Songs on the radio....?

Question

Can anyone tell me roughly how much money does a song writer make every time their song is played on the radio?

Answer 1

Good question, a star for U!

But it doesn't work like that. ASCAP, BMI and SESAC (for religious songs mostly) do an audit of all stations every once in a while using SoundScan and they have a very complicated formula that calculates how often the writer's song is played on what sized station and how big that station's audience is, etc. etc.

In days gone by, we DJs used to have to keep a hand written log once a year of every song we played. Was that ever a pain!

But you can definitely make good money if you write a hit. Especially a Christmas hit!
-a guy named duh

Answer 2

It used to be two (2) cents royalty, whenever any radio station would play a song by the artist on the radio. I am not sure how much the song writer gets.

Answer 3

Duh has it.

In my experience the BMI/ASCAP report is seen by those doing it as a pain. I believe it contributes to smaller playlists to some degree. Which is as ignorant as it sounds.

I turned in one once but I was on an AM sports station. So I credited James Brown for all those bumps I used!