Sony Sweeps With Sombr, Leon Thomas

Sony Music Publishing completed a 2025 four-quarter sweep, coming in as the No. 1-ranked publisher in both Radio Airplay and on the Hot 100 in the year’s final quarter.     

After landing the No. 1 spot in both rankings in the first three quarters, Sony cemented its year-long No. 1 placement in Q4 by spinning a commanding lead as the top publisher in the Radio Airplay rankings with a 30.3% showing, nearly eight percentage points better than the No. 2-ranked publisher, Warner Chappell Music. On the Hot 100 ranking, it landed a 21.57% tally — barely beating out a surging Kobalt, which garnered 21.43% of the chart in the fourth quarter — to complete the sweep on both lists.    

Sony is also the publisher for the fourth quarter’s top Radio Airplay songwriter, Shane “sombr” Boose, the sole writer of the two songs he placed on that chart, “Back to Friends” (No. 9) and “Undressed” (No. 78). On the Radio Airplay chart, there was a tie for the No. 1 songwriter among the collaborators on Taylor Swift’s The Life Of A Showgirl album, with 11 of its 12 songs written solely by Swift, Max Martin and Shellback (they had a co-writer on the twelfth song). All 12 tracks landed on Q4’s Hot 100 chart, with 11 of them in the top half, including the quarter’s No. 1 song “The Fate Of Ophelia.” (Swift is represented by Universal Music Publishing Group; Martin and Shellback are represented by Kobalt.)

Sony had a share in 75 songs on the Radio Airplay chart, the same amount as the prior quarter, but its market share was slightly down from Q3’s 30.76%. Its top song placement came from having a stake in the quarter’s No. 1 song, Leon Thomas’ “Mutt.” On the Hot 100, Sony’s song representation fell from 69 songs in Q3 to 49 songs in Q4 — and a corresponding market share drop of eight percentage points from Q3’s 30.10%. Sony’s top song was Alex Warren’s “Ordinary,” the No. 3 tune on that chart.    

In scoring the No. 2 spot in the Radio Airplay rankings, Warner Chappell tallied a 22.13% tally, with 57 song placements on that chart, including a stake in its No. 2 song, “Ordinary.” Even though its song count and share were down from 64 placements and a 23.67% share in Q3, its Q4 showing represented the ninth consecutive quarter that Warner Chappell came in second place on that chart. On the Hot 100 rankings, however, Warner Chappell fell from No. 2 to No. 3 as its market share declined from 22.32% to 16.92%, and its song count dropped from 52 to 36 in the prior quarter.

Universal Music Publishing Group scored the No. 3 ranking on the Radio Airplay chart with a 13.92% mark, down from the prior quarter’s 14.79% showing. Yet despite a higher Q4 share on the Hot 100 chart, at 16.69%, it only managed the No. 4 spot there. Its top Q4 song on the Radio Airplay chart was Justin Bieber’s “Daisies,” the No. 3 song on that chart and one of UMPG’s 44 placements; on the Hot 100, it snared 47 song placements, including the Swift tracks, with “Ophelia” its top song.     

Kobalt may have been No. 4 on the Radio Airplay chart, with a 11.59% tally (40 song placements, including “Mutt”), but it came in at No. 2 on the Hot 100 chart, with a 21.43% share and 43 song placements. The last time Kobalt attained that lofty ranking was in the first quarter of 2013 on the Radio Airplay chart. (Billboard began tracking the Hot 100 publishers ranking in 2019.) What’s more, that Hot 100 tally marks the first time Kobalt has surged past the 20% market share milestone since Billboard began tracking the Radio Airplay rankings for publishers in 2006.

BMG notched a No. 5 publisher ranking on both charts, with a 6.23% score from 14 songs on the top Radio Airplay chart and an 8.15% tally from the same amount of songs on the Hot 100. Its top-placing song on both charts was “Golden” from the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack, which was No. 4 and No. 2 on the tallies, respectively.    

The second half of the Radio Airplay rankings saw Concord (No. 6), Spirit (No. 7), Position Music (No. 8) and Big Machine (No. 10) holding over from Q3, though Concord was the only one that showed market share improvement, with its 2.36% share up from the prior quarter’s 1.40% — lifting it from Q3’s No. 8 ranking. Meanwhile, Reservoir returned to the top 10 at No. 9 with a 1.19% tally, after missing out in the prior two quarters.

On the Hot 100 rankings, the only holdover was Concord at No. 7, with a 2.05% share, the same ranking as last quarter despite nearly doubling its Q3 share of 1.07%. The new additions were St. Nicholas Music (No. 6), making its traditional 4th quarter appearance thanks to its representation of legendary Christmas music songwriter Johnny Marks. Ranked Nos. 8-10 were peermusic, Round Hill Music and a debut from Tamir Music, thanks to its stake in Eartha Kitt’s “Santa Baby” with Henri Rene and His Orchestra.

**Methodology: For the Top 10 Publishers Top Radio Airplay chart, percentage calculations were based upon the overall top 100 detected songs from 3,122 U.S. radio stations electronically monitored by Mediabase 24 hours a day, seven days a week during the period of Oct. 1 to Dec. 31, 2025. For Top 10 Publishers Hot 100 Songs, percentage calculations were based upon the top 100 songs ranked by Billboard Hot 100 points calculated from digital sales, streaming and Mediabase-tracked radio airplay detections during the period of Sept. 25 to Dec. 25, 2025, reflecting the chart dates of Oct. 11, 2025, to Jan. 3, 2026. Publisher information for musical works on both charts has been identified by the Harry Fox Agency. A “publisher” is defined as an administrator, copyright owner and/or controlling party.**