Radio royalties
How we calculate radio royalty rates
To track what's played and when, we use several methods:
- Pay-per-play
- Representative samples
- Research and analogy
Pay-per-play radio stations
We calculate royalties per minute of playing time on many radio stations. They include, but are not limited to, various national stations owned by Global and Bauer as well as all BBC stations.
Step 1
Firstly, we work out how much music each station plays over the course of an average day.Step 2
Then we look at how much of the music played falls within non-peak, low peak and high peak time of day bands.Step 3
We now apply weightings to the three time of day bands:
- A x1 per minute rate is applied to band one’s value (non-peak)
- A x2 per minute rate is applied to create band two’s value (low peak)
- A x3 per minute rate is applied to create band three’s value (high peak)
The weighted values for each time band together get you the total weighted music minutes.
Step 4
To determine a station’s royalty rates at different times of day we do the following:
- For non-peak, we divide the station’s revenue by its total number of weighted music minutes.
- To create the low peak royalty rate value, we multiply the non-peak figure by a factor of two.
- To create the high peak royalty rate value, we multiply the non-peak figure by a factor of three.
Radio rate checker
Check the per-minute royalty rates that apply to distributions from Radio broadcasters.
You will need to log in to view the royalty rates.
Sample collection radio stations
For some stations, we track the music that's played on sample days. We pick a random set of sample days for the broadcaster to report and then base our distribution on the music reported in that given sample.
You will need to log in to view the sample day data.
Analogy collection radio stations
It's not always cost-effective to track every play, or use information from sample days. This is usually when the radio station plays the same repertoire of music.
