TV music monitoring for library composers
By Marc Aaron Jacobs · Updated
TV music monitoring is a service that fingerprints your tracks, listens to broadcast TV, and tells you each time your music airs: the channel, the show, the date and the time. It's different from your PRO statement, which only lists what your society paid, often months or years later.
For a library composer, the gap between those two lists is where missing money hides. A monitoring report on its own is just a list of airings. It turns into money when each airing is checked against the statement that should have paid it.
Monitoring and your PRO statement are different things
| Question | Monitoring, then PRO statement |
|---|---|
| What does it show? | Monitoring shows what aired. The statement shows what your society paid. |
| When do you see it? | Monitoring reports after the airing. The statement comes months later, and foreign income can take two years. |
| Does it name the channel? | Monitoring does, for each airing. The statement often does not: ASCAP leaves the channel blank on most background music. |
| What does it miss? | Monitoring misses channels it does not listen to. The statement misses anything nobody reported to your society. |
Why library composers need it more
Library music goes out in lots of small uses, mostly background cues in TV shows. Each one depends on a cue sheet that someone else files. If it's missing, or names the wrong cue, nothing on your statement shows it. The line just isn't there. See what a cue sheet is.
That's why monitoring matters most to composers with big catalogues spread across several libraries. You can't ask about an airing you don't know happened.
What to look for in a monitoring service
- •Coverage. Which countries and channels does it listen to? A service can't find an airing on a channel it doesn't hear. Compare its list with where your libraries place your music.
- •Evidence that lasts. Societies take one to two years to pay. If the airing video or audio link expires sooner, your evidence is gone before you can use it. TRQK's links were reported to expire after 90 days. Ask how long evidence is kept, and download what matters.
- •Statement matching. A list of airings doesn't tell you which ones were paid. Look for a service that checks each airing against the statement that settles its quarter, on the society's work number, not just the title. Titles get cut short: BMI stops them at 30 characters.
- •Honest timing. An airing isn't unpaid until its statement has arrived. A service that flags everything as missing straight away sends you to your society too early.
- •Cutdowns and alternate mixes. Ask how it handles 60, 30 and 15 second edits and alternate mixes of the same track.
Where ONTRK fits
ONTRK is built around this comparison. It reads your statements from ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, PRS, SOCAN, GEMA, the MLC and more and checks airings against the statement that settles each one's quarter. Its own TV monitoring for the US, UK, Europe, Canada and Australia is coming soon. Until then, it checks airings you already have, from TuneSat, a library report or a TRQK export.
Comparing services? See TuneSat alternatives for the options side by side.
Common questions
What is TV music monitoring?
A service that fingerprints your music, listens to broadcast TV, and reports each airing with the channel, show and time.
Is TV monitoring the same as my PRO statement?
No. Monitoring shows what aired. Your statement shows what your society paid. The useful part is comparing the two.
Will my PRO accept monitoring data?
Societies differ. SESAC accepts detection data and pays on it. BMI will look into it. ASCAP pays from its own survey and asks which cue sheet a performance is on.
How long should a monitoring service keep evidence?
At least as long as your society takes to pay, which is one to two years. Evidence that expires in 90 days is gone before the statement that should pay the airing arrives.
Does ONTRK do TV music monitoring?
Its TV monitoring for the US, UK, Europe, Canada and Australia is coming soon. Today ONTRK reads your statements and checks airings you already have against them.
Related
- How do I know if my music aired on TV?: four places to look, what each one tells you, and how long each takes.
- Looking for a TuneSat alternative?: the honest options for TV detection and statement checking, and who each one suits.
- Royalty reconciliation: what aired against what paid: how airings are matched to the statement that settles them.
- 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. Questions go to hello@ontrk.app and reach him directly.
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