{"id":98181,"date":"2021-01-15T17:03:50","date_gmt":"2021-01-15T17:03:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/?post_type=companies&p=98181"},"modified":"2025-01-11T15:24:02","modified_gmt":"2025-01-11T15:24:02","slug":"american-society-of-composers-authors-and-publishers-ascap","status":"publish","type":"companies","link":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/companies\/american-society-of-composers-authors-and-publishers-ascap\/","title":{"rendered":"American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) is a not-for-profit licensing and collection society representing songwriters and publishers in the United States.<\/p>\n

Founded in 1914, ASCAP collects money from sources including<\/a> television broadcasters, radio broadcasters, satellite broadcasters such as SiriusXM, plus bars, restaurants, multiple online streaming services, and the promoters of live concerts.<\/p>\n

As of the close of 2020, ASCAP represented some 790,000 songwriters.<\/p>\n

ASCAP\u2019s board comprises 12 writers and 12 publishers and is chaired by songwriter and performer Paul Williams<\/p>\n

\n
Leadership<\/h6>\n

In January 2015, it was announced that Elizabeth Matthews would replace<\/a> \u00a0John LoFrumento as CEO of ASCAP.<\/p>\n

LoFrumento retired on December 31, 2014 after 33 years with ASCAP..<\/p>\n

At the time, Matthews said: “Matthews: \u201cASCAP is an expansive, forward-looking and adaptive service organization that successfully built and grew the market for performance rights for songwriters and publishers in the United States. As CEO, I am excited about building on our unique assets to offer new, innovative services to our members and licensing partners.”<\/p>\n

\n
Financial results<\/h6>\n

ASCAP’s revenues\u00a0topped $1.274 billion<\/a> in 2019 \u2013 a $47 million increase over 2018.<\/a><\/p>\n

Royalty distributions to ASCAP members in the same 12 months increased by $75 million<\/a> year-on-year, at $1.184bn.<\/p>\n

That was the third year<\/a> that ASCAP’s royalty payouts had topped $1bn.<\/p>\n

\n
Controversy<\/h6>\n

In recent years, songwriter Shane McAnally entered into a long-running dispute with ASCAP over payments he felt were due to him.<\/a><\/p>\n

McAnally started the process of resigning from ASCAP (both as a songwriter and publishing company owner) in 2013, and subsequently inked a deal with the organisation\u2019s for-profit rival, Global Music Rights (GMR).<\/p>\n

ASCAP continued to license McAnally\u2019s catalog to US radio for two and a half years following his resignation.<\/p>\n

Yet, according to McAnally, ASCAP declined to pay him full quarterly bonuses (\u2018Audio Feature Premiums\u2019) from his biggest hits after he left \u2013 despite his co-writers of said songs (and remaining ASCAP members) receiving their share of this extra money.<\/p>\n

This dispute ultimately ended in arbitration in early 2019. The arbitration panel found in favor of ASCAP, ruling that \u201cASCAP\u2019s phase-out of AFP payments to Mr. McAnally was in accordance with its rules and regulations\u201d<\/p>\n

However, the same arbitration panel awarded McAnally $204,612.84 in costs incurred \u2013 money that had to be paid over by ASCAP.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Founded in 1914, ASCAP is a not-for-profit collection society in the United States<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":23191,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-98181","companies","type-companies","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/companies\/98181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/companies"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/companies"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/companies\/98181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}