Adele’s 25 is a gift that keeps on giving to the music business, spreading wealth beyond her labels (XL and Columbia/Sony) and publisher (Universal) to retailers, performing rights organizations and, not least, the 16 songwriters and producers who collaborated with her on the album.
Using the appropriate standard statutory rates and formulas for sales and interactive and noninteractive streaming, and an estimated hit-song rate of $2.50 per spin for radio airplay, the artist, songwriters and producers have earned $13 million in royalties to date. Those rates were applied to U.S. sales of 8 million, such U.S. digital radio noninteractive streaming as iHeartRadio simulcasts (excluding Pandora, which does not report its playlists to Nielsen Music), such U.S. interactive streaming as Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube (only for the single “Hello”) and U.S. radio airplay. All airplay and sales data were supplied by Nielsen Music through the week ending Jan. 28.
Billboard estimates that Adele — who co-wrote each song on the album — and other songwriters have reaped almost $9.6 million in royalties; the songwriters’ publishers combined have taken in nearly $1.9 million. The album’s 13 producers and co-producers (many of whom are also songwriters) shared $3.1 million.
And with the Grammy Awards just days away, expect those numbers to grow significantly.