We ask IPMG board member Gilda Fulco about the reasons for commissioning our recent surveys of music on TV in France, Germany and the UK, and what the results mean for the production music industry.
Gilda is the Head of Business Affairs and Global Relations for the Intervox Production Music group, Managing Director at Intervox Italia and Co-Director at Reliable Source Music Ltd.
Why were these reports commissioned by the IPMG?
Facts and figures are the most powerful means to represent the weight of our segment, to raise self-confidence among PM publishers and to speak at eye level with the institutions and other industry stakeholders.
Production music is used 6x more than commercial music on TV in the UK, 3x more in Germany and 2x more in France. What’s your interpretation of those results? Are they surprising?
I would have been surprised of the contrary and I think there is even more PM in TV than what the results of our first surveys show. My interpretation of the result is that the TV market needs not only content, but fitting and accessible content. That’s what Production Music is for. It is designed with the needs of a producer in mind and is made available in the form of a working tool (categorized, alternative versions, stocked and searchable in smart databases). Professional markets recur to specific instrumentation and tailored solutions and these results are the evidence of that.
Do you think worldwide TV companies, music publishers and rights societies were aware of the size of the gap/ of such incidence of the PM on airing time?
I think TV companies know what they use, although they sometimes ignore the implications of not documenting it; PM publishers know why they are still on the market, not to mention the authors who are growingly experiencing how appealing this is, … rights societies don’t always have a clear view of how (fast) the market is evolving today. In some countries the term Production Music still doesn’t ring a bell and CMOs and traditional music publishers are finding themselves unexpectedly in front of a respectable and strong new reality, called Production Music.
Are there examples of skewed royalty arrangements or unfair influence on copyright laws, TV networks and right societies that might be underpinned by an underestimation of the importance of production music compared to commercial music? If so, what are those examples and where in the world?
There are still many key territories where collecting societies do not distribute neighboring rights on Production Music usages, but only on commercially released repertoire. And, in general, with these results in mind, not reporting analytically and accurately broadcast music usages is the biggest underestimation. Unfortunately, music reporting issues are still an existing problem in almost every country, but we see how Germany and UK have seen progress in the past 10 years thanks to effective lobbying activities and the introduction of fingerprint technologies (Tunesat, Soudnmouse, BMAT).
Would you go as far as to say there is an INJUSTICE to the production music industry which needs to be corrected, or is it not that bad?
Well, this varies from territory to territory. I would say today wherever music reporting is not foreseen with the aid of automatic tracing there is the risk of a huge economic loss. Given the wide presence of PM in TV, if broadcasters do not adopt technology, we can easily say that half of the content is not remunerated. This is the case of Italy, for example, where the public broadcaster RAI does not exceed 40% accuracy on music reporting and the collecting society SIAE, to date, has not been able to ensure observance of contractual obligations. So, yes, this is a huge injustice for those who “only” live off Production Music income.
With these surveys (and more to come), what concrete steps do you think the IPMG should take in 2022 to bring about improvements which reflect its importance?
The IPMG has the opportunity to use the survey results as evidence to reach more attention for PM specific issues in countries next door where the technology is there, but not the political willingness or the understanding of things. Specific lobbying activities should be undertaken to push for the adoption of adequate music reporting technology aiming at as much analytical distribution as possible, and contesting discrimination of PM in the remuneration of actually equally worthy usages (e.g. neighboring rights).