| Type | Not-for-profit |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1939 |
| Key people | Del Bryant (President & CEO) |
| Area served | United States |
| Website | bmi.com |
Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) is one of three United States performing rights organizations, along with ASCAP and SESAC. It collects license fees on behalf of songwriters, composers, and music publishers and distributes them as royalties to those members whose works have been performed. In 2009, BMI collected over $905 million in licensing fees and distributed $788 million in royalties.[1]
BMI songwriters create all forms of music in all genres. BMI represents artists such as Mariah Carey, Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Eminem, Rihanna and Shakira; bands including Maroon 5, Evanescence, Nickelback, Linkin Park and Lady Antebellum; legends such as Sam Cooke, Willie Nelson, Fats Domino and Dolly Parton; as well as composers such as Harry Gregson-Williams, John Williams and Danny Elfman and musical songwriters Richard & Robert Sherman.
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In the 1930s as radio was coming into prominence as a source of musical entertainment that threatened to weaken record sales and opportunities for "live" acts. The Great Depression was already draining artist revenues from recordings and live performances. ASCAP, the pre-eminent royalty/licensing agency for more than two decades, required radio stations to subscribe to "blanket" licenses which gave ASCAP a fixed percentage of each station's revenue, regardless of how much music the station played from ASCAP's repertoire. When in 1939 ASCAP announced a substantial increase in the revenue share it was asking, BMI was founded by the National Association of Broadcasters to provide a lower-cost alternative.[2] As such, BMI was competition in the field of performing rights, providing an alternative source of licensing for all music users.
The vast majority of U.S. radio stations and all three radio networks refused to renew their ASCAP licenses for 1941, choosing to forgo playing ASCAP music entirely and relying on the BMI repertoire. BMI and the Department of Justice entered into a consent decree in February, 1941, requiring certain changes to BMI's business model, including giving licensees the option of paying only for the music they actually use instead of buying a blanket license.[3] The U.S. District Court in Milwaukee was chosen by the Justice Department to supervise the decree for both BMI and ASCAP.[4]
Competing against the strongly established ASCAP, BMI sought out artists that ASCAP tended to overlook or ignore. BMI also purchased the rights to numerous catalogs held by independent publishers or whose ASCAP contracts were about to expire. To attract newer writers, BMI proposed to compensate songwriters and publishers on the basis of a fixed fee per performance, as opposed to ASCAP's two-tier system which discriminated against less-established songwriters. Thus, despite its original motivation regarding radio station royalties and its focus on radio station revenues vs artist revenues, BMI became the first performing rights organization in the United States to represent songwriters of blues, jazz, rhythm and blues, gospel (black genres, performers, and writers that ASCAP did not want to represent), country, folk, Latin, and—ultimately—rock and roll. During the 1940s and 1950s, BMI was the primary licensing organization for Country artists and R&B artists, while ASCAP centered on more established Pop artists. Also during this time, BMI expanded its repertoire of classical music, and now represents the majority of the members of the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters and the winners of 30 Pulitzer Prizes for Music.
A non-profit-making corporation, BMI issues licenses to users of music, including:
BMI tracks public performances for 6.5 million works, and collects and distributes licensing revenues for those performances as royalties to over 400,000 songwriters, composers, and music publishers it represents, and thousands of creators around the world who have chosen BMI for representation in the U.S. BMI has offices in Atlanta, London, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, New York, Puerto Rico
BMI annually hosts award shows that honor the songwriters, composers and music publishers of the year's most-performed songs in the BMI catalogue. BMI Award shows include the BMI Latin Awards, BMI Pop Awards, BMI Film/TV Awards, BMI Urban Awards, BMI London Awards, BMI Country Awards, BMI Christian Awards, and the BMI Trailblazers of Gospel Music Luncheon.[5]