Pandora has been under attack from musicians lately.
Pink Floyd, for instance, blasted Pandora. David Lowery of Camper Van Beethoven also claimed that his song got 1 million plays on Pandora and he only got $16.89.
Michael Degusta at The Understatement decided to dig a little further into the Pandora hate.
In the chart here, he breaks down how much Pandora is really paying for a song. It's much more than $17 for every 1 million plays. The money is sliced and diced between songwriters, song performers, record labels, and assorted others.
Degusta says Pandora is actually paying out $1,372 for a million plays of a song. Once its broken down, Lowery gets just $16.89, because he only owns 40% of the songwriting credit. Because he was the performer of the song, he actually gets more than $16.89. If he gets 40% of the performance credit, his total pay is actually $234 for the 1 million listens.
Interestingly, Degusta says AM/FM radio doesn't pay as well. It pays nothing to performers.
If musicians are truly angry about crummy radio pay, they should direct some rage at AM/FM stations as well as Pandora.
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