Twenty-five years ago it all started with the Dutch version of Top of the Pops. Today CTM Entertainment is one of the largest independent music publishers based in Europe.
Twenty-five years ago, André de Raaff, Bob Hubar and Denis Wigman founded the company that would become CTM Entertainment. It all started with the Dutch version of the British television programme Top of the Pops. Today CTM is one of the largest independent music publishers based in Europe.
“Denis and Bob were film producers and I was a music man. We thought it would be fantastic to bring the BBC’s music programme Top of the Pops to the Netherlands,” André says as he begins the story of how CTM came about. “As it happened, the BBC was already working on taking the programme international. The same stage from England was set up in the Netherlands so we could record the programme with Dutch artists. That way we could show big international artists (recorded in the studio in England) and smaller Dutch artists of every genre from the charts in one programme, from Britney Spears to Bløf. It all fitted together like a puzzle. That project gave rise to the plan for our company: bringing music, film and entertainment together under one roof. At the time I was working at Strengholt, but I left to start CTM with Bob and Denis. From day one it was an enjoyable and successful company that grew quickly.”
Investment from a Dutch pension fund
“What was still fairly unusual back then was that CTM entered into a partnership with a Dutch pension fund to buy music rights on a large scale. In 2007 it was quite something for a pension fund to invest 500 million in what they called ‘alternative investments’,” André explains. “That became my personal focus: acquiring music rights. Through my father, the composer André de Raaff senior, I knew that music rights can hold enormous value for a very long time. When that went well, we considered selling off the rest of the business, our record company, but in the end we asked Jitze to run the label side.”
No sooner said than done. Jitze de Raaff, one of André’s sons, joined in 2011. “Until then I had a management company and an online shop in the music industry,” he says. “In 2018 CTM’s partnership with the pension fund came to an end. Denis Wigman sold his shares and left the company, and that is when I became a co-owner. These days I run the day-to-day business as president of CTM. André is the CEO and focuses entirely on acquiring music rights with a new partner, Outlander, from Dallas.”
““Through my father, the composer André de Raaff senior, I knew that music rights can hold enormous value for a very long time.””
Music rights: a booming business
How and when did music rights come up for sale? “In America, most composers and artists owned their music and catalogue for decades, and some still do. They had their own lawyer who handled the rights for them. During the pandemic they suddenly had no income from live shows and ‘had to’ find another way to earn money. That made the idea of selling your music rights more popular,” André explains.
“There are now far more financial players around the world who are interested in music rights and willing to put money into them. From 2008 I spent two years going round the banks with brochures. They all thought it was fantastic, but nobody dared to invest,” André says. “Until I came to the pension fund. They had already decided to use 5 billion for alternative investments in intellectual property, such as film rights, television rights and music rights, and they trusted us to spend it in the right way.”
“The great thing about our business is that music rights are protected until seventy years after the composer’s death,” André continues. “When we started buying music rights at CTM, we bought a Rodgers & Hammerstein catalogue. It included a song, My Favorite Things from the film The Sound of Music, which was written some sixty years ago. Ariana Grande used that song in her track 7 Rings, which became a worldwide number one hit in 2019. That shows very well how much income a song can still bring in decades after it was written.”
“Rights also regularly come up for sale when companies close down,” Jitze adds. “Family businesses, for example, when there is no one to take over. Then the whole company or its catalogues are sold. That is how we have been able to buy a lot of music rights in European countries in recent years.”
Which music genres CTM buys
When it comes to genres, CTM has clear preferences, André says. “We do little with classical music; that is not our expertise. When it comes to buying music rights, I stay away from religious music, which is very big in America. We buy very little jazz too, because it is very niche. We mainly do a lot of rap, hip hop, pop and country, genres that appeal to a wide audience.”
André and Jitze: how father and son work together
André’s average working week consists of buying music rights and getting more out of the rights already acquired. “We are offered deals every day from all corners of the world, because people know we are an active player. If something looks interesting, I sign an NDA and get more information. If there is serious potential, our finance department models and assesses it. What is the income now, and what is the potential in the future? Are these songs that will still make money in thirty years? Does the music have something that keeps it enjoyable to listen to? If we want to go ahead with a purchase, I let the seller know fairly quickly. If we are in the same ballpark on price, we bring in the lawyers: they handle the legal due diligence. We have lawyers in America, England, Sweden and the Netherlands (Liaise). Once we have bought the rights, the whole team looks at what we can get out of them by actively promoting the music.”
Jitze focuses on very different things within CTM. “Alongside buying music rights, we are constantly discovering new musical talent and signing them, both as a label and as a music publisher. We promote and export the music we hold the rights to, so that it is used in commercials, feature films and series. There is an interesting legal contract framework behind that too, which runs through Stemra. Most of my week is spent on that creative side. I am also regularly at our office in Belgium, where we have composers and artists under contract that we are very proud of. And we have offices in Miami and Nashville. To make sure our contracts keep up with the latest legislation and developments, we have all of them reviewed every two years. In today’s landscape that matters a great deal.”
