Radio Royalty Rates Just Jumped, and a Small PRO Named GMR Is the Reason Why

Radio stations across Houston are about to write bigger checks for the songs they play, and the reason traces back to one settlement signed in August 2025. The Radio Music License Committee, which negotiates for commercial radio, settled its rate fights with both BMI and ASCAP for the period running 2022 through 2029. BMI alone went from roughly 1.7 percent of a station's revenue to 2.14 percent for 2022 and 2023, then 2.26 percent for 2024, then a touch lower at 2.19 and 2.20 percent through 2029. BMI called the increase "historic." For a songwriter, that is the side of the business that finally moved.

This is the performance royalty, and it is a different animal from the streaming money people argue about online.

When a station spins your record, two things get paid. The label collects on the recording. And the songwriter and publisher collect on the composition, the performance right, through a performing rights organization. BMI, ASCAP, SESAC, and GMR are those organizations. They license the song to thousands of radio stations, bars, gyms, and restaurants at once, then pass the money back to the writers.

Radio cannot just refuse to pay. BMI and ASCAP operate under federal antitrust consent decrees, and a rate court sets the price when the two sides cannot agree. The agreements expired at the end of 2021. So stations have been paying old interim rates this whole time. The new deal includes a "true up," a back payment covering the gap between the old rate and the new one from 2022 through 2024, with BMI's catch-up spread over 18 monthly payments that started in October 2025.

So why did radio agree to pay more for the same songs. The blunt answer is GMR.

Broadcasters are paying more to ASCAP and BMI for less music, and a smaller rival is the reason the price went up.

Global Music Rights is the newest PRO, founded by Irving Azoff with a small but heavy catalog. It won large royalties for a short list of major writers. In a rate court, the judges look at comparable deals to set a fair market price. GMR getting paid big for a small catalog gave BMI and ASCAP an argument: our catalog is far larger, so value it proportionally higher. That pressure pushed every PRO's rate up, even ones whose catalogs shrank as writers defected to GMR.

Here is where a Houston writer should pay attention. None of this reaches you automatically. A performance royalty pays the writer who is registered on the song with their PRO. If you have not affiliated with BMI, ASCAP, SESAC, or GMR, and you have not registered your songs, the radio and venue money for your work goes uncollected or gets split to other members. You can record at a working studio, get real spins, and still see nothing, because the paperwork was never filed.

The action is plain. Affiliate with one PRO. Register every song you write, with accurate titles and splits. If a track is getting local radio or club play, confirm it is logged so the performance money has a name to land on. This is the money that exists whether or not you claim it, which is exactly why claiming it matters. The registration and splits side is the work we lay out in our creator education library, kept at framework level so you can run it yourself.

There is a longer shadow over all of this. The U.S. Copyright Office opened a review in 2025 into the growing number of performing rights organizations and whether the licensing system has gotten too tangled. That review could reshape how every writer in the country gets paid for a performance. For now the takeaway is smaller and concrete. Rates went up. The check is real. It only comes if your name is on the song.

As of June 16, 2026.

Sources

1. Broadcast Law Blog: BMI and ASCAP enter agreements with commercial radio, rates up retroactive to 2022
2. BMI: BMI and the RMLC settle rate court proceeding
3. ASCAP: ASCAP and RMLC reach agreement
4. Congressional Research Service: the ASCAP and BMI consent decrees