Warner Bros. Discovery in talks for $500M sale of half of music publishing assets
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Warner Bros. Discovery (NASDAQ:WBD) is closing in on a long-storied sale of at least some of its film and television music-publishing assets, according to media reports.
WBD was reported in January to be looking at selling its music library for a potential $1B as it wrestled with heavy debts lingering from the merger of WarnerMedia with Discovery.
(Warner Bros. created a music unit in the 1950s, and though its parent Time Warner sold off that music division in 2004, the Warner group retained copyrights to a library of songs, such as soundtracks to films including the Batman series.)
Now WBD is in talks to sell around half of those music-publishing assets for about $500M, Hits reported -- and Sony (NYSE:SONY) looks to be in the lead for bidding, according to Variety.
Many of those assets are decades old, but the publishing-rights market is hot -- and that could bode well for a company trying to shed debt.
In late 2021 Bruce Springsteen agreed to a reported $500M sale of his masters and publishing, and Bob Dylan sold his song catalog to Universal Music and sold his recorded music to Sony for $200M.
More on music-publishing sales

Warner Bros. Discovery mulls music-library sale to ease debt
Universal Music acquires Bob Dylan's entire song catalog
Sony buying Springsteen albums, publishing for $500 million
Sony talking over $800M-$900M deal for Michael Jackson catalog