billie eilish performs during the 62nd annual .../media/files/pdf/about/annual...billie eilish...

BILLIE EILISH PERFORMS DURING THE 62ND ANNUAL GRAMMY AWARDS Photo by Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for The Recording Academy

WE ARE… grateful to serve our family of

songwriters, composers and music

publishers so they can keep creating

the music the world needs now.

ASCAP is 100% committed to

protecting the value of our members’

music. We give them the tools, support

and guidance they need to grow their

careers, and the vital connections they

need to succeed.

2 2020 ANNUAL REPORT

USHER PERFORMS DURING THE 62ND ANNUAL GRAMMY AWARDS

Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Recording Academy

A MESSAGE FROM ASCAP PRESIDENT AND CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD PAUL WILLIAMS

I hope all of you and your loved ones are staying healthy, finding positive ways to cope and seeing the light at the end of this long tunnel. We all are still facing hard challenges, as individuals, as fami-lies, as a community and as a country.

Yet, the eternal optimist in me sees great hope, change and opportunities as we rise above this dark chapter. That’s because I believe in you and the power of our collective. As music creators, you are instru-ments of healing and your music is giving solace, in-spiration and strength to the world. Thanks to you, we are more connected to each other and committed to a better future than ever before.

2020 showed just how essential ASCAP’s work is to the lives of our members. And I am so impressed by the extraordinary efforts the ASCAP team has made to make up for revenues lost due to the pandemic and to deliver the financial security and support mu-sic creators need to survive the crisis of our lifetime.

I am in awe of how ASCAP CEO Beth Matthews and the ASCAP team – without missing a beat! – quickly pivoted to remote working and didn’t just respond,

but innovated and optimized to help our writers and publishers. In fact, in 2020 ASCAP executed not one but ten distributions to our members entirely re-motely for the first time in ASCAP history.

ASCAP is its members – a gloriously diverse family of music creators, and in 2020 we came together like never before to make a genuine impact. We took strong action to support our community, fos-ter innovation, educate our members, protect equi-ty in the workplace, boost participation in the 2020 election and create a lasting, much-needed trans-formation in how we treat each other.

We fought hard in Congress for COVID-19 relief measures that would help our members, made a significant MusiCares donation and launched the Music Unites Us website to share vital resources to help our members weather the pandemic.

We even developed creative new ways to celebrate our members whose music met this challenging moment and succeeded. Congratulations to all of you who topped the charts, made history and shaped our culture in numerous ways.

(Continued next page)


As we turned the page on 2020, we received im-

portant news that affects all of our songwriter,

composer and music publisher members. After

nearly two years since the US Department of

Justice (DOJ) first launched a formal review of

the ASCAP and BMI consent decrees,

the DOJ officially closed its review

and announced it would take no action

to modify or terminate the decrees at

this time.

ASCAP has long advocated for modern-

izing our 80-year-old consent decree.

And while we were disappointed that

no action was taken, we are encour-

aged to see the DOJ announcement ac-

knowledge some of the following truths:

that songwriters are the backbone of the music

industry, that collective licensing provides great

benefits to music creators and licensees alike,

that market-based solutions are the answer – not

compulsory licensing, and that songwriters must

be paid fairly. This is what we have been saying all

along. This is progress.

These acknowledgements are enormously import-

ant in terms of how the government approaches

our issues moving forward. And it is only possible, thanks to all of you who took action and poured your blood, sweat and tears into sharing your ex-periences with the DOJ during this process. You made a difference for every single songwriter and

composer in America.

As we usher in a new administration and a new Congress in Washington, DC, ASCAP will always be in your corner – leading the way, celebrating your music, advocating for your rights, and making sure your voice is heard. Our commitment to defending the value of your music will never waiver.

Remember, music is a shortcut to emotion. Freedom to feel…and to heal. Today we need your music more than ever.

Thank you for being part of the ASCAP family.

WE TOOK STRONG ACTION TO SUPPORT OUR COMMUNITY,

FOSTER INNOVATION, EDUCATE OUR MEMBERS, PROTECT

EQUITY IN THE WORKPLACE, BOOST PARTICIPATION IN THE

2020 ELECTION AND CREATE A LASTING, MUCH-NEEDED

TRANSFORMATION IN HOW WE TREAT EACH OTHER.

CYNTHIA ERIVO (PRS), winner of the 2020 World Soundtrack Award for Best Original Song for “Stand Up” from Harriet

BERNIE TAUPIN, winner of the 2020 Oscar for Best Original Song for “(I’m Gonna) Love Me Again”

MICHAEL R. JACKSON, winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Drama for A Strange Loop

NATALIA LAFOURCADE (SACM), winner of three 2020 Latin Grammys for Album of the Year, Best Alternative Song and Best Regional Song


ANTHONY DAVIS, winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in Music for The Central Park Five

2020 challenged all of us unlike any other year in modern history. It also defined ASCAP’s dedication to our mem-bers. That meant strengthening our commitment to our mission to serve our songwriters, composers and music publishers by taking every step necessary to secure their livelihoods and careers. Inspired by our members each and every day, the ASCAP team proved that innovation, efficiency and progress really can be escalated in a crisis.

