Posted by Andy McNabb on October 14, 2009, 6:04 pm
216.121.186.2

Is there a rough rule of thumb to project a range for what a band makes in revenue using album sales as a base metric? For example, if a band has sold 1,000,000 albums so far, they'll typically make what as their portion of revenue? Realizing there are many variations to the formulas, is there a proportion of album sales to airplay royalties to concert ticket revenue to merchandise sales that a typical band would make?

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Posted by recordguy on October 14, 2009, 7:47 pm, in reply to "What does a band make on an album, etc.?"
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An act will make from $1.50 to $4. an album, plus publishing royalties, after recoupment of production costs and videos. There is no relationship between airplay, sales and ticket revenues. When was the last time you heard Rush on the radio? They still generate $500,000 a night in ticket sales, although they probably haven't had an American gold record in years.

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Posted by geo on October 14, 2009, 9:04 pm, in reply to "Re: What does a band make on an album, etc.?"
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When was the last time? Are you kiddin? RUSH is to classic rock radio as Paul Anka is to Oldies radio (answer: 3, 4, 5 times a day)

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Posted by Scraps on October 14, 2009, 9:15 pm, in reply to "Re: What does a band make on an album, etc.?"
99.226.19.164 | Message modified by user Scraps October 14, 2009, 9:19 pm

I love this David Byrne article from I think two years back, from Wired. Pretty much says it all. http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/16-01/ff_byrne?currentPage=all But, yeah, bands make money from touring now, not selling "albums". Hence, $100 plus to see a show. Well, a "big" show.

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Posted by Scholes on October 14, 2009, 10:51 pm, in reply to "Re: What does a band make on an album, etc.?"
99.235.42.253

As a result of downloading, I think the general rule now is...rec'd a record to support a tour, not tour to support an album release like decades past!

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Posted by recordguy on October 15, 2009, 10:34 am, in reply to "Re: What does a band make on an album, etc.?"
173.33.219.32

A couple of Rush tracks, out of a total of well over 200 they have recorded, get some classic rock play. I doubt Rush get 50 plays a week nationally, while a hot AC single could get 100+ plays on just one station in a week. Multiply that by 100 stations and guess who makes the most money from airplay.

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Posted by Jim Slotek on October 15, 2009, 11:00 am, in reply to "Re: What does a band make on an album, etc.?"
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>>>An act will make from $1.50 to $4. an album, plus publishing royalties, after recoupment of production costs and videos. <<< LOL! Please pay attention to that last part. Thanks to recoupable expenses, many, if not most bands end up owing the label money. I did a feature on that some years back, and found the case of Wild Strawberries, who owed Nettwerk six-figures after selling 65,000 albums. They got out of their contract, put the next album out on their own, and everything after the first 5,000 sales was pure profit. Jim

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Posted by recordguy on October 16, 2009, 11:14 am, in reply to "Re: What does a band make on an album, etc.?"
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Interesting. I didnd't know they had another release after leaving Nettwerk. Did it sell more than 5000? If it is profitable doing it themselves, is there another indie release coming?

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Posted by Jim Slotek on October 16, 2009, 7:37 pm, in reply to "Re: What does a band make on an album, etc.?"
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There were two indie releases, I think. Twist was the one that Nettwerk cut them loose to release on their own. Haven't covered music in recent years, so I'm out of the loop about what they're doing lately. Jim

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