I’m thinking that perhaps the way BMI is structured and the way radio stations report to them has something to do with the song honorees for 2008 being ones that seemingly made their mark in 2007.

When I’m sent a BMI royalty payment, it is for a quarter that is around six month before I’m actually being paid for it. The payment I received in March 2009 is for airplay from July1 to September 30, 2008. Maybe that explains why it seems like it’s an awful long time to wait to honor these songs that were big in 2007. It would appear BMI wouldn’t know about all of 2008’s airplay at least until June of this year.

That said, I think all five of these songs are worthy of the honor, mainly because at one point or another, these songs were played a lot! Nearly every time I turned on the radio it seemed like these were the songs being played–and they still are. On a side note, I am totally surprised that songs of my own that have been out for 10-15 years still reguarly show up on my BMI statement, which is cool to us writers.

On a personal note, Dianne Wilkinson and Marcia Henry are two of the finest writers and friends that I have in this industry and the honor could not have been given to two more deserving writers or people. I spoke with Dianne on Friday morning and she was so excited to be attending on Saturday to receive her award with all the Kingdom Heirs there with her. I believe Marcia’s daughter had her senior prom and Marcia rightfully chose to be with her rather than attend. But she was still excited and humbled at the honor.

Congrats to Dianne, Marcia and all the writers who were honored! Job well done!

Barbara Huffman