ASCAP

CLICK HERE for the 9/11/2025 RMLC Industry Update

ASCAP and RMLC Reach New License 

August 19, 2025

Dear Broadcasters:

I am pleased to inform you that the RMLC has settled longstanding litigation with BMI and ASCAP that has led to new license agreements which you should be receiving soon from each organization. Both agreements are retroactive to January 1, 2022, and run through December 31, 2029. The RMLC’s Executive Committee unanimously approved these new licenses, and the RMLC Board of Directors voted unanimously (among all members present) to support each of the new licenses – which were negotiated by a sub-committee of our RMLC Executive Committee and outside counsel at King & Spalding.

Each of the new BMI and ASCAP licenses maintain the percentage-of-revenue license fee structure of the prior deals and continue to provide for broad coverage of your over-the-air (and HD multicasting) programming, as well as your simulcast/website transmissions of podcasts/archived content. Each of the new licenses also continues to provide stations with alternative per program (or program period) licenses applicable to talk-formatted stations. As in the past, they do not cover transmissions of music programming that is customized or provided on-demand to the listener – e.g., Pandora or Spotify-like music programming.

While the percentage rates in the new deals are higher than the old rates, they are nowhere near the much-higher rates sought by each of BMI and ASCAP in the now-resolved rate court litigations. While the RMLC certainly would have preferred to report rate decreases, our constituents need to bear several things in mind which motivated our support for these settlements. First, during these litigations, each licensing organization sought to benefit from the existing performance royalty rates paid to other music licensing organizations which arguments, if credited, could have resulted in a drastically higher rate result for the industry compared to what was achieved via the RMLC’s settlements. Given, as well, the rate increases associated with music rights licensing more generally across multiple platforms during the last several years (including certain non-RMLC negotiated agreements with BMI/ASCAP applicable to radio), coupled with the fact that the broadcast radio industry revenue base has declined significantly resulting in lower royalties to BMI and ASCAP absent an increase in the underlying revenue base, the RMLC is pleased to have come to the arrangements just signed with each of BMI and ASCAP. And by retaining the percentage-of-revenue license structure in each of these licenses, this means that fees will adjust along with station revenues during these uncertain economic times.

We (and no doubt BMI and ASCAP) will be communicating with you separately regarding the specific terms and mechanics associated with the new BMI and ASCAP licenses.  Please be on the lookout for those communications. Finally, as we reported last year, the RMLC fared well in a rate arbitration with SESAC for the license period January 1, 2023 through December 31, 2026. The arbitrator’s decision nominally increased SESAC’s former blanket revenue-based license rates while rejecting SESAC’s efforts to effectively double the prior percentage rates. We expect you will be receiving the new SESAC license forms (retroactive to January 1, 2023) soon – and will be communicating with you separately about that when the new licenses are available.

Finally, I would be remiss if I did not express thanks to our RMLC negotiation sub-committee as well as Kenny Steinthal, David Mattern, and the legal team at King & Spalding.

Should you have any questions concerning this matter, please feel free to contact the RMLC c/o Bill Velez, Executive Director. Phone: (615) 844-6260 or e-mail info@radiomlc.org.

Best regards,

Ed Atsinger

RMLC Chairman