5 Year Report

LAWriter, trying to make sense of your numbers…if you tripled your placements, and assuming your getting same placement stats as 3 years go, if my math is correct, then its BMI that has decreased payouts by 1/3?

Hahahaaaa!! Let me know if you can actually figure out BMI’s math. 🙂 :). :). I’m trying to make sense of them as well.

@MichaelL stated part of the reason, but IMO, that’s only part of the reason. Add in streaming diluting the numbers (at least according to the PRO’s), and what you have is a need for far more performances now than you ever needed in years prior. I’m guessing from full network / cable (old days) to full streaming (sometime in the future) it’s about 20X’s more placements that you will need to equal the same $$ you made traditionally. And yeah, I did the math based on some pretty concrete numbers that I could isolate and quantify.

[[ BTW, we STILL can’t quantify the biggest “broadcaster” out there – NETFLIX – as either they or BMI will not divulge actual stream numbers. ]]. That in itself is a crime IMO.

Here’s just one little (big) example for ya that I CAN quantify with exact numbers. In recent quarters I’ve been averaging between 13,000,000 and 19,000,000 individual performances on Amazon VOD per quarter. Yeah, those are millions. I didn’t accidentally add a zero or two. I’d be willing to wager that that’s a lot of performances in anyones book.

So what’s BMI’s payout you might ask as you’re picturing me laying on a beach in Maui???? 🙂

Roughly $100 for those quarters. ****!!! I can’t even buy LUNCH on my Maui dream trip.

In what universe, or universes yet to be discovered (a tip of the hat to the mouse) is that acceptable? I’m waiting, waiting, waiting…….for BMI’s answer to my polite, yet focused question regarding the above. I’m guessing I’ll be waiting for a loooooong time, cause how can anyone say with a straight face that the average performance on Amazon only pays out :

$0.000006 cents for a performance. That 6 TEN THOUSANDTHS of a cent. And they can’t use Neilson to obscure the realities. That’s Almost 1700 public performances to equal $0.01. One penny.

Now, for transparency, some of these performances may only be 5 seconds long, but MANY are over a minute, so I figure it all averages out.

So all that said, I’m THRILLED for those of you starting out that are exponentially upping your payouts every quarter. It doesn’t seem that long ago that I was seeing 30%, 80%, 60% growth every quarter. Quarter after quarter. I had high hopes. Those days are long gone for me. These days I’m happy for a 10% loss over each previous quarter as a huge portion of my placements move over to streaming services.

Dark times if your placements are in reality TV or even Network that has been siphoned off the air and over to on demand streaming. For those of you with commercials and network promo’s – count your blessings!

so its safe to estimate that folks who started out within the past few years would hit a ceiling thats 1/3 what the vets make in a decade or so

1/3 is a big guesstimate if you’re still getting network, cable and commercial plays. Once it all goes streaming, unless things improve (and I suspect they will the deeper we get) – then you can expect 1/20th payouts at today’s rates.

At least that’s the closest I can figure, and I’ve spent a fair amount of time crunching the numbers.

Again, all from the perspective of a composer (Me) who had a ton of cable, and some network all go streaming.

I simply don’t get it either. 159 page statement paid the same amount as a 17 page statement from 2014. I feel like I have a fixed “salary” at ASCAP.

Saw a lot of 0’s on my statement like below. It’s becoming a micro penny business. Something does not add up though. I have produced tons of music since 2014 and tons of it is getting used, statements are 130 pages longer but the pay seems to just stagnate. So many line items on these current statements that pay $0, .01, .02…etc
They used to show $3, $25, $15. Every performance seems to pay 1 cent these days. It is slightly disheartening. I have never seen so many 0’s and fractions of cents in my life on a statement. I removed my titles for privacy, but Here is a sub sample of 1 page of what I am looking at now on my foreign statement:

CATEGORY: TV – Cable Retransmission
PRS-Discovery Family 01/01/2019-06/30/2019 $0.00
PRS-Discovery Family 01/01/2019-06/30/2019 $0.00
PRS-National Geographic 01/01/2019-06/30/2019 $0.01
PRS-TRU TV 01/01/2019-06/30/2019 $0.00
PRS-History 01/01/2019-06/30/2019 $0.03
PRS-NGO 01/01/2019-06/30/2019 $0.01
PRS-TRU TV 01/01/2019-06/30/2019 $0.00
PRS-DIY Network 01/01/2019-06/30/2019 $0.01
PRS-HGTV 01/01/2019-06/30/2019 $0.00
01/01/2019-06/30/2019 $0.00
01/01/2019-06/30/2019 $0.00
01/01/2019-06/30/2019 $0.00
01/01/2019-06/30/2019 $0.00
Lifetime Real Women 01/01/2019-06/30/2019 $0.00
Lifetime Real Women 01/01/2019-06/30/2019 $0.00
01/01/2019-06/30/2019 $0.00

its less of a sting for the next gen cause there’s no past statements they can compare to. kinda like the employee who got a paycut and another who started at that wage. outlook & expectations will be different

i can imagine what the vets payouts would be back in early 2000s with their current catalog and placements…whoa

…would the PRO’s on MLR recommend a newcomer keep most of their tracks in NON-Exclusive libraries?

My strategy is to keep as much control as possible to remain flexible for the future.

Based on this post and other posts like this on MLR, I think my best strategy to to focus on “song” related tracks (as opposed to tension cues, etc…) and then at least they might get some streams on Spotify playlists. Based on my experience with that, if I crank out 100 tracks a year I should be pulling in a solid $87 or so!! (Sigh…)

Seriously, thanks @LAwriter and @MichaelL

Am I reading this correctly that some people here have *millions* of placements and make pennies?

Yes. You read that correctly. Amazon VOD. Almost 20 million, around $100USD.

I need to speak to a German writer who is a member of GEMA. Will you be willing to communicate privately with me?

You can always PM each other. https://musiclibraryreport.com/personal-messaging/