Madonna crowned top music earner in 2012
The MDNA Tour helped Madonna taking home up to $34.6 million and being named the biggest money maker in music in 2012, Billboard reported on Friday.
The result highlights the earning power of live performances as the industry increasingly goes digital, Retuters comments.
The Queen of Pop topped Billboard Magazine’s annual list of 40 top money makers for the second time after earning an estimated $32 million – 93.5 percent of her revenue – from 88 dates of her tour, the biggest in 2012.
She was the only woman in the top 10, Madonna, a result that she also scored in 2008 due to tour income; last year’s winner, Taylor Swift, fell to 15th place as she did not tour in 2012.
In second place in the music magazine’s list was Bruce Springsteen whose $33.4 million revenue was also primarily driven by touring, while Roger Waters, founder of Pink Floyd, came a distant third with earnings of $21 million largely from “The Wall Live” tour . Van Halen was fourth with $20 million after touring in support of their album “A Different Kind of Truth”.
Explaining the list, Billboard’s editorial analyst Glenn Peoples said: “When it comes to making the biggest score, the most money always comes from high-paying live performances. Ironically, the most popular touring artists are usually well past their peaks on the album sales charts.”
The list was compiled by Billboard editors using data for Boxscore archives of U.S. concert gross figures, Nielsen SoundScan data for sales, YouTube, and Nielsen BDS data and can be seen at billboard.com/moneymakers. From a story by Reuters.
