Lew Grade & ATV Music: How The Beatles Lost Their Songs

In March 1969, the Lennon–McCartney songwriting catalogue — every song John Lennon and Paul McCartney had written together, from Love Me Do to The Ballad of John and Yoko — passed out of the songwriters' control and into the hands of a British television company. The man responsible was Lew Grade, one of the most powerful figures in British entertainment, and the vehicle was his music publishing arm, ATV Music.

For the full legal story, see The Beatles Later Contracts & Legal History (1966–1975) and The Beatles Early Contracts (1959–1965).

Lew Grade: The Man Behind ATV

Lew Grade (1906–1998) — born Louis Winogradsky in Ukraine — was one of the dominant figures in British entertainment for four decades. He began as a dancer and theatrical agent before building the Associated Television (ATV) corporation into one of Britain's most powerful commercial broadcasters. ATV held the ITV franchise for the Midlands and, at weekends, London, and produced some of the most successful British television of the 1960s and 1970s, including The Muppet Show, Thunderbirds, and The Saint.

Grade was also a significant force in music publishing through ATV Music, the publishing arm of his entertainment empire. By the late 1960s, ATV Music controlled a substantial catalogue of songs and was actively seeking to expand.

Northern Songs: The Background

Northern Songs Limited had been established in February 1963 by music publisher Dick James to administer the Lennon–McCartney catalogue. James and his partner Charles Silver held a controlling 50% stake; Lennon and McCartney each held 20%; Brian Epstein's NEMS Enterprises held 10%.

In 1965, Northern Songs was floated on the London Stock Exchange, making it a public company. This meant its shares could be bought and sold on the open market — without the consent of Lennon or McCartney.

The 1969 Sale

In March 1969, Dick James and Charles Silver decided to sell their combined 50% controlling stake. They did not inform Lennon or McCartney in advance. The buyer was ATV Music, which acquired the stake for approximately £9.5 million.

Lennon and McCartney were blindsided. They immediately launched a counter-bid, attempting to acquire enough shares on the open market to regain control. The effort failed: ATV secured a majority shareholding, and Northern Songs became an ATV subsidiary.

McCartney later described the moment he learned of the sale as one of the most painful of his professional life. Lennon was characteristically direct in his response, describing James's actions as a betrayal and ATV's acquisition as theft — though legally, of course, it was neither.

What ATV Owned

Through Northern Songs, ATV Music now controlled the publishing rights to the entire Lennon–McCartney catalogue as it stood in 1969. This included:

• Every song on every Beatles album from Please Please Me (1963) to Abbey Road (1969)
• All Beatles singles released between 1962 and 1969
• Songs written by Lennon and McCartney but recorded by other artists
• Unrecorded compositions registered to Northern Songs

Publishing rights — as distinct from recording rights — control the underlying composition: the melody and lyrics. They generate income every time a song is performed, broadcast, covered, or used in a film or advertisement. For a catalogue of this scale and cultural significance, the revenue was — and remains — enormous.

From ATV to Michael Jackson to Sony

The Northern Songs catalogue did not stay with ATV indefinitely. In 1982, Grade's ATV empire ran into financial difficulties following the expensive failure of the film Raise the Titanic. ATV Music was eventually sold.

In 1985, Michael Jackson acquired ATV Music — and with it the Lennon–McCartney catalogue — for $47.5 million. Jackson had been advised by his lawyers that the catalogue was significantly undervalued. He was right. The purchase caused a permanent rift between Jackson and McCartney, who had previously been friends and had recorded together (Say Say Say, 1983; The Girl Is Mine, 1982).

In 1995, Jackson merged ATV Music with Sony Music Publishing to form Sony/ATV Music Publishing, one of the largest music publishing companies in the world. Sony acquired Jackson's share of the joint venture in 2016, following his death in 2009, for approximately $750 million.

McCartney pursued the songs through US copyright reversion laws — a provision of the 1976 Copyright Act that allows songwriters to reclaim their works after 35 years. He began regaining rights to individual compositions from around 2018 onwards, a process that continues.

Lew Grade's Legacy

Lew Grade was knighted in 1969 and made a life peer — Baron Grade of Elstree — in 1976. He remained a significant figure in British entertainment until his death in 1998, aged 91.

His acquisition of Northern Songs is remembered, in Beatles history, as one of the defining moments of the band's commercial story — the point at which the songs that had made them famous passed permanently beyond their reach. Grade himself regarded it as a straightforward business transaction. The songwriters whose work he had acquired saw it rather differently.

Related reading: The Beatles Later Contracts (1966–1975) | Dick James & Northern Songs | The Beatles Early Contracts (1959–1965) | John Lennon | Paul McCartney | Why Did The Beatles Break Up? | The Beatles Knowledge Hub