Distribution update

Your October 2019 distribution

We know how important your royalty payments are to you and we work hard to pay out as much as possible, as quickly as possible, accurately. 

We follow a distribution schedule which shows when you can expect a payment depending on where and when your music was used. Most of your royalty payments go out as planned, but there are instances when we’re not able to pay some of your royalties on time. 

The October distribution totals over £182 million for performing royalties and over £21 million for mechanical royalties, which is an overall increase of over £27 million compared to the same distribution last year.

We’re paying out 87.4% of the royalties we’d planned to pay in October and the remainder will be included in future distributions.

October Distribution

What will be included?

As well as payments for radio, TV and some overseas societies royalties, this distribution will include:

  • £13.1m for 2018 public performance year-end reconciliation
  • £6.8m for music used on Amazon streaming services GEOL (General Entertainment Online Licence) between Q1 2018 and Q1 2019
  • Approximately £6.6m for cable retransmission
  • Approximately £3.4m for 2016 live year-end reconciliation

What previously delayed royalties were included? 

  • Managed Territories (live usage from our agency managed territories in Bahamas, Malta, Cyprus, Gibraltar and Bermuda) – this will include payments dating back to 2016.
  • BBC World Service – royalties from music used in Q1 to Q2 2019.
  • Discovery (MCPS only) – for music used in Q1 to Q2 2019.
  • BT Sport – for music used in Q2 2018 to Q2 2019.
  • Airlines – for music used in 2018.
  • UKTV, NBC Universal and Box TV – UKTV (music used between Q4 2018 and Q2 2019), NBC Universal (music used in Q1 to Q2 2019) and Box TV (royalties for music used in Q4 2018).
  • Jukeboxes – for music used in Q1 to Q2 2019. This is in addition to the 2018 Public Performance Year End Reconciliation Payments.
  • DJ Monitor – for music used between Q2 to Q4 2018.

What won’t be included?

We will move the following payments into future distributions:

  • Amazon DTO (download to own) and rental and Apple GEOL – for music used between Q1 2018 - Q1 2019. Licensing negotiations are still underway and we’re working hard to finalise the agreement so we can pay out royalties in April 2020.
  • The majority of mechanical royalties from BBC local radio stations - This includes music used in Q2 2019. Unfortunately, there are issues with the BBC data that tells us what music was used and when, so this needs to be resent to us. Once we receive this, we’ll work to include the royalties in the December 2019 distribution.
  • Viasat World – we have now agreed a backdated licence with Viasat World but need time to complete our calculations and agree a distribution approach. This will be paid in December.
  • BBC Radio 4 (both PRS and MCPS) – For music used in Q3 to Q4 2018 and Q2 2019. Our quality checks flagged an inconsistency in the royalties. To make sure everything we pay out is accurate we need to carry out some further checks. We’ll turn this around as quickly as possible and aim to include these in December. Q1 2019 was paid in July.
  • Radio 5 live (PRS only) – For music used in Q2 2019. Our quality checks flagged an inconsistency that we need to look into. We’re working to resolve this quickly and are aiming to pay this out in December.
  • Nordic Entertainment (MCPS only) – We’re finalising the licence for 2019 so are unable to pay out for music used in Q1 and Q2 2019.
  • BBC Worldwide – We’re finalising the licence for this service so are unable to pay the year-end reconciliation and Q1 2019 royalties. We’re working to get this agreed as soon as possible and are aiming to pay this in April 2020.
  • Box TV – Royalties for music used in Q1 and Q2 2019 will now be paid in 2020.

We’ll be including some high value online payments in the October distribution, such as YouTube royalties for Q3 and Q4 2018, January and February 2019 usage for Spotify and Amazon Music Unlimited Q1 and Q2 2018.

We’re working hard to get as much out as we can, but we’re sorry to tell you that we’ve had to move some payments from online services to future distributions. This is largely because we haven’t received the detailed distribution files from ICE. These files tell us what music was used, when, the number of streams or downloads involved and which of our members we need pay and how much.This delay has been caused by a specific IT problem, which is now largely resolved, and work is being done to catch up urgently.

We’re all acutely aware of the importance of these distributions to you, and in partnership with ICE, are taking a number of steps to make sure we deliver the best possible results given the increased volumes that we’re processing. ICE is increasing IT, operational and matching resources allowing them to process increased usage data to address these delays. Find out which main payments are being moved.

We’ve put together more detail on which previously held royalties are now being paid as well as royalties we were not able to pay out in October:

We will continue to update this page as soon as we have more information, so keep checking back for further news.

This information was last updated on 7 October 2019.

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