““To make sure our contracts keep up with the latest legislation and developments, we have all of them reviewed every two years.””
“So André and I really do completely different things within the company. And that is why it works so well between us. We see or speak to each other every day, but we regularly need to sit down together to ‘go through the trays’, as we call it. Mine are digital trays, André’s are literally trays full of paperwork,” Jitze grins.
CTM Entertainment and Liaise
André explains that the connection between CTM and Liaise goes back to his work with Bob Hubar. “When I was at Strengholt, I already had a good relationship with Bob. He regularly put artists forward, including Candy Dulfer and Danny de Munk. He was brilliant at closing deals, and he would often ring me at ten in the evening to ask whether a particular royalty percentage was acceptable. Jaap Versteeg and Bob shared an office at the time. And my business partner back then, Denis Wigman, is related to Roland Wigman, who is also a lawyer at Liaise. That is why I once joked to Jaap that I wanted a family rate.”
Oh no, AI: what do we do about it?
The music industry can no longer ignore it either: the huge rise of AI. “That is a big challenge right now. If we do not find a solution for all kinds of music being used without the rights holder being paid, the consequences could be dramatic. If you look back over the past decades, every modernisation of our business led to a negative first reaction (‘this is the end’), but it has always ended up broadening our business,” André says. “That is why we are positive about it in principle, but there has to be a solution for payment. We might lose quite a bit of money on this over the coming years, and then be compensated later because companies and organisations used music we hold the rights to without permission or payment.”
“AI can also help us enormously. It can tell us, for example, which music (by which composer and from which record) has been used in advertising, television and film. It can make tracking where our music appears much easier,” André continues. “In any case we are taking part in the development phase, so that we know what is happening and can respond and prepare when we see something coming, but we are certainly also worried about how it will play out.”
Jitze sits on the supervisory board of BumaStemra, the Dutch collective management organisation for composers and music publishers, and AI comes up there all the time too, at international level. “TikTok and other social media are full of music, and far from always in line with the rules and the rights that apply. The major record companies are already doing deals, which means there will at least be a way to protect the rights. I am also chair of the Dutch music publishers’ association, and I notice that some people are ‘anti AI’ and would rather dig their heels in. I understand that reaction on a gut level, but we have no choice: we have to move with it and look for a solution proactively.”
““I understand that reaction on a gut level, but we have no choice: we have to move with it and look for a solution proactively.””
Always looking for the next Maan
The future looks bright for CTM. “We are building further on what we have invested in over the past few years,” Jitze says. “We want to keep buying music rights with the help of our funders. And we are always looking for new artists to join us. Who will be the next Maan, Roxy Dekker or Jan Smit? Hopefully one of our A&R (artists and repertoire) managers will discover them. They listen to the demos we are sent every day and scour social media. When we start talking to someone, we sense fairly quickly whether it is worth continuing the conversation seriously. We look at what they have already done, which people in the music world they work with, what kind of songs they have written and whether those stand out. We often have new artists work with established artists to see how that is received and what works. That involves a lot of guidance and steering from our side.”
Dreaming of John Lennon, Michael Jackson and new Dutch hits
André does not need long to think about which artist’s music rights he would most like to acquire. “John Lennon, Michael Jackson and Tom Waits. Those are mainly my personal favourites, of course. I was very proud when CTM got to represent John Lennon and Tom Waits in the Benelux. When that happened, I walked over to Jitze and shouted: ‘I’m done! I’ve reached the top!’ What you do have to watch out for when you love something yourself is that your enthusiasm doesn’t make you overpay for the music rights.”
““When we play a part, as a publisher for example, in a song or an artist that becomes hugely popular, that is the ultimate thrill.””
Jitze above all loves the successes of today. “When we play a part, as a publisher for example, in a song or an artist that becomes hugely popular, that is the ultimate thrill. You think back to the moment they were in the studio, and then it is on the radio non-stop and thousands of people are singing along in concert halls and stadiums. As with ‘Terug in de Tijd’, ‘Engelbewaarder’ and ‘Zoet, Zout, Zuur’, for example. That process, a Dutch hit growing from the writing stage into a song everyone sings along to, is something I hope to experience many more times. I love my job, and at moments like that I enjoy it just a little bit more.”
Lawyers involved
Jaap Versteeg
LawyerJaap acts extensively for clients in the creative industries, including music, television/streaming/film, events, theatre, art and culture. He advises and litigates in the fields of intellectual property law, music law, unlawful publications, contract law and employment law.
Merel Teunissen
LawyerMerel advises and litigates in the fields of media law, film law, copyright, privacy law, contract law and intellectual property law. She acts for established and emerging media personalities, producers in film, television and podcasts, victims of unlawful publications and creative entrepreneurs.
