ATLANTA, Ga. /Music Industry Newswire/ — BMI has announced that it earned more than $905 million in revenues for its 2009 fiscal year, including its subsidiary Landmark Digital Services®, LLC. The company also announced that it increased royalty distributions to more than $788 million for the songwriters, composers and copyright owners it represents. With more than 400,000 songwriters, composers and music publisher affiliates, BMI is the world’s largest music copyright organization.

Despite one of the most difficult economic environments in BMI’s history, the company realized several industry-leading achievements over the past year:

At home and abroad, BMI is capturing the momentum of a globalized music business. The strength of BMI’s repertoire around the world propelled the company to its best-ever year in international revenues, thanks to global hits from songwriter/artists including Lady Gaga, Colbie Caillat, Taylor Swift, Pink, will.i.am and the Black Eyed Peas, Kid Rock, Kings of Leon, Pitbull, Shinedown and Latin superstars Juanes and Shakira, among others. BMI’s domestic repertoire gained value from signing the brightest new stars from abroad, including songwriter/artists such as Lily Allen, Estelle, Duffy, Grammy-winner Adele, Jay Sean and Leona Lewis.

BMI completed the integration of Landmark Digital Services’ radio performance data into its radio survey, giving the company the industry’s most comprehensive and granular data on radio airplay. Landmark’s BlueArrow® technology is now delivering data to BMI from radio stations nationwide. Landmark also provides advanced audio-recognition products and services to a range of third-party clients including content providers, copyright owners and consumers of music and digital entertainment.

BMI launched a complete redesign of its award-winning website, BMI.com®, with enhanced transaction tools for musical creators, music publishers and licensees alike. The new online transaction functionality speeds data entry for writers and publishers and enables licensing customers to easily complete online music reports and renew license agreements. A streamlined online membership module made possible the signing of more than 30,000 new songwriters and composers through its website, bringing BMI’s affiliate total to more than 400,000.

BMI has significantly increased the scope and pace of its talent development activities, sponsoring and promoting more than 200 showcases, professional seminars and panels to support the careers of emerging songwriter/artists. Over the past several years, such programs have assisted in launching the careers of artists including John Legend, Lil Wayne, Maroon 5, Jamey Johnson and Lady Gaga, among others.

Long a pioneer in the licensing of new media, BMI now has a portfolio of more than 6,700 digital media properties under license. Despite the widespread impact of the economic downturn, BMI was able to grow revenues in this sector by 11 percent.

BMI continued its long-term focus on revenue diversity, which provided stability to the company’s results despite the challenges presented by the economy. Revenue from non-broadcast media such as cable, satellite and digital media continue to increase its share of BMI’s total, joining general licensing as key growth areas. Thanks to long-term agreements, revenue from traditional broadcast radio and television remained strong.

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About The Author / Editor:

JJ Jame is a percussionist and theremin player, formerly a member of the Redondo Beach based BoyRacer.com™ electronica band, and a long-time electronic music fan, formerly an editor for the defunct EMcult™ website.

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