September 6, 2004
BMI (not BMG!) Has Record Year
The movie industry had a record summer at the box office, despite a decline in ticket sales. That’s pretty predictable, since broadband is not pervasive and watching a DivX download is not nearly as high quality as going to the theater. So it’s not worth making too of this.
It’s also not worth making too much of recent news that BMI has had a record year. Maybe people are getting BMI confused with BMG. The latter is a record company, the former is a performing rights organizations. The former’s revenue is pretty small relative to the total revenue of the record companies. These results are consistent with last year’s growth, spurred on in part by the ringtone bubble. This revenue stream will likely be hit more slowly; although radio will lose relevance, licensing for TV will not fall off as quickly, and restaurants, live concerts, and other public places will still pay fees.
Which is not to say I agree with the “sky is falling” rhetoric of the music industry. But we should keep these stats in perspective.
Filed by Derek Slater at 3:03 pm under General news
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