorities lie, which is delivering the best results for our business, building lasting value for our repertoire, and ensuring BMG continues to grow as an innovation leader in music.
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