Payoff

BMI, radio's song pool, sent out royalty checks for the first quarter of 1941, threw Tin Pan Alley into an uproar. Stunned were BMItes, accustomed to a fat swag from 27-year-old rival ASCAP, to receive amounts as small as $2.45. While victims screamed that they were robbed, BMI last week made a hasty checkup, discovered that a honeymoon-struck accountant had figured into the publishers royalties everything but the big item, payments for radio network performances.

After a reshuffle, BMI distributed $150,-ooo for radio performances alone to over 1,000 publishers and composers. For radio sheet music and mechanical rights it sent $6,000 apiece to its highest paid trio--Joan Whitney, Hy Zaret & Alex Kramer--who are responsible for So You're the One, It All Comes Back to Me Now and My Sister and I. For You Walked By, Songbirds Bernie Wayne and Ben Raleigh picked up $4,000 each. Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. and Kenrick Sparrow drew $81.84 apiece for The Rest of My Life.

Meanwhile, rich ASCAP decided to split a million-dollar melon (cut largely out of lush past earnings) among its membership for the second quarter of 1941, just to buck up morale.

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