Music Royalty Payments

[NancyJohnson]

Anyone have a short explanation as to how royalties are calculated and paid out?

I'm curious more than anything else.  Our radio is tuned pretty much exclusively to BBC Radio Berkshire, they seem to have a very small playlist and I swear I've heard 'Cool For Cats' by Squeeze three times in the last week/ten days and in each case the station never plays the complete song.  This isn't in any way unusual; the station will just latch onto an old(er) song and play it repeatedly.

So, anyone know?  Is it cheaper for the station to play oldies or not the full song? How much would the BBC pay out?

 

[silverfoxnik]

Good question!

My guess is that you can expect a fullsome answer on this from @cetera very soon.. 

[cetera]

PRS works on a 100% or sample basis of broadcasters depending on size/reach or advertising revenue.
The main national BBC and independent stations report 100% of their performances whereas BBC local and independent local stations are often sampled e.g. 3 day a month and those works paid out.

There is no difference between oldies and new tracks in their value. The value per track is calculated according to license fee or advertising revenue and is the same for every track of a similar duration.

Edited May 15, 2019 by cetera

[NancyJohnson]

It's 6.55am.  Guess what BBC Berkshire are spinning?

[NancyJohnson]

6.51am.  They're playing Cool For Cats again.  Hmm.

[PaulWarning]

nothing to do with royalties, just plain lazyness, lack of musical knowledge, and an assumption that listeners don't listen for more than an hour or two at a time.

I listen to Gold in the car, they play oldies from the 60's, 70's and 80's, you'd think they's be loads of choice but the same tracks keep popping up, it's like nobody can be bothered to reprogram the playlists

[casapete]

2 minutes ago, PaulWarning said:

nothing to do with royalties, just plain lazyness, lack of musical knowledge, and an assumption that listeners don't listen for more than an hour or two at a time.

I listen to Gold in the car, they play oldies from the 60's, 70's and 80's, you'd think they's be loads of choice but the same tracks keep popping up, it's like nobody can be bothered to reprogram the playlists

It’s the same with Magic Soul. Used to be a lot more eclectic in their playlists, but lately it’s always the same stuff - Superstition, Lets stay together etc crop up nearly every day on the lunchtime show. 

[yorks5stringer]

1 hour ago, NancyJohnson said:

6.51am.  They're playing Cool For Cats again.  Hmm.

Certainly is Cool for cats today after the sun of yesterday. Maybe only cats listen to radio berkshire and the station are playing to their demographic? 

[BassThing]

26 minutes ago, PaulWarning said:

nothing to do with royalties, just plain lazyness, lack of musical knowledge, and an assumption that listeners don't listen for more than an hour or two at a time.

You can also tell which stations belong to the same parent company. Since Kerrang got killed off on DAB, I've had to resort to either Absolute CRock or Planet Rock. I've noticed that a song will start getting played regularly on one channel and if I switch over to the other side on another journey, the same track is being rotated on there too.

[stingrayPete1977]

I like the "Absolute no repeat guarantee", it's true that they don't play the same song twice in a day but they do however play the same songs every single day! 

[Nicko]

59 minutes ago, stingrayPete1977 said:

I like the "Absolute no repeat guarantee", it's true that they don't play the same song twice in a day but they do however play the same songs every single day! 

They don't play the same song twice during the 9 to 5 period - they often play songs before 9am, then during the day and sometimes in the evening too.  For some reason they seem to play the same stuff day in day out as well.  Mrs Nicko quite often remarks that they're playing the bands's playlist - and its only 25 songs long.

[ambient]

My dad listens to Smooth FM, which in my opinion is a station that caters for people who have no interest in what they’re listening to. They seem to play the same three or four artists in rotation. There’ll be one by Take that, followed by one by the bee-gees, then ABBA. Most stations are similar, I suspect if you ask someone what they just heard being played, they wouldn’t be able to tell you.

[stingrayPete1977]

5 hours ago, Nicko said:

They don't play the same song twice during the 9 to 5 period - they often play songs before 9am, then during the day and sometimes in the evening too.  For some reason they seem to play the same stuff day in day out as well.  Mrs Nicko quite often remarks that they're playing the bands's playlist - and its only 25 songs long.

Yep, same here, we've added stuff to our set only for Absolute to add it to their play list a few weeks later! 

If they just played other hits by the same artists it would keep me entertained longer. 

[PaulWarning]

so one of Absolutes selling points is that they don't keep repeating the same songs, but do it anyway, a logic free zone methinks 

[stingrayPete1977]

20 minutes ago, PaulWarning said:

so one of Absolutes selling points is that they don't keep repeating the same songs, but do it anyway, a logic free zone methinks 

Yep that's exactly what they do! 

You can only listen for a few days in a row before it drives you mad. 

[el borracho]

I worked in a place a few years ago where Absolute was on every day. It drove me up the wall - the same playlist day in day out. Apparently each band only recorded one song.

One girl campaigned for Radio 1 on a Friday and despite me not liking most of the music it was a welcome relief!