One Direction set to double earnings in 2012
Boy band One Direction are set to double their net worth to £64m over the next 12 months, according to industry experts. The five-piece - who were formed during The X Factor 2010 - finished third in the final but have become the most successful act to emerge from that series, with their estimated earnings already topping £32m after topping the charts both in the UK and abroad. However Nick Gatfield of Sony Music UK - who distributes the band's material via Syco Records in the UK and Columbia in the US - told the Mirror, "We fully expect to double that figure next year. "The team around them including musicians, stylists, producers, tour managers and so on, is 90-strong. That's 90 jobs created by these five boys." The lads - Liam Payne, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan, Harry Styles and Zayn Malik - have already been investing their money, reportedly splashing out on new properties. Zayn - who is currently dating Perrie Edwards from the show's 2011 champions Little Mix - has bought a new house believed to be worth £2.2m, while both Louis and Harry have now bought homes in London. The band are currently on a world tour, which finishes in July, and will hit the road again early next year with plans to play dates at London's O2 Arena in February.
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Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.
An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.