Ever since BMI decided to turn “for-profit” and then closed the deal with New Mountain Capital folks have wondered what it will mean for the organization …will it be good or bad for music users, songwriters, composers and publishers?

Of course BMI itself has been tolling the vitues of the arrangement and offered some sweeteners to members. Others seem to think it’s further evidence of “enshitification” of everything good. I, myself, have been taking a wait-and-see approach with some high hopes and a few concerns.

I’ve noticed one new hire, one title change and one promotion that I think are all pretty good signs:

1. Erin Crawford got promoted to “AVP Affiliate Customer Service Experience” (congrat again Erin!). It seems crazy that a company that claims 1.4 million members didn’t have have an AVP level position until now. The oldschool, not-for-profit version of BMI sometimes saw itself as part of a dualopoly where near-parity performance was acceptable. Looks like the for-profit version, now with deeper pockets, is trying harder to keep member support up to the level where it deserves to be.

2. Back in September BMI posted a job opening for a “Director, Data & Financial Analytics – Creative Services”. When BMI gives out Icon Awards the acceptance speech has more than once said something like “BMI bought me my first house”. How does this work? Advances! Promising writers get advances against future earnings… potentially not just against songs that are already hits but also songs that haven’t been written yet. It’s a way that BMI and other PROs can show loyalty to the writer or composer and it also helps BMI make sure that the member doesn’t jump ship to competing PRO – they’d have to pay the money back before they go. So hiring someone to specialize on valuing advances seems like a smart move. Of course ASCAP already has an “Senior Vice President & Chief Economist” so hiring a Director for this position doesn’t put BMI on partity (At BMI, which can be very heirarchical, a Director is 6 rungs in the corporate ladder below an SVP!) Still, I take this as a good sign.

3. I’m not sure when this happened and I haven’t seen it covered but Mike Steinberg’s title has changed from something like “EVP, Licensing & Creative” to “EVP, Chief Revenue & Creative Officer” (congrats Mike!). This says to me that BMI is taking a serious look at revenues outside of just licensing fees. Maybe this is just catching up to the fact that BMI has for years taken a fee for administration of payments for works that it doesn’t license… but I expect it means there are some new revenue-generating offerings in the works!

I hope you enjoyed this little bit of analysis based on hires, promotions and title changes. I’d love to hear from you!