Billboard 2009 Top Five Money Makers

As per Billboard Magazine, the top five Money Makers for 2009 are:

1. U2 – $108,601,283

2.  Bruce Springsteen – $57,619,037

3. Madonna – $47,237,774

4. AC/DC – $43,650,466

5. Britney Spears – $38,885,267

How did Billboard arrive at these figures? According to the magazine:

Billboard’s annual Money Makers ranking is based on the artist’s share of revenue as opposed to total dollars generated by each artist in the ranking. The editors used proprietary data from the Billboard Boxscore archives (concert grosses). Neilsen SoundScan (sales of physical albums, digital albums and digital tracks, and from digital services streaming services such as Rhapsody, Napster, AOL and Yahoo, and ringtones.

What about the other forty-five? You can see the entire list here.