Radio Airplay 101
- Performance Royalties from Radio
radio-media.com
We are always asked by people releasing their first record,
"Will I get BMI/ASCAP royalties if I get airplay?"
This question is similar to asking, "If I open a restaurant,
will I make money?". While it is the job of BMI/ASCAP/SESAC
to pay airplay royalties, it's also the job of restaurant customers
to pay their check at the end of their meal. But most new restaurants
don't make a profit, and most records pushed to radio don't
make more than a few dollars from royalties. Our recommendation:
Don't do radio for the purpose of royalties. Do it instead for
other reasons... like tour distribution. There are some exceptions
(one out of a hundred records do make some money), but you wouldn't
open a restaurant if you knew for a fact you only had one chance
in a hundred of making it.
The reason that a new indie act will probably not see a check
from BMI/ASCAP is that they will not get enough spins on the
larger stations. BMI/ASCAP does pay for college spins, but even
they state that they pay only about a million dollars a year
for all college records. The problem is that there are about
a thousand records mailed to college radio EVERY WEEK in this
country (not all stations get all records, of course,) so using
the very numbers from BMI/ASCAP would show that each record
gets $20. But what you don't see is that most of the money goes
to less than one percent of all the records... the major label
and major indie records... because they get the majority of
spins, because of the level of marketing that they do. So the
majors get a bit more royalties from college radio ($200 to
$500?), and the small indies get nothing.
With commercial radio, there is no comparison... unknown indies
make zero royalties in comparison with even midsize indies.
If you are a grassroots indie with your first release, don't
even waste the energy with BMI/ASCAP... spend your time instead
trying to find paying gigs, and sell your CDs there (i.e., tour
distribution.)
On the other hand, if you are indeed a midsize indie (meaning
your average title scan 50,000, and you have been doing this
for at least three years,) with at least good indie distro,
and if you are getting newspaper press in at least 50 of the
top 100 markets, and if your videos are also airing in these
markets, and if your gigs are pulling 100 to 500 paid people
to see just your act, and finally... if you have some good low-medium
level radio promotion ($50,000 or more) going into your next
release, then you will probably get enough airplay to be getting
some good sized royalty checks, although probably not enough
to pay for your radio promotion.
The point here is that small indies have a certain amount of
time they can spend on dealing with different areas of marketing,
and BMI/ASCAP issues should not be one of the first things dealt
with. By all means use radio, but use it for getting more paid
gigs (and more people at those gigs) so that you can make some
money each night by selling CDs and merch while you are there.
And use radio to get referrals to newspapers/magazines, stores,
even labels and managers. Use radio chart results to build your
marketing kit. Use non-commercial radio to drive people to your
site. Use commercial radio morning shows to showcase crazy tunes
and jokes. Just don't try to use radio for royalties.
Contact
For a complete description of our airplay campaigns, including
pricing, send an email to airplay@radio-media.com
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