US collecting society BMI has published its latest numbers, for the organisation’s fiscal year which ended on 30 June. BMI says it collected $1.2bn in domestic and international royalties, as well as money from direct deals administered on behalf of publishers. The organisation’s distributions for the year were $1.12bn, up 9.3% year-on-year. “The most public performance and highest royalty distribution of any music rights organisation in the world,” as BMI put it in its announcement.
BMI also trumpeted the fact that its overhead rate is at its lowest level in the company’s history – “BMI now distributes nearly 90 cents of every dollar directly back to its songwriters, composers and publishers” – and noted that its digital revenues grew by 32% to $215m buoyed by new and renewed deals with Amazon, Apple Music, Hulu, Netflix, YouTube, SoundCloud, Spotify, Facebook and Peloton.
Digital now generates 24% of BMI’s domestic revenues. And it wouldn’t be a collecting-society announcement without some boasting about processing: BMI says it processed nearly 1.7 trillion performances in its last fiscal year, up 23% year-on-year. 97.7% of those were digital performances.
Tools: platforms to help you reach new audiences
Tools: Kaiber
In the year or so since its launch, AI startup Kaiber has been making waves,…