BMG earnings

BMG has reported revenue of almost $500 million for H1 2025, when digital sources accounted for over 70% of the sum. Photo Credit: BMG

BMG has reported a close to 8% year-over-year revenue decline – and an “all-time high EBITDA margin” – for 2025’s opening half despite continued streaming growth.

The rebrand– and consolidation-focused music company just recently highlighted its H1 2025 performance, while the overarching Bertelsmann elaborated on the results in a more detailed half-year report. All told, BMG generated €424 million (currently $496 million) during the stretch, marking a 7.8% YoY slip and a 4.4% YoY “organic revenue decline,” the resources show.

“BMG recorded a decline in revenue due to lower revenues in the publishing and label business as well as portfolio changes from the sale of the live business,” Bertelsmann summed up.

“The decline primarily reflects the disposal of non-core businesses, including the divestment of live,” BMG proper indicated.

Neither the conglomerate nor BMG itself opted to break down the sum by sub-segment; $469 million/€401 million derived from “rights and licenses,” with $25 million/€21 million attributable to BMG’s “own products and merchandise.”

Nevertheless, Bertelsmann did shed light on specific markets’ BMG revenue contributions for H1 2025. Most notably, U.S. sales accounted for more than half the period’s revenue despite decreasing to $252 million/€216 million (down 8.1% YoY) from H1 2024.

Building on the point, BMG also acknowledged “market dynamic shifts in” other core regions; H1 2025 brought YoY revenue dips in Germany (down 17% YoY to $40 million/€34 million) and France (down 41% YoY to $22 million/€19 million), the reports show.

Shifting to streaming, digital sources kicked in 72% of the six-month window’s total revenue, up from a 69% share in H1 2024, the professional home of OneRepublic communicated.

Additionally, the company noted that it’d “expanded its direct licensing agreements with DSPs,” and core streaming revenue is said to have “demonstrated high single-digit growth” across H1 2025.

The initially noted record EBITDA margin came in at 28.7%, up from 26.5%. However, actual adjusted operating EBITDA was flat year over year at $143 million/€122 million, per the resources.

Closing with a look at the song-rights side, BMG confirmed 17 wrapped catalog acquisitions for the first and second quarters as well as a cumulative total of $1.4 billion/€1.2 billion dropped on IP since 2021.

Factoring based on the “over €1 billion” that the business had spent as of 2024’s end, that puts H1 2025 catalog expenditures at somewhere in the ballpark of $234 million/€200 million.

“Our results for the first half of 2025 demonstrate the effectiveness and strength of our BMG Next business model: disciplined, digital-first, and built for long-term value for all stakeholders,” added BMG CEO Thomas Coesfeld. “Our strategy is rooted in what we do best – music publishing and recorded music – while continuously building new capabilities to enhance our service.

“Innovation and technology are the engines driving how we work and how we support our artists and songwriters. We’re building a future-forward music company, uniquely positioned at the intersection of creativity and technology,” he concluded.