Timberlake is such a successful artist it is beyond reasonable doubt that all deals he has are on favoured nations terms so what he actually made is likely at least on the high end of your estimate, and circa $7MM in a WEEK is a fortune whichever way you slice it.
Also, Suit & Tie had 9,394 radio spins in it's first week, which is the most in the chart's history, that's a first week audience of 93.4MM people [1]. I'm not sure what the royalties are for radio play in the US, but I imagine it's nothing to be sniffed at.
Keep in mind, this is the first week; Timberlake is absolutely going to make a complete killing from this album and all the related opportunities that arise from it, e.g. touring.
I own a group of radio stations. We pay about 5% of our sales to music licensing costs.
Frankly I never cease to be amazed at what a great deal that is compared to how Spotify / Pandora / etc are getting screwed big time on licensing fees.
Traditional radio was / sometimes still is an extremely profitable business. Once you exceed basic costs, it's all gravy minus sales commissions and some production costs on commercials etc. Radio is basically one giant sales business.
It seems as though for radio, from day one, it was heavily a promotional medium for selling physical records, with the added bonus of a sales cut for the music industry. With the move to digital music, I think they stopped looking at it as a means of promotion so much and wanted to own the whole channel (as much as possible). Short sightedness, spurred on by a mixture of fear (eg Napster) and greed (opportunity to rewrite the distribution rules).
Labels were dependent on radio to sell albums but things like Rdio completely replace buying music. I've been using it for a couple months and already I can't imagine buying music on iTunes or anywhere else. It really is a game changer.
Also, Suit & Tie had 9,394 radio spins in it's first week, which is the most in the chart's history, that's a first week audience of 93.4MM people [1]. I'm not sure what the royalties are for radio play in the US, but I imagine it's nothing to be sniffed at.
Keep in mind, this is the first week; Timberlake is absolutely going to make a complete killing from this album and all the related opportunities that arise from it, e.g. touring.
[1] http://mashable.com/2013/01/21/justin-timberlake-suit-and-ti...