I am pleased to say that ASCAP overcame the unprece-dented headwinds of 2020 to continue its record-break-ing revenue streak, collecting more than $1.327 billion in revenues, a $53 million increase over 2019.

2020 marked the sixth year of ASCAP’s strategic plan to transform its business and grow revenues. During the exe-cution of the strategic plan from 2015 through 2020, ASCAP exceeded performance goals and drove ASCAP revenues to a 6% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) and ASCAP distributions to a 7% compound annual growth rate.

2020 domestic and foreign revenues both saw significant increases. As compared to 2019, foreign revenue rose by 9% to $358 million. Domestic revenue for 2020 was up by 2.5% at $969 million, an increase of $24 million from 2019. The growth of domestic revenue was driven in part by gains of 28% in audio streaming revenue and 8% in au-dio/visual, matching shifting music consumption trends during the pandemic. ASCAP’s strategy to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 helped to offset uncontrollable de-clines in other sectors, including a 30% decline in reve-nues from businesses that were shut down or at reduced capacity during the last three quarters of 2020, such as live concerts and events, music venues, bars, clubs, restaurants, retail stores, hotels and more.

During a time period in which the global pandemic di-rectly affected revenues for many companies that license music, ASCAP grew royalties for its songwriter, compos-er and publisher members by $29 million, or 2.5%, for a total of $1.213 billion available for distributions. Domestic distributions from ASCAP-licensed and administered per-formances hit $891 million, an increase of $22 million and foreign distributions totaled $322 million. As a reminder, ASCAP operates on a not-for-profit basis and distributes all revenues collected, less operating expenses.

How did we accomplish such progress in the midst of a global pandemic? It helps to have the greatest communi-ty of music creators in the world. It also helps to have the greatest team of talented, hard-working and passionate employees committed to the mission of ASCAP, which is to protect and advocate for our members. Together, we harnessed strength and resilience to overcome the many challenges this crisis has thrown at us.

When COVID-19 first hit last March, ASCAP seamless-ly pivoted to remote work and gave our employees the tools, support and flexibility to adjust their lives to contin-ue to deliver excellent service for ASCAP members.

We quickly made operational changes and expense cuts to mitigate the pandemic’s impact. We optimized and ag-gressively executed our collection efforts. As so many of our valued licensees closed their businesses or suffered revenue declines, we finalized important deals with ma-jor licensees that were positively impacted by consumer behavior during the pandemic. We did this to make up for revenue loss in categories that were outside of our control. In addition to the many multi-year deals already in place for 2020, we closed or renewed over 130 deals in categories such as Cable, Broadcast TV, radio and Au-dio/Visual and Audio Streaming.

STRENGTH + RESILIENCE

(Continued next page)


A MESSAGE FROM ASCAP CEO BETH MATTHEWS

We accelerated our distributions, including our Symphony, Recital and Education royalties, and adjusted our financial management protocols to stabilize distributions and give our members more financial security going forward.

We completed system upgrades to boost performance and continued with the migration of our infrastructure to the cloud, all while improving security and increasing efficiency and reliability across all of our tech operations.

ASCAP also continued to push for greater transparency in the music industry with the launch of Songview, a com-prehensive data platform developed in partnership with BMI. The from-the-ground-up innovation enables ASCAP

and BMI to display more detailed, authoritative and con-sistent copyright ownership data for performing rights for more than 20 million songs in our combined repertories for the first time.

All of these major projects make us more effective and ef-ficient and better able to respond in the future to changes within the industry.

Supporting our members also means celebrating their successes and fostering the next generation of music creators. To accomplish that in 2020 we reimagined a full schedule of member events on multiple virtual plat-forms and later, launched and promoted new virtual stages to give our songwriters and composers a chance to share their talents with the world during lockdown. ASCAP Experience: Home Edition brought ASCAP’s conference for aspiring songwriters to an even bigger audience, drawing more than 10,000 attendees from

120 countries around the world.

ASCAP’s seven traditional red carpet award shows rec-ognizing the most-performed works of our songwriters and composers across the musical spectrum transitioned to ASCAP social media platforms, giving every winning member a chance to shine. The virtual events drove a 277% increase in our social media engagement including participation from some of the world’s biggest music cre-ators such as Billie Eilish, Cardi B, Diplo, DaBaby, Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande.

