It was a record-breaking year for revenue for Broadcast Music, Inc., the music rights management company representing songwriters, composers, music publishers and businesses tied to nearly all of the songs one hears on broadcast radio and television.
Revenue in fiscal 2019 was up 7% from fiscal 2018 for the entity commonly known as BMI.
Don’t mistakenly believe the surge in dollars came from radio or from television. BMI’s growth is largely thanks to cable and satellite services — and digital audio services such as Spotify and Pandora.
For fiscal 2019, BMI’s total revenue was $1.283 billion.
From that, it distributed and administered $1.196 billion to its songwriters, composers and publishers, its highest distributions ever.
The revenue reflects a $78 million increase from fiscal 2018 and mark the most reported public performance revenues and highest royalty distributions of any music rights organization in the world.
Payments to BMI, along with ASCAP and Irving Azoff’s Global Music Rights, are a concern for every broadcast media company in the U.S.
Commenting on the big revenue year at BMI, President/CEO Mike O’Niell said, “We always strive to do better, and we will continue to work hard to champion the rights of our creators and protect the value of their copyrights.”
Distributions from direct deals grew $9 million in FY ’19 for a total of $62 million, holding steady at 5% of BMI’s total distributions.
Focusing on the U.S. alone, total FY ’19 revenue including digital, media and general licensing rose to $943 million, from $880 million.
The growth was driven by a $47 million increase in digital revenue, to $262 million. New deals with the growing video-on-demand streaming market, including Twitch and Amazon Channels, as well as new licensees in the eFitness market, such as Peloton and Flywheel, helped drive the success.
General licensing, which is generated from businesses like bars and restaurants, hotels and fitness centers, along with other income, also posted record results of $169 million, an 8% gain year-to-year. This accounts for 18% of BMI’s domestic revenue pie. The company added approximately 16,500 new businesses to its growing portfolio in this sector.
Revenue from cable and satellite sources once again generated the largest portion of BMI’s domestic revenue, at 30%.
Further, BMI’s digital revenue has now grown to encompass 28% of the company’s total domestic revenue portfolio and is now the second biggest contributor to that total.
Traditional radio and television accounted for 24% of the overall domestic total.
Helping bring BMI the revenue it attracted in 2019 was buffeted by the addition of more than 90,000 new songwriters, composers and publishers during the fiscal year. Among the new signings are viral “it” artist Lil Nas X, R&B star Kendrick Lamar, and Adult Alternative act Brandi Carlile. Agreements were extended with such artists as Imagine Dragons, Eminem, Shakira, John Legend, P!nk, Rihanna, J Balvin, Hozier, and Halsey.
