APRA AMCOS collects licence fees from all Australian and New Zealand commercial free-to-air television networks and stations for the broadcast of its music (including in local and overseas television shows, films, promos and advertisements). In Australia this includes Networks 7, 9 and 10, their regional affiliates such as Prime, WIN and Southern Cross and their digital sister channels such as 7TWO, 7mate, 9Gem, 9Go! and 10Peach. In New Zealand this includes TVOne, TV2, TV3, FOUR. And while Maori TV is not a commercial television service we apply the same distribution practices.
It should also be noted that the data we receive from commercial television stations is also used to allocate royalties from many of our public performance licence schemes.
Licence fees from other Australian free-to-air TV stations such as ABC and SBS, and Pay TV in both Australia and New Zealand are collected and distributed separately (see specific Guides).
Commercial free-to-air TV networks/stations provide us with detailed electronic records of all the songs used in film and television productions they broadcast (cue sheets). They also provide us with detailed information about the date and time of broadcast. For the larger stations (both in terms of population reach and licence fees) we receive these records on a full census basis, meaning we receive 100% of all broadcast information, for smaller stations (e.g. regional affiliated stations) and secondary channels, a sample data set may be used, for example one full week of detailed records are provided for each month.
We also use Music Recognition Technology (MRT) to monitor the songs and compositions used in advertisements broadcast in capital cities. For advertisements broadcast in regional areas, we rely on Jingle Reporting Forms submitted directly by our members.
Programming reported by the station is directly matched to the cue sheets (or in the case of promos, songs) that we hold in our database. Data from the cue sheets and other reports tells us who should be paid. APRA employs an internal sample methodology so that approximately 25% of programming that does not auto-match is researched by APRA AMCOS staff and the musical work information in our database is updated.
For MRT, our members may submit sound recordings to us to be uploaded to our MRT partner’s database. These songs are registered with APRA at the time they’re submitted, so that when broadcast information is reported to us the songs can be matched automatically. Songs reported in MRT data which weren’t submitted by our members can still be matched to the songs in our database, for inclusion in our distributions. For Jingle Reporting Forms members also register their ownership when they’re submitting the form.
APRA’s distribution policy uses a ‘points’ system to determine royalties to be allocated to each song. From the cue sheets, we allocate one point per second of duration for each song. The points are then weighted on the basis of the time of day of broadcast to reflect relative audience reach on a day-part basis (but where we do not know the broadcast time, for example with music use lodged from Jingle Reporting Forms we use a weighted average). For example, a song used in a TV show that is broadcast at 8:00pm would receive more points than a song in a TV show that is broadcast at 3:00am. There is a further weighting applied for music according to whether it is used as featured, theme or background music in a programme/film or whether it is a station ID, promo, advertisement or CSA. Lastly, in Australia APRA uses Oztam audience figures to assist with allocating royalties between main and digital channels.
The following lists set out how points are scaled based on type of use and time of day:
Music use weighting
Time of day weighting
The same cue sheet records used in APRA distributions are used to calculate the AMCOS portion of royalties, which cover locally produced programs made under the terms of the relevant licence agreement between AMCOS and the channel/network.
How points are used to calculate the royalty amount payable for each song or composition
Once the points have been calculated for all songs, the total revenue from each network/station (as the case may be) is divided by the total sum of all points for that network/station, resulting in a $ rate per point. This rate is then multiplied by the number of points given to a song based on the weightings above, resulting in the royalty amount payable for that song or composition. This calculation is performed for every song being paid in the distribution and will be made separately for each occasion where that song is used (for example if Friday On My Mind was used once for a duration of a 30 seconds on a quiz show broadcast at 5pm and separately for 2 minutes as part of the soundtrack of a film broadcast at 8.30pm, the amount payable to the writers and publishers would be the aggregate of two separate calculations).
Once we have calculated the amount payable for a song, we can pay that amount to the copyright owner of the work. If the copyright owner is not a member of APRA or AMCOS but one of our affiliated overseas society we pay that society.
Distributions for Australian and New Zealand free-to-air TV networks are calculated and paid quarterly other than royalties for music reported directly by our members using Jingle Reporting Forms, which are paid annually.
View our information guide on Unidentified Songs and Disputes for more information.
Songs:
The Copyright Act refers to compositions, musical scores in the form of sheet music, broadsheets or other notation as musical works. Lyrics or words to a song are considered literary works. When we refer to songs, we are referring to all the elements of a musical/literary work protected by copyright.
Cue sheets:
A cue sheet is a record of all songs used in a film and/or television production. APRA AMCOS is provided with cue sheets for all locally produced programs broadcast in Australia and New Zealand and this information is used to distribute royalties for the public performance of the song.
Full census:
the licensee provides complete reports detailing all songs played, broadcast or streamed.
Sample:
Licence fees are distributed via a representative sample of performances where it is inappropriate, unfeasible or not economically viable to provide a Direct Allocation.
Music Recognition Technology (MRT):
A digital ‘fingerprint’ of each piece of music is created when it is used. This fingerprint is then compared to the digital fingerprints of many millions of musical works housed in a third-party fingerprint database. This database also contains each work’s metadata (that is, the names of writers, performers, recording details etc.) enabling the owners of each matched work to be identified and paid accordingly.
Jingle:
In terms of royalty payments, a jingle refers to any music used in advertisements, including commissioned songs and compositions, general songs and compositions and production music.
This fact sheet is a guide only. Refer to our full Distribution Rules and Practices for more information.