{"id":357897,"date":"2025-08-19T22:47:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T22:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/357897\/"},"modified":"2025-08-19T22:47:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T22:47:10","slug":"bmi-secures-largest-rate-increase-ever-for-radio-royalties-in-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/357897\/","title":{"rendered":"BMI secures \u2018largest rate increase ever\u2019 for radio royalties in US"},"content":{"rendered":"

Performance rights organization BMI<\/a> says it has reached a settlement on royalties paid to artists and songwriters on US radio, in what it calls its \u201clargest rate increase ever\u201d for radio play.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

In a statement issued on Tuesday (August 19), BMI<\/strong> and the Radio Music License Committee<\/strong> (RMLC<\/strong>), which represents US broadcasters, said they had reached a settlement in a long-running legal contest over royalty rates for the 2022-2026 period.<\/p>\n

The organizations didn\u2019t disclose the new rates, but described it as \u201ca historic rate increase for BMI that reflects the company\u2019s superior market share in the radio industry\u201d.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The deal will be applied retroactively to January 1, 2022<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

An interesting quirk in this story: BMI was historically owned by a group of US radio and broadcasting companies, but that all changed in Q1 last year<\/a>, when the PRO was acquired by a shareholder group led by private equity firm, New Mountain Capital<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Update:<\/strong> ASCAP<\/a> has now announced its own settlement<\/a> with the RMLC, confiming that it has locked in \u201chigher rates\u201d vs. its previous deal.<\/p>\n

In the US, broadcasters pay royalties to songwriters and publishers for music played on the air (artists and labels are not paid royalties for the use of their recordings on radio).<\/p>\n

The RMLC<\/strong> deal with BMI<\/strong> closes yet another chapter in the ongoing battle between copyright owners and music broadcasters for better royalty payouts in the US.<\/p>\n

The back-and-forth between BMI and the RMLC over the previous five-year licensing period, covering 2017-2021, wasn\u2019t settled until 2020<\/a>, with payments made retroactively.<\/p>\n

According to a report last year<\/a> at Inside Radio, the negotiations between BMI and the RMLC were influenced by the entry over the past decade of a new player in the PRO space: Irving Azoff<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s Global Music Rights<\/strong> (GMR<\/strong>), which last year received a substantial investment<\/a> from private equity firm Hellman & Friedman<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

According to that report, BMI<\/strong> argued at federal rate court that it should be awarded the higher rates it believed GMR<\/strong> to have received from broadcasters.<\/p>\n

Though GMR attempted to have its contract with broadcasters kept out of the dispute with BMI<\/strong>, the court ordered the contract to be entered into evidence.<\/p>\n

PROs objected strongly in 2022 when the RMLC<\/strong> attempted to join the rate court proceeding it was litigating against BMI together with its fight against ASCAP<\/strong>, another major PRO.<\/p>\n

ASCAP and BMI argued that the move was meant to pit the two PROs against each other in order to extract lower royalty rates. In 2023, the federal court rejected<\/a> the RMLC\u2019s<\/strong> move and kept the two proceedings separate.<\/p>\n

It appears that as of the present moment, ASCAP<\/strong> has yet to come to an agreement with the RMLC on rates for the current period, though it does have an interim agreement in place.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThis new deal ensures BMI\u2019s songwriters will be more fairly compensated for the performance of their music on this incredibly important platform.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mike O\u2019Neill, BMI<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Of the newly-announced agreement, BMI President and CEO Mike O\u2019Neill<\/strong> said: \u201cBMI sought a rate that reflected our market-leading share of the music performed on radio stations across the country, and I\u2019m pleased to say we achieved our largest rate increase ever for the radio industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThis new deal ensures BMI\u2019s songwriters will be more fairly compensated for the performance of their music on this incredibly important platform. Negotiation is always better than litigation, and we\u2019re pleased to have worked together with the RMLC to achieve this outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

RMLC Chairman Ed Atsinger<\/strong> said the deal means certainty for US broadcasters as to the rates they will be paying and a savings on litigation costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are pleased to have reached an amicable agreement with BMI, which is indicative of how strongly the radio industry values its partnerships with songwriters,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFurthermore, we feel that this agreement provides the radio industry with the ability to plan for the long-term while avoiding substantial litigation costs and uncertainties associated with the rate court process.\u201dMusic Business Worldwide<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Performance rights organization BMI says it has reached a settlement on royalties paid to artists and songwriters on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[77,269,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-357897","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115057868704661082","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}