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"RADIO AIRPLAY
101"
By Bryan Farrish
www.radio-media.com
Publishing
Royalties from Radio
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 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 publishing. Our recommendation: Don't do radio for the
purpose of publishing. 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 (just check their websites,) 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 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, and
the small indies get nothing. With commercial radio, there is
no comparison... unknown indies make zero publishing 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 finding paying gigs to play, and sell your CDs
there. 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 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 500 to 1000 paid
people... 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 publishing checks, although probably
not enough to pay for your 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, and sell 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 you site. Use commercial radio morning shows to
showcase crazy tunes and jokes. Just don't try to use radio
for publishing.
Bryan Farrish Radio Promotion is an independent radio
airplay promotion company.
Our staff promoter of the month is Larry Santiago
(formerly of Premiere)... he can be reached at
818-905-8038 x15. Further info can be found at
www.radio-media.com
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