RADIO AIRPLAY | ROYALTIES DISCUSSION

I have had many recent conversations around what SA radio stations are paying for a song to be played on a station each time, but have yet to get a clear answer.

I've even asked the PRO's, Googled the topic and have found very little clarity, especially in South Africa.

So, I'd like to open up this discussion and ask for assistance in trying to get clarity around it.

This article suggests that a song is receiving $6 per play (+/- R85) in the US. I would assume this is from a larger commercial station and community/regional stations would be paying far less. This is pretty decent money then, right?

It should be a simple equation i.e.: a standard pay per play so the station and artist/songwriter knows what amount they're getting. I understand that smaller stations can't afford to pay what the larger stations are paying.

I also understand that royalties are based on a percentage (around 4%) of the stations turnover (please correct me if I'm off the mark here). Once again, this is based on a commercial station. How does one verify the financial statements? Not all stations are public companies so they're not always open for scrutiny or available to the artists selling their product. The SABC is running at a massive loss and probably won't distribute their statements to anyone at all.

The top radio stations are selling a 30" advertising slot for over R20,000 and the communities are around 20% of that. 4-6 ads every 15 minutes add up to a large amount of advertising revenue.

I've heard that some community stations in SA are paying less than R10,000 a year for music royalties which are then split between all the songs they're playing each day (6 songs per hour x 24, with talk in between = 144 songs per day x 365 days = approx. 6c per play).

We have over 180 stations in SA and if they were all compliant, which I'm sure they are, then a top act getting over 300 plays a week should be getting a nice big "cheque" at the end of each year. I am not sure this is the case.

So, my question - is there a simple equation to work out how the stations are paying their royalties?