BMI has announced the performance rights organization has generated $1.199 billion in revenues for the fiscal year ending June 30. The total represents a 6.1 percent increase over the previous fiscal year’s $1.13 billion in revenue.

The company also distributed and administered a record $1.118 billion in royalties to its songwriters, composers and publishers, marking a nine percent increase over the previous year.

Mike O’Neill, President and CEO, BMI, stated, “Thanks to the incredible creativity of our songwriters, composers and publishers, BMI was once again able to generate record revenue and distributions on their behalf. While we are proud of achieving these results, we will always strive to do better. BMI will continue to advocate for our affiliates, ensuring that all songwriters and composers can continue to earn a living creating the music that is loved all over the world.”

Total domestic revenue, which is comprised of digital media, traditional television and radio, cable and satellite, and general licensing, grew to a record $880 million, up five percent over the prior year. Revenue from cable and satellite sources once again generated the largest portion of BMI’s domestic revenue at 33 percent, while traditional television and radio revenue accounted for 25 percent of the overall domestic total.

Notably, BMI’s international revenue grew $25 million to $319 million, up nine percent over the previous year.

BMI processed nearly 1.7 trillion performances in FY ‘18, a 23 percent increase over last year. Of this total, 1.67 trillion were digital performances, or 97.7 percent of all performances processed.

The $1.118 billion in total distributions includes domestic and international royalties, as well as royalties from direct deals that BMI administers on behalf of its publishers. Distributions from these direct deals totaled $53 million, a $17 million increase over the previous year, representing approximately five percent of BMI’s total distribution.

When factoring the impact of direct deal administration, the company reports it now distributes nearly 90 cents of every dollar directly back to its songwriters, composers and publishers.

BMI’s domestic revenue growth over the past year was driven strongly by gains in the digital sector, which grew 32 percent to $215 million due to new deals made with Amazon, Apple Music, Hulu Netflix, YouTube, Sound Cloud, Spotify and expansion into new digital markets including social media with Facebook. Digital now represents 24 percent of the company’s total domestic revenue.

General licensing, which encompasses 18 percent of BMI’s total domestic revenue and is generated from businesses like bars and restaurants, hotels and fitness centers, along with other income, posted record results of $156 million, a 5 percent gain year-to-year. The company added 15,000 new businesses to its growing portfolio.

Jason Padgitt has been appointed the new Executive Director for the Nashville Film Festival in a key advancement of its strategic growth plan. In his new position, Padgitt will lead the Nashville Film Festival in growing its brand equity, strengthening its global cultural impact, and building engaging year-round programming and world-class experiences for the creative community, membership, audiences and supporting sponsors.

Padgitt joins the festival following more than 20 years of leadership in the entertainment industry with deep experience in high-profile branding, consumer marketing, digital marketing and communications. Most recently, he served as the Executive Vice President of Global Marketing and Communications for Nashville-based Gibson Brands. Prior to that he served as the Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications at Fender Musical Instruments Corporation and as a leading marketing and PR executive with Los Angeles-based agency, Rogers & Cowan.

“The board views Jason’s hiring as a defining moment for the organization,” said Jim Scherer, Nashville Film Festival board president. “It speaks highly of Jason that he was the board’s choice to lead the festival into the future, especially as we approach the festival’s 50^th anniversary year in 2019. He is a talented executive with the heart and desire to see the Nashville Film Festival become a must-attend event for this region and attendees from around the world.”

“I am extremely excited to lead the Nashville Film Festival into the next stage of development and growth,” said Padgitt. “This organization has an incredible heritage of discovering and elevating creative talent from all around the world. I look forward to accelerating that success by significantly increasing the organization’s visibility, cultural importance and global reach.”

Farrah A. Usmani has joined the Loeb & Loeb LLP Nashville office as an associate in its Music Industry Practice.

“Farrah is a rising talent within the industry and it’s a pleasure to welcome her,” said Loeb & Loeb’s Nashville Office Administrative Partner Tiffany Dunn. “She brings a terrific skill set and business sense, and I’m confident she will be a great asset to our music and entertainment clients here in Nashville and nationwide.”

Usmani focuses on transactions involving music, copyright and trademark law. She structures, drafts and negotiates deals with major and independent record labels, music publishers and content distributors. Her experience includes recording contracts; distribution, publishing, merchandising and management agreements; and agreements for every facet of live music production. She also manages international trademark portfolios and advises clients on licensing matters and infringement claims.

Most recently, Usmani practiced at Marcus & Colvin, LLP. Previously, she worked in business affairs within the music department at Creative Artists Agency, where she collaborated with talent agents and executives to draft and negotiate agreements related to live touring, music festivals and corporate partnerships between brands and artists. Before launching her legal career, she worked as a music publicist in Austin, Texas.

“Farrah’s diverse business and legal experience, including her years in private practice and on the agency side, make her a strong complement to our team,” said John Frankenheimer, partner and chair of Loeb & Loeb’s Music Industry Practice. “Nashville is an important anchor for our firm’s national music practice, and we’re delighted to further expand our team to continue serving the music and entertainment community at the highest possible level.”

Usmani added “Loeb’s reputation for delivering innovative solutions in the music industry and helping navigate strategic business issues for clients at the crossroads of entertainment, brand protection and emerging tech was a big draw for me. I look forward to working with this outstanding group.”

Usmani earned her J.D. from the University of Houston Law Center and her B.A. from the University of Texas.

Earlier this year, when singer-songwriter Cody Johnson became the first independent artist to sell out the Houston Rodeo at NRG Stadium (with 75,000 tickets sold), he concluded his concert with a new song, “Dear Rodeo.” As the song’s outro played, Johnson, a former rodeo rider himself, cantered his horse around the arena and through the exit gate.

“My buddy and drummer Brian Pruitt was like, ‘Ride your horse out to [‘Dear Rodeo’!]’” Johnson recalls. “So we did and oddly enough, we realized that the number of bars in the outro was the exact number of bars I needed to ride around the arena and out. When the horse’s butt cleared, and the gate closed, the outro was over. We don’t even play the outro in the show anymore because it would take too long. But at that moment, I was like, ‘How cool was that?’ I felt like John Wayne for a minute.”

The intensely personal track was one of two that Johnson penned for his upcoming first album on a major label, after inking a deal with Warner Music Nashville earlier this year. “Dear Rodeo” addresses Johnson’s exit from the rodeo circuit.

“I still ride cutting horses and team roping,” he clarifies. “Scott [Gunter] said, ‘The one thing you haven’t written about is that you don’t rodeo anymore. You’ve never written about quitting.’ I didn’t realize how touchy the subject was but it was like opening up a wound. I ended up writing with Dan Couch and it took about two hours to write, when I started opening up emotionally about how I felt about the whole thing. I said, ‘It’s like a woman that got away, like the love I lost.’ And he said, ‘Why don’t you write a letter to her?’

For his upcoming album, Johnson and Gunter sifted through nearly 400 songs to find those that would translate Johnson’s traditional style to his loyal audience of fans who have followed his career to this point. One of those was his first Warner single, “On My Way To You.”

“I’ve written most of my albums up to this point, because to be quite frank, I wanted to be sure people know who I am when they pick up a record…and a little bit to do with nobody was pitching us songs,” he quips. “This song was one of the first five songs Scott played. I was like, ‘I don’t want to change anything about it, I want to learn it, it’s going on the record.’ It very much characterizes me.”

On his own, Johnson released a half-dozen projects independent of a major label, including 2014’s Cowboy Like Me which landed at No. 7 on Billboard’s Country Albums chart, and 2016’s Gotta Be Me, which debuted at No. 2 on the Top Country Albums chart, and stayed atop the iTunes Country Albums chart for a week.

Johnson’s sound and touring stats certainly caught the attention of several labels over the past decade, but he turned down previous offers for a recording contract.

“It was like a 360 deal, and I didn’t feel right about that. I own my own company, I built it with my own hands,” Johnson told MusicRow during a visit to Nashville to preview songs from the album. “Every deal I had been offered required change—we don’t want your producer, or we don’t want your manager or your booking agent, or you need to take off your cowboy hat because that’s not what’s selling right now. I’m not bitter about that but I just thought those [offers] are not what’s meant to be for me.”

Earlier this year, he finally made a major label commitment, inking a joint venture between his own CoJo Music and Warner Music Nashville. Johnson is also repped by Durango Artist Management, Red 11 Music, and HBPR.

“The deal is very much a 50-50 business merger,” he says of his arrangement with Warner. “It came down to me and [Warner Music Nashville CEO John Esposito] sitting down at the table, drinking margaritas, and going, ‘Man if this flops, this is on us. You’re the head of your company, and I’m the head of mine…so I need to know that you are going to push this.’”

Johnson also needed an out-of-the-box strategy to promote his music to radio, without alienating his fanbase.

“One of the reasons I partnered with Warner is they accepted how different I was. A lot of times, the path goes, ‘A kid gets a record deal, kid gets a single and kid gets a radio tour and a fan base.’ Because I’ve never had the option of being on the radio, I went and built a fanbase first. I can’t cheat on my fanbase and take time away from them to go do radio. So what we’ve done is figured out how to get radio [executives] to come out in small increments and we can cater to them an hour or two before the show. Here’s your bar setup, here’s anything you need, and my tour manager’s going to be with you all night. Here’s your roped off section and they get to see the show.”

Another track slated for the album is “Doubt Me Now,” a one-two punch to his naysayers.

“When you come to this town from Texas, I guess everyone has a preconceived notion that you are going to sell out. One of my main focuses with this whole deal is to prove that you can be yourself. The record was done before we got a deal. As soon as we released it, people were like ‘I can already hear the change.’ But this song is to those people and to all those people who said it wouldn’t work.

“My goal in this whole thing is to step politely into this town and say, ‘Hey, is there room for me here?’ A lot of things I’m doing are very normal for country in 1985 but now it’s different and it’s a new thing now to be country.”