I am so grateful for the incredible work that the ASCAP team delivered in 2020 and continues to deliver around the clock today. Their dedication to serving and support-ing you is greater than ever. I promise you that we will re-main laser focused on fighting for you and your families. Thank you for your ASCAP membership and for trusting us with protecting the world’s greatest music.


2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020

SIX-YEAR PLAN:

REVENUES

$1.014B$1.059B

$1.144B

$1.227B

$1.274B

$1.327BILLION

2020 =$53 MILLIONOVER 2019

CAGR* +6%2015-2020

*Compound Annual Growth Rate

The 12 writers and 12 publishers of the ASCAP Board work hard to protect and support the interests of ASCAP members.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Board pictured on February 24, 2021 7 2020 ANNUAL REPORT

1st column, top to bottom:

DOUG WOOD WRITER

COMPOSER

CAROLINE BIENSTOCK PUBLISHER

BIENSTOCK PUBLISHING CO.

JAMES M. KENDRICK PUBLISHER

ASCAP BOARD TREASURER,SCHOTT MUSIC

MARY MEGAN PEER PUBLISHER

SONGS OF PEER LTD.

2nd column, top to bottom:

IRWIN Z. ROBINSON PUBLISHER

ASCAP BOARD PUBLISHER VICE CHAIRMAN, CROMWELL MUSIC, INC.

ALEX SHAPIRO WRITER

COMPOSER

DAN FOLIART WRITER

ASCAP BOARD WRITER VICE CHAIRMAN, COMPOSER

KEITH HAUPRICH PUBLISHER

BMG GOLD SONGS

MICHELLE LEWIS WRITER

SONGWRITER

3rd column, top to bottom:

PAUL WILLIAMS WRITER

ASCAP PRESIDENT AND CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD, SONGWRITER

BARRY COBURN PUBLISHER

TEN TEN MUSIC GROUP, INC.

DEAN KAY PUBLISHER

LICHELLE MUSIC COMPANY

JIMMY WEBB WRITER

SONGWRITER

PETER BRODSKY PUBLISHER

SONY MUSIC PUBLISHING

4th column, top to bottom:

MARCUS MILLER WRITER

COMPOSER

BRUCE BROUGHTON WRITER

COMPOSER

DESMOND CHILD WRITER

SONGWRITER

LAURENT HUBERT PUBLISHER

KOBALT SONGS MUSIC PUBLISHING

RICHARD BELLIS WRITER

COMPOSER

5th column, top to bottom:

JOEL BECKERMAN WRITER

COMPOSER

CARIANNE MARSHALL PUBLISHER

WARNER CHAPPELL MUSIC, INC.

EVAN LAMBERG PUBLISHER

UNIVERSAL MUSIC CORPORATION

LEEDS LEVY PUBLISHER

LEEDS MUSIC

RUDY PÉREZ WRITER

SONGWRITER

ASCAP elected more than 58,000 members in 2020 and is now home to approximately 800,000 songwriters, composers and publishers. We continue to attract and retain some of the world’s most talented songwriters

and composers thanks to the incredible efforts of our Membership team.

GROWTH + REACH

EMILY WARREN

SHAGGY

MAX MARTIN (STIM)

HANS ZIMMER

BIG SEAN

MEEK MILL

CARLOS VIVES

SWIZZ BEATZ

HENRY JACKMAN

JACKSON BROWNE

PEDRO CAPÓ

MADONNA

PASEK AND PAUL

BEAR MCCREARY

DAVID VANACORE

MARY J. BLIGE

AARON DESSNER

GABRIELA LENA FRANK

DIANE WARREN

BLACK PUMAS

JOSS FAVELA

ROSCOE MITCHELL

DABABY

PHOEBE BRIDGERS

LIONEL RICHIE

PAUL OVERSTREET

DADDY YANKEE

AMY ALLEN

VICTORIA MONÉT

JOHN MELLENCAMP

MARIAH CAREY

LIL BABY DUA LIPA

ARIANA GRANDE

BILLIE EILISH BTS (KOMCA)

CARDI B

THE WEEKND (SOCAN)

OLD DOMINION CARLY PEARCE

First artist with four decades of #1 songs

Captured spirit of the times with protest song “The Bigger Picture”

World’s most-streamed album by a woman on Spotify

First artist with 3 Hot 100 #1 debuts in a single year

First woman to sweep all 4 major Grammy categories

First all-South Korean act to top the Hot 100

Longest-running #1 single ever on Billboard ’s Radio Songs chart

Group of the Year at CMAs and ACMs for 3 years running

CMAs Musical Event of the Year - “I Hope You’re Happy Now”

Most Hot 100 #1 hits of any female rapper

SUCCESS + IMPACT

In 2020, ASCAP members and their incredible music met this challenging moment and succeeded. They wrote and published #1 songs on 27 separate Billboard Year-End Charts, and broke numerous streaming and chart records. They earned the music industry’s highest honors, in every genre imaginable. They made Grammy history. They won Oscars and Golden Globes, CMAs and Pulitzer Prizes, daytime and primetime Emmys, Latin Grammys and World Soundtrack Awards. And so much more.


