Ed Christian hopes for royalty deal with BMI

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BMI / Broadcast Music IncIn addition to being CEO of Saga Communications, Ed Christian is Chairman of the Radio Music License Committee. The RMLC recently came to terms with ASCAP, but what about BMI?


Christian told Wall Street analysts Tuesday (3/13) that he hopes the ASCAP deal will be the model for coming to terms with BMI – but he’s not making any promises or predictions.

“I believe BMI is looking hard at what ASCAP did,” said Christian, but he noted that it is always difficult for a performing arts organization to change the metric. The RMLC got ASCAP to return to the historic system of royalties being a percentage of radio station revenues, rather than a fixed fee – the latter now being referred to by Christian as “an experiment.”