quote:

Originally posted by DjWoody Enjoy! http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...ngs-radio.shtml

interesting - I actually used to do a similar thing for a living, but not for music.

PR companies of major brands are hired to get press coverage - the brands have to pay millions for advertising space that doesn't work anymore - So they retain PR companies at a fraction of the cost of advertising (still big sums to you and I) to get them a similar of number impressions/coverage etc.

The PR companies would hire us, to get their brands' coverage on the Radio or TV.

How would we do it? By getting gift packs off the brands and offering them to the radio stations to give away to their listeners.

That means the DJ's or presenters would talk about product from these brands for a fraction of the cost of the radio station's advertising rates. We were essentially an "indie" pr company in that respect, and we allowed major brands to circumvent direct payola for airtime, and the radio station DJ's loved us because we gave them free shit.

I can totally see the same happening with music.

The biggest thing I cannot understand is how the radio royalties thing works, and someone please correct me if I'm wrong or if something has changed in recent years:

basically, the collecting royalty revenue service pays out royalties to the biggest acts/artists, not based on actual radio play, meaning that Phil collins, Elton john, Beyonce (etc) get 90% of the royalties, even though other less established artists might get more play in a given year.

I remember a lot of people demanding that RDS be used as it would be 100% accurate but the powers that be were having none of it and that was mainly to protect their income for previously established revenue streams from label managed artists.

Is this still the case?

quote:

Originally posted by DJ RANN interesting - I actually used to do a similar thing for a living, but not for music. PR companies of major brands are hired to get press coverage - the brands have to pay millions for advertising space that doesn't work anymore - So they retain PR companies at a fraction of the cost of advertising (still big sums to you and I) to get them a similar of number impressions/coverage etc. The PR companies would hire us, to get their brands' coverage on the Radio or TV. How would we do it? By getting gift packs off the brands and offering them to the radio stations to give away to their listeners. That means the DJ's or presenters would talk about product from these brands for a fraction of the cost of the radio station's advertising rates. We were essentially an "indie" pr company in that respect, and we allowed major brands to circumvent direct payola for airtime, and the radio station DJ's loved us because we gave them free shit. I can totally see the same happening with music. The biggest thing I cannot understand is how the radio royalties thing works, and someone please correct me if I'm wrong or if something has changed in recent years: basically, the collecting royalty revenue service pays out royalties to the biggest acts/artists, not based on actual radio play, meaning that Phil collins, Elton john, Beyonce (etc) get 90% of the royalties, even though other less established artists might get more play in a given year. I remember a lot of people demanding that RDS be used as it would be 100% accurate but the powers that be were having none of it and that was mainly to protect their income for previously established revenue streams from label managed artists. Is this still the case?

well, i don't know if anyone saw my post a few mos back but a job i had been interviewing for panned out. I now work at the largest independent royalty firm in the country We handle artist royalties, mechanical (US, UK, CA), and publishing for books. We do not, cover, however performance royalties. 99% of those royalties are covered by BMI & ASCAP and for the most part, they are tracked pretty regularly. What you're refering to Tom is the method by which ASCAP/BMI pays out on club/bar royalties.

For example, a standard 500 person club will pay 5-7k annually to ASCAP or BMI as a performance licensing fee. That money, SHOULD get divided into payments to artists based on what's played at the club. It doesn't, unless the club starts reporting the plays it's DJ's & bands (though that's a bit different) actually play.

Back to radio (and TV for that matter), they are both pretty heavily regulated as it's a substantial amount of money for artists.

Ok so meant to make a post about this earlier, I've learned more than I could ever imagine about royalties in the music biz. Happy to answer anything people might have Q's on