What Kind of Royalties Can I Earn From U.S. Radio?

It depends on whether you wrote what was just played.

Radio airplay is considered a public performance. This means it generates performance royalties, the kind that are collected by local Performing Rights Organizations (PROs) and paid out to songwriters via a blanket license.

The catch: Unlike the terrestrial outlets in many other countries, stateside AM/FM stations are not required to pay public performance royalties to sound recording owners or performing artists, or “neighbouring rights.” While many groups would like to change this for more equity in radio royalties, at this point the relationship between record labels and radio stations is still too powerful.

Interested in learning more about how we got here? Check out our blog post on What You Didn't Know About Terrestrial Radio Royalties.

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