When Dolly Parton was considering selling her music recording and publishing assets back in 2021, she was shopping catalogs which combined had net publishing and net label shares approaching $10 million, say some suitors and other financial sources who were aware of the deal. At the time, the rumor was that her management team was seeking about $500 million; now, other sources suggest discussions were more along the lines of a $230 million valuation. Whatever the price, a deal never closed, and it’s unclear if Parton pulled the deal or a suitor never completed it.
The year before that rumor circulated, Parton told Billboard she was contemplating how to put her estate in order. Now, following her passing this week at the age of 80, some wonder if Parton left instructions that her music assets be sold — and if she did, what assets she owned, and what the numbers could be.
How Much Does Her Catalog Generate?
Billboard estimates that her master recording catalog and her publishing combined generated $17.5 million in revenue on average over the last four years (2022-2025). But how much of that $17.5 million in revenue she takes home, as well as what is owned assets (known as an active investment) and how much is royalties (known as a passive investment) is less clear. Active music assets are more highly-sought-after than passive music assets, and therefore carry a higher valuation multiple.
In 2021, when Parton was testing the waters to sell her music assets, she was coming off the second-biggest year for her catalog in the past decade, according to Luminate data. In 2020, a year largely defined by the COVID pandemic, her catalog generated 764,000 album equivalent units, likely spurred by a new Christmas album, A Holly Dolly Christmas, with an hour-long TV special; high-profile philanthropic work, including a YouTube bedtime story series, “Goodnight With Dolly,” for children; and a Netflix holiday musical film, Christmas On the Square. And the growth in streaming at the time also helped spur activity: during the period of 2017 through 2019, her catalog annually averaged about 256,000 album consumption units, or one-third of 2020’s total.
That helps explain the valuation of her catalog when she was shopping the deal, as the assets were at a high-water mark following 2020. And interest remained high, if not as high, in subsequent periods: After the banner year of 2020, Parton’s catalog activity fell to 550,000 album equivalent units in 2021 before rebounding to 610,000 album equivalents in 2022, all figures much higher than pre-pandemic years.
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Which brings us to the 2022-2025 period, the years most relevant to a current valuation for Parton’s catalog, as music asset buyers like at least a three-year history of performance when assessing valuations. During that period — which contains the catalog’s best year of the past decade, 2023, when her catalog generated 769,000 album consumption units — her catalog has averaged about 625,000 album equivalent units a year in the U.S., while globally her on-demand stream count averaged 1.16 billion plays. (Overall, since Luminate and its predecessor companies first began tracking sales and other activity in 1991, the Parton catalog has generated 16.5 million album consumption units in the U.S.)
How Much Would She See?
While Parton’s longtime manager Danny Nozell told Billboard in August 2020 that her publishing catalog generated $6 million to $8 million a year, based on the above performance of the catalog, Billboard estimates her publishing catalog generated $6.5 million in royalties, nowadays. Separately, Billboard estimates that her master recording catalog generated about $11 million in global revenue annually for the period.
In terms of publishing, the revenue from her own recordings averaged almost $5.7 million annually over the past four years, with covers bringing in an additional estimated $800,000 based on information from industry financial sources, adding up to that $6.5 million figure. In terms of her master recordings, sources say Sony Music owns her masters from her RCA period, and also likely from her stint on Columbia Nashville, too, totaling some 23 albums. But in 1995, she issued the first album on her own Blue Eye label — still distributed by Sony — and since then owns most, if not all, of her subsequent studio recordings, or some 17 albums. Consequently, Billboard estimates that about 79% of Parton’s sales and streaming activity comes from masters owned by Sony Music. Applying that percentage against the estimated $11 million in total revenue her masters generate, Sony’s total comes in at $8.6 million, with the titles that Parton owns generating about $2.4 million in revenue.
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How much of that would go to Parton? On the recordings side, based on a superstar royalty rate of 33%, she would take home about $2.84 million in net label share from the Sony-owned recordings; of her owned recordings, assuming that she keeps 76% of revenue after production, distribution, marketing and other costs, that would total $1.83 million. The publishing side is more complicated, as might be expected, but given that she owned her own catalog for her entire career, it’s simpler than most: Billboard estimates she has about a 75% share of the 600 or so songs across her 49 albums, which would come out to about $4.25 million from the publishing on her own catalog. When cover songs are factored in — she maintains at least a co-write on more than 3,000 songs, including collaborations and songs written for and/or recorded by others, such as Whitney Houston’s megahit “I Will Always Love You” — that figure rises to an estimated $5 million annually, which, after an estimated 7% administration fee, settles out around $4.67 million.
All told, that adds up to $4.6 million in master recording income and $4.67 million from the publishing side for a total average annual take home of $9.27 million.
What Could a Buyer Expect to Pay?
A superstar multiple of 25 times on $9.27 million in income comes out to almost $232 million, a usually strong indicator of final valuation. However, while Parton has been an iconic superstar, even she likely doesn’t command a 25 times multiple on the passive income — the royalties from her music — from Sony.
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Normally, passive royalties — in which there is no ownership involved — trade on a multiple of 12-16 times, depending on the quality of the song or catalog’s performance. But assuming an iconic superstar rate of 20 times for her $2.84 million in Sony royalties, that would carry a nearly $57 million valuation. And assuming an iconic superstar multiple of 25 times for both her owned master recordings, with take home pay of $1.83 million; and her publishing take home pay of $4.65 million; that would carry valuations of $45.75 million and $116.5 million, respectively. Adding those three valuations together brings us to a total valuation of about $220 million — well in range of the $230 million valuation that industry sources are currently estimating.
Sony declined to comment for this story. Parton representatives didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time.
