“Mad Men” Paid Record Price for Possible First Ever of Beatles Song for TV

It doesn’t seem like a lot, but the producers of “Mad Men” may have paid a record price for a single master recording for a TV show. Sources tell me that Lions Gate and AMC paid “upwards of $250,000″ for use of “Tomorrow Never Knows,” a John Lennon song from the Revolver album. I n order even to get the song, Sony/ATV  Publishing had to get Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Olivia Harrison and Yoko Ono to sign off on it. Unless some TV addict can challenge it, this is considered the first time a Beatles master recording has been approved for use on a regular TV series.

But it’s not surprising that it came off. “Mad Men” has won the Emmy four times in a row for Best Dramatic Series. It’s also, right now, in 1966, the same year Revolver was released. Last week, Don Draper (Jon Hamm) whistled “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” but if there was payment for that, it was just to Sony/ATV. The real coup here was getting the master recording. Beatles records are rarely allowed for use in movies or TV shows.

Last year, Sony paid over a million dollars for “Baby I’m a Rich Man” to be included in “The Social Network.” But several years ago, the Beatles rejected a request to include “Hey Jude” in “The Royal Tennenbaums.” And so far the few master recordings they have licensed have been secondary songs– no “Yesterday,” “Let it Be,” Long and Winding Road,” or “Come Together.”

Update: Three Beatles songs may have been licensed for partial use on “WKRP in Cincinatti” in the early 1980s. But the price then was a bargain as part of an overall deal with the Beatles’ prior publisher.

Source: Forbes