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Radio money


Poker99

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I'm not sure...isn't it like 9.1 cents per spin? And how you would define average to high spin ratio? When I interned at a pr firm we defined 4-7 plays a week as medium rotation and 8 or more spins as heavy rotation. I'm not sure what defines medium-heavy rotation in mainstream radio though.

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Radio reports to ASCAP & BMI using the 'Scott System' which is like soundscan for airplay. You get paid on a tiered scale from your performing rights organization.

 

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.

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Radio reports to ASCAP & BMI using the 'Scott System' which is like soundscan for airplay. You get paid on a tiered scale from your performing rights organization.


 

Correct. Ive had my CD played many, many times on the radio and never got a cent.

 

Its extremely unfair and definitely geared to the major labels. There is no "listing" of how many times your song has been played. They only cover the major stations and do a statistical sampling of them. Dont quit your day job.:lol:

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ArtistMonitor™

ASCAP Members can now receive a 15% discount for ArtistMonitor™. Members can monitor their music's airplay online, on-air and also distribute it to Internet radio. Mediaguide ArtistMonitor™ lets you know every time your song or album has been played across a universe of over 2,500 radio stations, several cable music channels and selected XM channels. In partnership with Radiowave Airplay Monitor, the service also includes Internet radio data covering 3,000 stations as well as the distribution of one song to all 3,000 Internet stations. ASCAP members can now see the full picture of their music exposure - and with a 15% discount.

 

For members: $76.49 quarterly

For non-members: $89.99

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I believe the large radio stations are required to keep a daily play list. However, I’ve been told, many times these play lists don’t reflect on what is actually being played. Yes, payola is still alive.


John:eek:

No, stations don't keep logs anymore*, that went out back in the late 70s. Everything is based on their 'play list', and the aforementioned 'Scott System', Artist Monitor, etc.

 

* at least none of the ones I have been associated with over the years...plus, a lot of DJs regularly 'bump' songs off their shows, particularly heavy rotation numbers or artists...we used to do this when I produced at KIIS-FM, we just had to mark the 'bumps' off on our schedule (play list) for each hour (I mean, how many times could you play a 'La Bouche' tune, or the Macarena in an hour and not puke?)...some times we got yelled at by the MD or the PD...but usually we just ignored them as long the the ratings were up ;)...when we were in unrated periods (midnight to 5am) we bumped stuff all the time...:thu:

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IMHO, you have to get thousands of plays a day in order to make any modicum of cash. I got my first royalty cheque for $7.83 last month, and I think it's 9.1 cents per play (or something like 9.1 cents per minute after 3 1/2 minutes....i'm not too sure exactly how they work it, but yeah). It cracked the top 30 and top 20 of a few campus stations and hit #1 at one campus station, even, so the real money isn't in royalties, it's more the exposure that one gets from it that's worth much more.

 

Nielsen BDS' site has a "digital fingerprint" that you can register for, that ensures you the best possible chance of getting paid for all your plays--what it does is keep track of every time every song from your album is getting played. Anyone here who has music that has submitted music to campus radio stations should register--I know that SOCAN (Canadian version of ASCAP/ BMI....i'm registered with ASCAP, as well for US play) processes information up to a year old (ASCAP/BMI i'm not so sure).

 

Here's the link!

 

http://www.bdsonline.com/submit.html

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That's how much a songwriter gets per song on a CD. So if you get one song cut on Brad Paisley's next CD and he sells a million you get $91,000.


Of course you have to split that with your publisher.


I love hearing people talk about how they just want one cut so they'll be "set for life."

 

 

Actually, you could be set for life if your one cut was something like "Yesterday," which besides being a huge hit at the time it came out, is still being played all over the world every day, and also enjoys the status of being one of the most covered song in all of recorded music history. Especially if you're your own publisher. Then you get 100% of writer's royalty and 100% of publishing.

 

You have a better chance of getting hit by lightning while holding the winning powerball ticket, but it is possible.

 

I actually got a couple of checks from ASCAP this year; apparently a song of mine got some airplay in Norway for a little while. Not a lot, but it was $32.60 for me and $32.60 for my publishing company, which is me. $65.80 no fortune, but since I did nothing but put it out there into the marketplace and the checks just showed up one day, it's like free money.

 

As someone wryly observed here when I shared this info before, "why, there are TENS of DOLLARS to be made in the music biz!" :lol:

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I got my first royalty cheque for $7.83 last month, and I think it's 9.1 cents per play (or something like 9.1 cents per minute after 3 1/2 minutes....i'm not too sure exactly how they work it, but yeah). It cracked the top 30 and top 20 of a few campus stations and hit #1 at one campus station, even,
l

 

Excellent! Good for you. :thu::cool:

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Actually, you could be set for life if your one cut was something like "Yesterday," which besides being a huge hit at the time it came out, is still being played all over the world every day, and also enjoys the status of being one of the most covered song in all of recorded music history. Especially if you're your own publisher. Then you get 100% of writer's royalty and 100% of publishing.


 

One also gets money for new use: putting the song in a movie, on TV etc. I played on a big hit album as a session player, and made money every time one of the songs was used. I actually make the money from AFTRA, which is American Federation of Televsion and Radio Artists. I still get checks and made the album in 1991.:lol:

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Excellent! Good for you.
:thu::cool:

 

Thanks man! It's not much money, but it's still cool to get. I think that as long as one networks with people that have the same musical taste at campus radio stations, it slowly catches on if you believe in what you do--which is what matters.

 

Nice to see that you got some money from Norway plays! I think that people in Europe and the UK and places over there are a little more open minded to music. In the US and Canada (i'm from Canada), everyone has a tough sell ahead of them, because if you play a style that's well known, it gets lost in the shuffle of the many other bands competing for that ground. If you do something that's obscure, then people complain that they "haven't heard that before", ha ha. So yeah, Europe makes it alot easier in that sense, because they're open to different and original things.

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Good question, poker....i'm wondering how they track it over there. Is there some equivalent of ASCAP/ BMI/ SOCAN over in Europe? I know that the Nielsen digital fingerprint works great in North America. Otherwise, they take a sample from certain times, and you don't get paid for every specific play, just an average from a certain time--which is something that musicians have been grumbling about.

 

How did you go about getting tracked for plays in Norway, BlueStrat?

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