ASCAP Local TV Ad Claim

[Alan]

I’m looking for any advice/insight on this:

I currently have an old non-ex track in a NJ Lottery commercial. I’m fairly certain it was licensed on P5. It’s been airing on most of the major NYC television stations a lot for the past month.

I contacted Media Radar (formerly Numerator) to get the ad code and got this:
“Lottery ads are not included in our current coding methodology, which is why you’re not seeing that particular ad in your search results on our site.”

I put in an Ad Claim with ASCAP and told them there was no ad code. ASCAP reply:

“Subj: Inquiry Has Been Reviewed; No eligible performances
We work exclusively with MediaRadar (fka Vivvix) and require ad codes in order to review and process your claim.

Lottery ads will most likely fall under local market ads. These may be subject to our vendor’s survey limitations that could result in those performances not being eligible for processing. Based on their response, it seems like your ads fall under the limitation.”

Talk about a non-answer.

Is anyone aware of a solution or have any ideas?

[yzzman1]

I’ve been in this position quite a few times unfortunately. Personally, I have not had luck with ASCAP in this type of situation in which Numerator/Vivvix isn’t providing an ad code because it’s something it chooses not to monitor. I remember being bounced around in phone calls between the NY and Nashville office and basically getting the same answer from both. It’s frusturating because I do know writers who are BMI who have been able to get paid on ads like this. Perhaps someone else may have had a different experience – but mine is that this is one of several shortcomings of ASCAP.

[Alan]

I pushed ASCAP for a better answer and got this:
“The other option is to submit your information via Soundmouse to allow it to possibly be detected there.

If you haven’t done so already, please refer to the ‘Recorded Sub-Sample’ section of the ‘Music in Advertisements’ page at the following link.

https://www.ascap.com/help/royalties-and-payment/payment/musicinadvertisements”

Why didn’t they tell me that the 1st time?
I already have a Soundmouse account so I added this track to it and emailed them for guidance. Hopefully I won’t regret not sending the track to Soundmouse earlier.

I’ll let you know what comes of this. It’s aired over 450 times so far.

[Author]

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