How to read your SESAC royalty statement
By Marc Aaron Jacobs · Updated
A SESAC statement is the most checkable of the US societies: on one real set of statements, 99% of lines carried a performance count. Song Title and Song # are the cue, Production Title the show, Network the channel, Performance the count and Earnings what you were paid. The period is Year plus Qtr.
One column catches people out: Occur looks like a count and is not. On a real statement it was 1 on almost every row. The count is Performance.
Where to download it
Sign in to the SESAC affiliate portal. On the Dashboard, open Earnings Data, accept the online royalty statement terms, and download the CSV for each quarterly distribution.
The columns, one by one
| Column | What it means |
|---|---|
| Song Title | The cue. |
| Song # | SESAC's work number. |
| Production Title | The show. |
| Network | The channel. |
| Perf Type | How the music was used. The legend at the end of the file decodes it. |
| Perf Duration | How long the cue ran. |
| Performance | How many performances the line pays. |
| Occur | Not a count. Ignore it when adding up airings. |
| Earnings | What the line paid you, in US dollars. |
| Year, Qtr | The quarter the line belongs to. |
| Society Country | Where it was earned. |
The parts of the file that are not data
A SESAC export has a few rows of heading above the column names, and a legend block at the bottom explaining the usage codes (for example OT for opening theme). Both look like data in a spreadsheet. Neither is a royalty line, and adding them in will give you works called "LEGEND".
Numbers arrive with a decimal point, such as 3.0 for three performances.
Raising a missing payment
SESAC accepts detection data and pays on it, which makes it the most direct society to raise an unpaid airing with. 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 SESAC automatically. It runs in your browser, nothing is uploaded, and no account is needed.
Common questions
What is the Occur column on a SESAC statement?
It is not a performance count. On real statements it is 1 on almost every row. The number of performances is in the Performance column.
Does SESAC accept detection data?
Yes. SESAC accepts detection data and pays on it.
Why are there rows saying LEGEND at the bottom of my SESAC file?
SESAC ends each export with a legend explaining its abbreviations. Those rows are not royalty lines and should be left out of any totals.
Related
- How to read your BMI royalty statement: what each column means, and why titles stop at 30 characters.
- How to read your ASCAP royalty statement: domestic and international exports, column by column.
- How to ask ASCAP, BMI or SESAC about a missing royalty: what to include, and why each society needs a different letter.
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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