Ok so were tracking 10 songs that were written by song writers and a guy is going to do some placement for us. There is a good chance the songs will get used for background music for t.v. My question is that if I'm paying the musicians up front and I am the producer, and my wife is the artist but others wrote the tunes how will we have to divvy up the royalties in the end? I know like for a CD its about 8 cents a song per CD sold but how much for lets say 1 or 2k from a song getting airplay?
Is there a percentage?
sweet
sam

Airplay falls under 'small performance' income. That's collected by ASCAP, BMI or SESAC in the U.S. There are similar societies in other countries and territories. You need to belong to one of them to ever possibly receive monies.

After a sampling period by one of the three and an accounting period, you may receive a check. This might occur after a 9-12 months delay. The payments are divided according to the way the songs are registered (writers and publishers).

What you can expect to receive for 'one play' on a radio station is determined by their market size (Arbitron can give you an idea of listenership) and advertising revenues.

A bigger station in a major market is going to pay higher fees to the societies than some little station out in the middle of nowhere.

And being how it's impossible to get a song played on radio, unless you have a large 'payola' budget for Clear Channel et al, I'd not expect much income.

You should be able to negotiate some 'sync' fees for TV use. Otherwise, if you do get some play the TV production company is supposed to submit the information concerning what they used. This mostly applies to library music. You can get a few pennies when that happens. Most likely from a TV show that has no budget for original music and is on some unwatched cable channel and therefore has to pay practically nothing.

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I'm looking at a recent ASCAP statement. I received ten cents from "Headliners & Legends" for a library track I wrote. I think that's on MSNBC and we all know no one watches them. Now, if it had been played on a program on FoxNews, I'd be a millionaire.

I don't think that as producer or performer you're entitled to any royalties from television usage. It's the writers of the tracks that get put on the cue sheet that societies like ASCAP or SOCAN track woorldwide plays and collect monies.

Well this would be library stuff, and major networks prime-time. Another artist I produce gets checks in the thousands every month from this. The guy who is doing this for him said we potentially could be in the same boat. Again is the percentage that goes to the writer arbitrary or is there a place online that I could find out what goes to the writer and what goes to the performer. My buddy Tyrone writes all his own stuff so he wouldn't know. He just had a song on 'Ghost Whisperer' last night. He's averaging about one major network show a month. Anybody else know this?
sam

I think it's all negotiable.

If you have a legitimate person that can actually place the music, ask him.

Thousands per show is reasonable - depending on the network. ABC would pay more than UPN. I've actually received payments in that stratosphere , but most were in the $1,000 buyout range while retaining writer's small performance royalties. I once got a check from Harry Fox for 38 cents, but never cashed it.

Back to your connection. He's the most valuable piece in the equation.