A radio station presumably pays music owners (studios, artists, or their reps) for permission to broadcast their songs. How does this work? Does a station pay X dollars for permission to broadcast the song once, or is it as many times as they want within a set period, or…something else?
What’s a typical cost per instance of broadcasting a song for a current top 10/100 hit? For a top 10/100 hit from 10/20/30/40 years ago?
Doesn’t it go the other way? I thought radio stations were paid by record labels for playing songs.
No that is specifically illegal. Look up the Payola scandal of the 1950s, though teh practice is both older and newer than that.
Generally radio stations pay through ASCAP I believe
There are three such groups: ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC, collectively called PROs, for Performing Rights Organizations. The idea is that you pay each of them a flat subscription fee and you get the right to perform (in this case, publicly broadcast) any song owned by a musician they’ve made a contract with. ASCAP represents 500,000 people, BMI represents 650,000, and SESAC represents 30,000.
No it’s not illegal. What is illegal is playing a song without disclosing that you have been paid to do so.
For example if the host says, “Next up is a brand new song from the Fido Spiders. Thanks to our good friends over at Bulbous Records who are sponsoring this great new song,” that is perfectly kosher.
Record companies also buy time on radio stations, especially small stations or in the wee hours of the morning. This is known as “brokering.” As long as the host announces periodically that this time slot is being paid for by the record company and that they are selecting the music, that is perfectly legal.
There is also a famous story about how April Lavigne’s promoters manipulated the Billboard charts by paying radio stations to play one song all night long. It’s perfectly legal.
Those links actually explain how the fees collected from the radio stations (and others) get split up among the copyright holders.
ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC issue blanket licenses to radio stations which entitle the station to play any song in their catalog as often as they want for the duration of the license period.
Commercial radio stations pay a percentage of their revenues. I don’t know how the revenues are calculated exactly.
College stations pay a fee based on the size of their student body, even if most of their listeners are not affiliated with the college. I am not sure how other non-comms are charged.
Note that in the United States, only the songwriters receive royalties for performances on terrestrial radio stations. Performers and record companies (unless they also happen to own the publishing rights) receive NOTHING when their records are played on terrestrial radio. This is very different in other countries.
Of course, many people just see radio play as a method of marketing their music and selling fans songs, albums, concert tickets, and other merchandise, from which the artists make a larger portion of the money from. Songwriters may make some money from the permanent media distribution, but probably not as much, if any, for the ephemeral performances and swag.