When the pandemic hit, ASCAP fought hard in Congress for COVID-19 relief measures that would help our members, helping to rally a broad music industry coalition. We made a significant MusiCares donation specifically earmarked to help our members in need as a result of the impact of COVID. We also launched the Music Unites Us website to share vital resources to help our members weather the pandemic.

Later in the year, we introduced the ASCAP Citizen campaign in partnership with HeadCount, to inspire music creators and fans to vote in the 2020 election. The campaign featured content from top ASCAP members like Cardi B, The Go-Gos, Taking Back Sunday, The National, Brothers Osborne, Cassadee Pope, Avenue Beat, Jermaine Dupri and mxmtoon, among many others.

ADVOCACYPROTECTION


BROTHERS OSBORNE

CASSADEE POPE

JANE WIEDLIN (THE GO-GO’S)

CARDI B

JERMAINE DUPRI

MXMTOON

INNOVATION + EXPLORATION

In 2020, ASCAP sponsored an 11-week ASCAP Lab Seed Project challenge for university students, in partnership with NYC Media Lab, to nurture emerging talent pushing the envelope of music creation tools and experiences to benefit ASCAP members and drive innovation in the music industry.

In addition, The ASCAP Lab welcomed Grammy-winning guitarist and songwriter Vernon Reid (pictured at left) to the group as Artist in Residence. Reid appeared at the NYCML Summit on October 9 in a keynote conversation with ASCAP and finalists from the Seed Project called “A Musician’s Perspective on Innovation and Its Role in the Creative Process.”


In 2020 we continued to support our members far beyond quarterly royalty payments. As the year began, we presented our Sundance ASCAP Music Café, our only live event of the year and a fantastic showcase highlighting our members from across the musical spectrum. Then, as the year progressed, we reimagined many of our programs, presenting virtual workshops like the Harold Adamson Songwriters Workshop and launching several new online songwriter showcases like ASCAP Presents SPF (Summer Performance Festival), On the Come Up, Latin Acoustic Sounds, Sunday Inspiration and the ASCAP + RoadNation Livestream Road-Less Series. We also shifted our annual conference, The ASCAP Experience, to a virtual format in record time – turning what seemed like an insurmountable challenge into an opportunity to share our message with an even larger audience. Over the course of eight weeks, we hosted 38 sessions featuring leading ASCAP members, with more than 10,000 registered participants from over 120 different countries, who gained unique advice and career development guidance from the best in the industry. Throughout the year we celebrated the incredible success of our members in a creative new way. We hosted all seven of our awards shows virtually and invited our winning members to collaborate with us so we could create the “show” on social media and allow fans, friends and family to join the celebration. We couldn’t gather in person but we loved getting together in spirit.

SUPPORT DEVELOPMENT


ASHLEY GORLEY

PETEY PABLO

PINAR TOPRAK

GABRIEL EDGAR GONZÁLEZ PÉREZ

FINNEAS

DEVONTÉ HYNES

DIVERSITY + INCLUSIONIn the wake of George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis policeman in May 2020, we launched our Fight for Change resources page, raised money for Color of Change and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund with an employee match program and worked for racial justice and police reform bills on the federal and state levels.

We initiated ASCAP ASPIRE, a new annual paid summer internship program for HBCU students to nurture talent and empower the next generation of Black leaders in the music and entertainment business.

ASCAP recognized Juneteenth as an official company holiday to honor the historical celebration of emancipation in America and also made Election Day a company holiday to give employees more time to exercise their right to vote.

ASCAP also played an important role in an historic Supreme Court victory for the rights of LGBTQ employees by joining more than 200 other companies and organizations to file a “friend of the court” brief, urging the Court to rule that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects gay and transgender workers from workplace discrimination.

We also proudly partnered with organizations working to address inequities in the music creator community. We continued our partnership with She Is The Music to promote inclusivity and increase opportunities for female music creators, and funded New Music USA’s Amplifying Voices program to promote Black and Latinx voices in orchestral music.

In June 2020, for ASCAP’s celebration of both Black Music Month and Pride Month, VERSED: The ASCAP Podcast featured Honey Davenport – a drag superstar, singer-songwriter and activist who has left an indelible mark on New York’s nightlife and beyond.


DARIUS RUCKER PERFORMS DURING THE 54TH ANNUAL CMA AWARDS Photo by Terry Wyatt/Getty Images

billie eilish performs during the 62nd annual .../media/files/pdf/about/annual...billie eilish...

Documents