ASCAP Records Record Domestic Revenues

ASCAP, the global rights consortium, says its domestic revenue was a record $716 million in 2015, up $61 million from the previous years, and that combined domestic and foreign revenues topped $1 billion for the second year in a row.

The nonprofit returned $867.4 million of that $1.014 billion to its composer, author and publisher members, or 88 cents on the dollar.

ASCAP said the number of performances for which it collected and disbursed payments was 570 billion, up 14%.

In the audio/visual category—cable, broadcast and online streamers including Amazon and Netflix—ASCAP says it closed 68 agreements covering 245 programming services.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.