Peanuts Comic Strip Franchise Sold For $175 Million
Schulz Family Gains More Control In New Deal
Newspaper publisher E.W. Scripps Co. has agreed to sell its licensing unit, United Media Licensing, to licensing company Iconix Brand Group Inc., which owns the clothing brands Joe Boxer and London Fog. United Media Licensing, which owns the rights to several comic-strip characters such as Dilbert and Raggedy Ann and Andy, pulls in the majority of its licensing revenues from the “Peanuts” family of characters, including the lovable loser Charlie Brown, and his imaginative pup, Snoopy.
Like many cartoonists of his era, the late Peanuts creator Charles Schulz had to give up the rights to his characters when the comic strip was first brought to market in 1950. Schulz later fought to regain the rights to Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Schroeder, Lucy, Pigpen, Sally, Marcy, Peppermint Patty, Woodstock, and the rest of his cartoon creations. According to Schulz’s son Craig, the cartoonist even threatened to quit at one point, until he was given more business and artistic control.
The sale of Peanuts licensing rights to Iconix is good news for the Schulz family, which will also gain from the deal. The Schulzes have agreed to pay $35 million, 20 percent of the purchase price, for that same percentage of control of and revenue from the comic strip’s legacy.
Although no new comic strips have been drawn since Charles Schulz passed away in 2000, his artwork, much of which has been digitized with photo scanning equipment, still generates a steady stream of revenue from licensing usage rights to companies as varied as CVS, Hallmark, MetLife Inc., Old Navy, and Warner Bros. Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and the rest of the Peanuts gang can be found on T-shirts, greeting cards, and other merchandise all over the world.
Schulz’s son Craig has said that his family (Schulz had five children) is very relieved to have regained an ownership interest in the Peanuts franchise. The family also stands to make a significant profit from the deal. Each year, some 20,000 new Peanuts products are approved in over 40 countries around the world. Photo scanning allows Schulz’s original artwork to appear on anything from book covers to greeting cards to sno-cone makers. And though no new Peanuts comic-strips have been drawn in the last decade, many of 2,600 newspapers that published Peanuts at the time of Schulz’s retirement have chosen to re-run old Peanuts strips rather than say farewell to the beloved comic. New owner Iconix expects to pull in $75 million in annual royalty revenue from the Peanuts franchise alone.
Tags: Comic Strips, Peanuts, photo scanning