APRA|AMCOS offers both Broadcast and Reproduction licences to Commercial broadcasters. Commercial radio stations are operated for profit and are usually funded by advertising revenue.
Broadcast Licences Rates
Licensees pay fees monthly based on a percentage of the station’s gross advertising revenue in that month. The rate varies from 0.055% to 3.85%, depending on the amount of APRA works broadcast by the station as a percentage of the station’s on-air time.
| Music use percentage |
Percentage of gross earnings payable (exclusive of GST) |
| 80% + |
3.50% |
| 75 – 79.99% |
3.00% |
| 70 – 74.99% |
2.75% |
| 65 – 69.99% |
2.50% |
| 60 – 64.99% |
2.25% |
| 55 – 59.99% |
2.00% |
| 50 – 54.99% |
1.75% |
| 45 – 49.99% |
1.50% |
| 40 – 44.99% |
1.25% |
| 30 – 39.99% |
1.00% |
| 10 – 29.99% |
0.50% |
| 0 – 09.99% |
0.05% for each percentage point (or part thereof) of music proportion |
Reporting and forms
Radio stations provide quarterly returns which detail each work and the number of times that work was broadcast during the period. These reports are used for the distribution of royalties.
The following forms are available for downloading:
Reproduction Licences
We offer commercial radio stations a choice of reproduction licences that enable them to:
- dub published music onto tape, CD, computer hard disk (or any other device from which music can be reproduced) and the retention of these recordings beyond the statutory limit of 12 months from the first date of broadcast;
- distribute these recordings to other radio broadcasters in Australia;
- broadcast sound recordings in our production music libraries, either in advertisements, sponsorship announcements or as part of programs; and
- dub musical works and sound recordings in our production music libraries, either into advertisements, station IDs, sponsorship announcements or programs.
Agreement P allows commercial radio stations to do all of the activities described above.
Agreement E is for stations that do NOT use our production music libraries. It allows stations to retain recordings of published music beyond 12 months and to circulate these recordings to other stations with a licence for broadcasting in Australia . If the station occasionally wishes to use production music it can contact our production music department to obtain a licence for each particular use. See Production Music.
Advertisements
These agreements do not cover the use of commercially released music in advertisements. For information on this see Music in Advertisements.
More information
Contact our Broadcast & Online Services Department.
Tel: 02 9935 7900.
Email: