Help needed for asking price for recordings..

[ped]

Hi there, sorry for the slightly ambiguous title. To keep things short, My father is a freelance TV cameraman after having worked at Central TV (UK) for about 30 years. The music on his website www.mikehiscocks.tv has been used on some motorsport work he has done and Sky TV have asked if they can use it for a sports programme. I do not know exactly the details but I wouldn't have a clue how much to ask, perhaps you people could help me decide a ballpart price assuming this is 1- a recurring programme and 2- a one off use. Prices in £ sterling please!!

I will add details as I find out anything.....

Cheers
ped

[ballpein]

This kind of thing can vary wildly. "name brand" music can run in the thousands or tens of thousands for broadcast... on the other hand I once got an Ella Fitzgerald track for $300 for a one time use. In Canada, there is a sort of 'union' of music artists / producers called SOCAN that sets rates for this sort of thing... there's probably something similar in the UK.

If they're using it for titles or bumpers, it's obviously worth more than if it's just background music somewhere. What is their overall budget, how big is their audience, and how important is the music to their genre of televsion? Does the song bring any sort of brand recognition, or is it unknown? The most important question: how easily could they replace the song or just hire someone to rip it off?... you probably want to take a guess at what it would cost to hire a composer to write/produce a rip-off of that song and come in somewhere below that.

good luck.

[ped]

Thanks for the reply. We do indeed have something similar to the SOCAN, namely the PRS. I am looking into it and will be speaking to Sky this week hopefully. They want to use it as theme music for 8 shows. I do not think it could be especially easily ripped off to be honest, not without spending some time and effort finding similar musicians. I will let you know what happens!