How to read your BMI royalty statement
By Marc Aaron Jacobs · Updated
Each line on a BMI statement is one work, on one show, for one performance period. TITLE NAME is the cue, SHOW NAME the show, PERF SOURCE where it was performed, PERF COUNT how many performances the line pays, and ROYALTY AMOUNT what it paid. PERF PERIOD is when the performances happened, written as year then quarter: 20261 is 2026 Q1.
Two things trip people up. BMI cuts TITLE NAME at 30 characters, so two different long-titled cues can look identical. And one line is many airings: BMI reports a cue that played 72 times as a single row with a count of 72.
Where to download it
Sign in to BMI Online Services, open Royalty Statements, and download the CSV for the quarter.
The columns, one by one
| Column | What it means |
|---|---|
| TITLE NAME | The cue, cut at 30 characters. |
| TITLE # | BMI's work number. Often 0 on statement lines, so it cannot always be relied on. |
| SHOW NAME, EPISODE NAME | The program the cue was in. |
| PERF SOURCE | The channel, service or platform. |
| COUNTRY OF PERFORMANCE | Where it was performed. Foreign income appears in the same file. |
| USE CODE | How the music was used. |
| TIMING | How long the cue ran. |
| PERF COUNT | How many performances the line pays. |
| PERF PERIOD | When the performances happened. 20261 is 2026 Q1. |
| ROYALTY AMOUNT | What the line paid you, in US dollars. |
| PARTICIPANT % | Your share of the work. |
The 30-character title problem
BMI stores TITLE NAME at a fixed width of 30 characters, padded with spaces. Two different cues whose titles start with the same 30 characters print identically. On one real statement, two separate works came out as the same truncated title.
When TITLE # is filled in, it tells them apart. When it is 0, which on one real statement it was on most lines, nothing on the line can. A careful reading matches on the work number first and refuses to guess between clipped titles rather than merging them.
Foreign income and currency
BMI puts foreign income in the same file, marked by COUNTRY OF PERFORMANCE. It is already in US dollars, because BMI converts before paying you.
What can be checked
On one real set of statements, 87% of BMI lines carried a performance count. That is a share of lines, not money: on a different real BMI statement, 98% of the money sat on lines with no performance detail. Look at both before deciding what a check can tell you.
If an airing was never paid, BMI will look into it when you send the details. See how to file a royalty inquiry.
Read it in one minute
Drop the file into the free statement reader and it is recognized as BMI automatically. It runs in your browser, nothing is uploaded, and no account is needed.
Common questions
What does PERF PERIOD 20261 mean on a BMI statement?
The year followed by the quarter: 20261 is the first quarter of 2026, when the performances happened.
Why are titles cut off on my BMI statement?
BMI stores TITLE NAME at 30 characters, so longer titles are cut short and two different cues can print the same way. Use TITLE # where it is filled in to tell them apart.
Is BMI foreign income in US dollars?
Yes. BMI converts foreign income before paying, so it arrives in US dollars in the same statement as domestic income.
Is one line one airing?
No. A line can stand for many performances. PERF COUNT says how many.
Related
- How to read your ASCAP royalty statement: domestic and international exports, column by column.
- How to read your SESAC royalty statement: the most checkable statement there is, and the column that looks like a count but is not.
- How to ask ASCAP, BMI or SESAC about a missing royalty: what to include, and why each society needs a different letter.
- Why didn't I get paid for my TV placement?: the five reasons an airing goes unpaid, and how to tell which one it is.
Who makes this
ONTRK is built by Marc Aaron Jacobs, a composer who runs the libraries Tonal Chaos and Tonal Chaos Trailers, and who built DropCue. ONTRK started as the thing he wrote to read his own ASCAP statements. Questions go to hello@ontrk.app and reach him directly.
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