Song Publisher Monitors Music so Artists Won’t Sing Royalty Blues

It would take Broadcast Music Inc. 28 years and six months to relive all its yesterdays.

Or “Yesterday,” to be precise. The Beatles classic that Paul McCartney once called “Scrambled Eggs” until he thought of a better title is the most-broadcast tune in the song publishing company’s vast catalogue. It’s gone past the 5-million mark.

Played back to back, that would amount to more than 28 years worth of “Yesterday,” said Frances Preston, BMI president and chief executive officer.

Preston knows this arcane piece of musical trivia because that’s what her company does.

Through computers and radio log sheets, BMI keeps track of how many times songs are played in order to funnel royalty checks to its stable of more than 60,000 songwriters. The company is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its birth with a series of public events this year.

“It’s not celebrating BMI, it’s celebrating the creativity of the great songwriters and publishers who have built this catalogue,” Preston said.

With the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, BMI is involved in a high-stakes competition that’s invisible to most music fans but very important to those who make money off music. BMI is the Pepsi to ASCAP’s Coca-Cola Classic.

Like rock ‘n’ roll itself, BMI started as a rebellion against the music business establishment and has now become the Establishment, said author Marc Eliot, who wrote about the company’s birth in his book, “Rockonomics: The Money Behind the Music.”

The companies work by signing a royalties contract with songwriters, occasionally getting into a bidding war for big-name artists. Musicians are assured a source of income at a time when they may be struggling to make it in the business, or after their time has passed.

The companies check how many times a song is performed on radio, television or elsewhere and collect license fees that are distributed to songwriters. In the case of “Yesterday,” it means estimating air times through logs kept by radio stations on what songs they play.

It’s not just the Beatles’ version of the tune that’s counted, but renditions recorded by Ray Charles, Placido Domingo, Elvis Presley, Merle Haggard, Lawrence Welk, the Supremes, Frank Sinatra and about 100 others.

And it’s not just on radio stations, but every time the song is performed at trade shows, in shopping malls, on elevators and even on airplanes, Preston said.

Back when BMI was formed in 1939, ASCAP had a virtual monopoly on song publishing. Broadcasters angered with the royalty rates demanded by ASCAP and the limited number of licensed composers they could play on the air started the company, Eliot described in his book.

The new company had an open-door policy for all sorts of musicians that were essentially ignored by ASCAP, including country music, rhythm and blues and, eventually, rock ‘n’ roll, Preston said.

“They just became a house organ, a scab union in order to gain representation for what ASCAP considered the garbage of the pile,” Eliot said. “It turned out to be the cream of the crop.”

BMI signed artists who weren’t part of the traditional Tin Pan Alley, such as Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie and Hank Williams in the early years. When rock ‘n’ roll started, it gave BMI access to a gold mine of hits from Chuck Berry, the Everly Brothers, B.B. King, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

By the late 1950s, BMI was jokingly referred to in the industry as Big Money Incorporated, Eliot said in “Rockonomics.”

Today, the two companies compete on almost an even keel, Eliot said. BMI, because it’s still more willing to take a chance on unknown artists, still has an advantage in rock and pop music, while ASCAP has the lead in such areas as Broadway and television, he said.

“They’ve become more conservative, they’ve become less embattled,” he said of the two companies. “They realize there’s room at the table for both plates. It’s better to exist without a cold war.”

Preston said the constant advance of new technology keeps BMI royalty hunters busy. For instance, the use of music as a motivational tool at trade shows and corporate meetings is a lucrative part of the business that was hardly thought of a decade ago.

The increased use of “sampling” old riffs in new songs, particularly by rap artists, presents a fascinating new challenge for the publishing companies, Eliot said.

In some cases, older artists whose work is being appropriated don’t appreciate what the new musicians have done, he said.

It’s still an open question that may have to be decided by courts. Former members of the ‘60s rock band the Turtles were furious with rappers De La Soul for using part of their music without permission. MC Hammer recently cut Rick James in on part of the royalties for “U Can’t Touch This,” which borrows the melody from James’ hit, “Superfreak.”

The company has produced a three-CD set of some of its best music, including the pop charts and television themes. It’s virtually an encyclopedic look at what’s been popular for the last 50 years, from the Tommy Dorsey band’s “Opus No. 1” to the Miami Sound Machine’s “Rhythm Is Gonna Get You.”

Don’t look for it in stores, however--the company is just distributing it to people in the industry, politicians and the media.

“I’ve had so many calls from people asking if they could buy it somewhere,” she said. “But it’s not for sale.”