SOCAN members can now subscribe, at a 20 percent discount, to the powerful WIOpro audio-visual broadcast tracking tool, which enables songwriters, composers, screen composers, and music publishers to more accurately track their domestic and international screen performances. Use of the tracker is expected to increase transparency in those performances, and therefore increase the associated music royalties. You can subscribe now at http://wiopro.com.
Our members receive royalties from various sources, via SOCAN, when movies, series, and episodes containing their music are broadcast, both domestically and globally. SOCAN relies on screen producers, broadcasters, music supervisors, and other stakeholders to provide music usage information via cue sheet submissions. Now, with WIOpro, SOCAN members can reliably track audio-visual broadcasts to reconcile and verify their royalty statements, as the software uses industry-standard electronic program guide data to generate easy-to-use reports.
“We’re extraordinarily pleased to be able to offer SOCAN members discounted access to WIOpro, a new industry standard in film/TV music royalties,” said Shawn Pierce, WIO President, CEO, and co-founder, and himself a Canadian television music composer. “Tested, solid, digital, and reliable, our platform empowers members, and SOCAN itself, to better handle the often difficult task of tracking down broadcasts missed due to cue sheet errors and other data problems. As I know from personal experience, that translates to money in the pocket.”
With WIOpro, a SOCAN member logs on, and populates their dashboard with the movies, series, or episodes they want to track. When they return to their dashboard days, weeks, or months later, they can run reports showing the cable and satellite television broadcasts of their programming in any of the 55 territories that WIOpro tracks, worldwide. They can then compare the data with their royalty statement, to find broadcasts where information hasn’t been submitted for royalty payment.
“SOCAN is pleased to be the first and only music rights organization offering its members discounted access to WIOpro, in partnership with WIO,” said Jean-Christian Céré, SOCAN’s Chief Membership Officer. “Their unique platform provides deep and clear insight into global television airings that are often difficult to obtain. We welcome WIOpro’s tracking and reporting as additional tools for our members to identify their performances more efficiently.”
That tracking is powered by the same broadcast data that cable and satellite systems use, making WIOpro efficient at finding unreported broadcasts of movies and episodes. Unlike audio detection systems, WIOpro reports are accepted and easily verified at most performing rights organizations and collective management organizations. Reports can be generated in formats such as PDF and CSV, the latter of which can be directly imported into spreadsheet programs, such as Excel.
WIO, which stands for “When’s It On?,” was originally founded because WIO CEO Pierce wanted insight into his own music catalogue and royalties. Using WIOpro, he uncovered about $50,000 in royalties that he would never have received otherwise.