[Fmpro] PBS royalties

[ElliotSoko@aol.com]

Regarding PBS royalty payments- I've scored PBS shows like "Nova",  "Nature", 
"P.O.V.", and dozens of animation scores for "Sesame Street" and  have never 
had a problem getting my writers' share (and sometimes partial  publishing) 
royalties through BMI. (These are all national and  international broadcasts 
rather than local, so maybe that's part of the  difference.)  But keep in mind 
that PBS royalty rates are a fraction of  network rates.  That possibly made 
sense in the past when there were just 3  huge major networks and a tiny PBS, but 
this extreme rate discrepancy doesn't  make sense anymore as now there are 
hundreds of channels to choose  from.  If I got something close to network rates 
for all my PBS  broadcasts, I'd probably be getting 30 or 40 times as much as 
I get now.   Not fair!
BMI has also been very cooperative in paying me after the fact when a  
broadcast doesn't show up on my statement and I can prove that it was broadcast  by 
sending them my copy of the cue sheet.
 
Elliot Sokolov
_www.elliotsokolov.com_ (http://www.elliotsokolov.com) 
 
 
In a message dated 8/30/2007 8:06:01 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
fmpro-request at nxport.com writes:

Date:  Wed, 29 Aug 2007 19:15:02 -0400
From: Les Mizzell  <lesmizz at bellsouth.net>
Subject: Re: [Fmpro] FMN JobWire  Posting
To: fmpro at nxport.com
Message-ID:  <46D5FDF6.9080301 at bellsouth.net>
Content-Type: text/plain;  charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed


> They don't,  actually.   They keep 50% of the publisher's share, and the 
other  
> 50% turns up in your statement.   So in addition to 50% of  the sync fee, 
you 
> get your full writer's share from ascap plus 50% of  the publisher's share. 
  
> It really is a great business  model for composers.

Could be if ASCAP was actually paying what they  should, right?

For example, PBS is a HUGE user of library music.  Anybody getting 
anything from ASCAP that airs on PBS? I was flat out told  "We don't 
survey those stations" when I inquired about the entire S.C.  Educational 
TV and Radio systems in South Carolina.

So, (per  previous rants here by myself) - a piece of music airs over 
150,000 times  in a 3 year period, and I get not one dime.








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