Re: How does royalty work for music played on radio?

"David Eduardo" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> That seems a bit exaggerated. Music licence fees seldom exceed a range of
> 2.8% to 3% of staiton gross billings.

I've seen total royalties amount to as much as 10% at one station in
the past (KWUN Concord), which caused the owner no end of
hair-tearing.  This was some years ago, so things may have been
adjusted or I was looking a peculiar situation.

> Things that would probably be more at all but the biggest stations:
> utilities, rent, agency commissions, sales expenses other than commisssions,
> ratings services, insurance (including liability or self-insurance limits),
> promotion, advertising, etc.

Yeah, I guess I'm a bit rash.  Let's say in the top 5?  

> Wrong. Talk staitons usually have a licence that covers incidental use of
> music, both in commercials and in bumpers or even in interviews. The length
> of the sample is not relevant.

The station I worked at at the time, KKEY Portland, did not pay any
music license fees at all.  For the local spots they used an old
royalty-free production music library (CRC or Tanner maybe?).  This
was where I got the 60 seconds or less concept.  They literally carted
the theme music at :50 or :55 (I forget) and told me it was to get
around license fees.

I have no doubt that larger stations such as KGO get blanket licenses
covering all this stuff.  But the smaller guys?  I have a feeling such
things exist today.

> These forms are done as a dump of computer music scheduling logs now for
> music stations, and I have never seen a talk station itemize (although I
> guess they should). They just have the limited license.

Well yes, it's all dumped today, but I know that they did make the
differentiation between songs used as themes and other songs.  I don't
know why they would change that, since using a song as a theme would
skew its play significantly, making the license logs an invalid
sampling of the whole of the industry.