Music catalogs have quietly become one of the most valuable assets in entertainment — so who’s really shaping the future of music ownership? Golnar Khosrowshahi, founder and CEO of Reservoir Media, joins Billboard On The Record to break down how she built a music catalog powerhouse before the space became crowded, why music rights offer long-term, reliable value and how her team approaches acquisitions with artists, estates and families. She also discusses preserving legacy while driving cultural relevance for new generations, how licensing, film/TV and biopics impact catalog value, the role of sampling in today’s music economy and how generative AI could reshape valuations across the industry.
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0:00 – Intro: Why catalogs from Taylor Swift, Bob Dylan & Miles Davis sell for eye-watering prices 0:57 – Founding Reservoir in 2007: the darkest days of the music business
3:34 – What is a “multiple” and how are catalogs valued?
4:59 – Early believers: Dutch Pension Fund, BMG & the seeds of the boom
6:21 – How streaming educated mainstream investors and opened the floodgates
7:51 – Hipgnosis, bidding wars & why Reservoir doesn’t play that game
9:30 – How catalog deals actually come to you — there’s no portal
10:12 – Seller motivation: estate planning, legacy & keeping a stake
11:50 – The Miles Davis Estate deal & making him cool again for his centennial
17:13 – Why rock & pop catalogs sell for more than hip hop and country
19:55 – Take Me Home, Country Roads & the Google Home story
23:17 – Sync licensing: Yellowstone, Grey’s Anatomy & Sinead O’Connor in The Bear
26:17 – How biopics spike catalog value — the Johnny Cash effect
27:41 – The rise of “flipping” — using covers to market catalogs on social media
31:33 – How do you actually price a catalog? The messy math behind acquisitions
33:35 – What happens when music has historically said no to licensing?
34:14 – De La Soul: clearing samples, going digital & releasing during mourning
38:32 – All the ways a catalog can increase in value
39:04 – Managing living artist risk
41:27 – Strategic vs. financial buyers: Shamrock Capital vs. Reservoir
45:26 – Taylor Swift & Big Machine — what really happened
47:35 – Will future artists always own their masters?
49:40 – Could other artists pull off a “Taylor’s Version”?
51:27 – AI and catalog valuation: what are buyers actually projecting?
1:00:26 – Where AI might cannibalize: background & stock music
1:02:44 – “What Would You Queue?” closing game
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Why Music Catalogs from Taylor Swift, Bob Dylan & Miles Davis Are Hot Investments | On The Record
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we starting to invest in music royalties ourselve
This was a fantastic interview
Nice interview!
i like Golnar.. she is Obviously a Fukkin Boss
Such a good convo I learnt a lot. Your podcast and and the writer is with Ross Dolan are my favorite music podcast!
Love Ross and And the Writer Is — thank you so much!
From the information I have garnered through the years learning about AI, I believe the corporations acquiring music catalogs should really consider using AI as the “Dewey decimal archiving” of mastered records. I have no experience using the AI programs, such as Splice, Suno, Udio, and etcetera, but the main concept for the use of AI is to garner information from what has already been known so that people seeking information can gain a summary of the research from a specified questionable thought.
With my limited information of Splice, I have learned the program is essentially a library of selected music from the people programming the software. Suno is a creative AI to make a music track from pre-determined requirements (set by a user) from a combination of archived instrumentation of previous works. Udio is a creative AI to form a poem with rhyming cadence as a template to fit the theme the user gave as requirements to combine with previous creations. I could be wrong, but to provide metaphors for my explanations: Splice is essentially a music streaming service (i.e. Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music) with the capability to be a DJ and “splice” two different music tracks together. And both Suno and Udio are programs marketed to people who don’t want to put in the time to learn music theory and poetic grammar and would rather go through the process of “shut up and take my money” as a “get rich quick scheme”.
Based on the interview with Golnar Khosrowshahi, I can conclude the main reason the company she represents is buying all of those music catalogs is so that they can be the source of centralized-cash-flow and allocate earnings through royalties so that the artist and any other person tied to the master track can receive their share of net income when licensing the music for continuous use. Because the only other alternative is to have a de-centralized cash flow, which can introduce a litany of issues when one center of the peer-to-peer connection doesn’t have an EXACT copy of shared information.
I saw that zz top sold their catalog for $50 million, which seems relatively low compared to some, to me at least.