1955

Associated Television (ATV) is established by Lew Grade.

1957

ATV acquires Pye Records as a wholly owned subsidiary.

1968

ATV Music and Lew Grade acquire the rights to the Lennon McCartney song catalogue, Northern Songs.

1982

ATV Music Publishing and Pye Records are put up for sale. They are bought by Robert Holmes Court.

1985

ATV Music Publishing and its assets, Pye Records and Northern Songs, are again put up for sale. Singer Michael Jackson acquires them for $47.5 million.

1989

Sony-owned CBS Records (now Sony Music) buys Tree International Publishing, Sony's first music publishing venture outside Japan.

1995

US pop singer Michael Jackson merges ATV Music Publishing with Sony. He earns $90 million from the venture.

May 2001

Jackson declares that The Beatles' songs "will never be for sale".

July 2002

Sony/ATV Music Publishing buys country music publisher Acuff-Rose for $157 million. The venture includes publishing rights to 55,000 songs.

2007

Sony/ATV Music Publishing acquires the Leiber and Stoller catalog, which includes the Elvis Presley hits Hound Dog and Jailhouse Rock, and Famous Music, a music publishing business with a catalogue of more than 125,000 songs.

2012

Sony/ATV leads a consortium that acquires EMI Music Publishing, the world's largest catalogue with more than 1.3 million rights to songs, making Sony/ATV the world's largest music publishing corporation.

China Daily

(China Daily 05/23/2013 page14)