BMI’s copyright revenue up 8% - Crain's New York Business
BMI’s copyright revenue up 8%
Broadcast Music Inc., which represents songwriters and composers, collected $901 million in revenues in its latest fiscal year.
Broadcast Music Inc. said Monday it earned more than $901 million in revenues for its fiscal year ended June 30, marking an historic high for the music copyright organization that distributes royalties to more than 375,000 songwriters and composers.
It’s the first time a copyright organization has topped the $900 million mark for music performance revenues. That figure also includes earnings from its subsidiary, Landmark Digital Services.
BMI will disperse more than $786 million to copyright holders, which represents an increase of 8% over the previous year.
International revenues, fueled by a weak dollar and a strong Euro, brought in $238 million and accounted for much of the boost. Growth in revenues was also helped by BMI’s aggressive approach in licensing music in less traditional forms of media such as digital and mobile businesses as well as cable television, satellite radio and satellite television.
Traditional broadcast radio and television still accounted for 38% of revenues, at $340 million, but satellite outlets brought in an additional $208 million, and new media revenues increased 50% to $15 million. BMI now licenses more than 6,500 digital media properties including mobile services and social networking sites.
"That's the story on digital overall," said Paul Resnikoff, publisher of Digial Music News. "It takes time to build up royalty streams on digital."
But BMI has also managed to cut costs, lowering overhead to 11.7%, by using online digital technology to track performances and collect with less paperwork and labor costs, notes Mr. Resnikoff.
"It's tough to chase down royalties from a smaller player, but they can be captured online all of a sudden, so it cuts both ways," he said.
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