Dear ASCAP Members,
As we turn the page on a difficult year for many, my heart swells with the deepest of gratitude for our community. Your music is the light that fills our lives, reminding us of what connects us even in uncertain times. I’ve always believed that creating music is a higher calling. Supporting and protecting you, who answer that call, is ASCAP’s essential mission.
Your music made 2025 an incredibly successful year for ASCAP.
Our membership grew to more than 1.1 million members, with many extraordinary music creators joining the ASCAP family who are pushing music forward in every direction.
ASCAP members wrote the #1 songs on 53 different Billboard year-end charts and dominated the world’s most prestigious awards, including winning trophies in 48 categories at the 2025 Grammys, with major honors for Chappell Roan, Amy Allen, Daniel Nigro, Beyoncé and her COWBOY CARTER co-writers, and Mustard and Nicolas de Porcel, co-creators of “Not Like Us.” ASCAP composers scored eight of the top 10 worldwide box office films of 2025, as well as the absolute cultural phenomenon that was KPop Demon Hunters. ASCAP writers were also responsible for eight of the top 10 songs on Rolling Stone’s new list of the “250 Greatest Songs of the 21st Century So Far,” including the #1 title, “Get Ur Freak On.”
With the world’s best-loved and most valuable repertory, ASCAP set some new records of our own, distributing the highest amount of royalties in our entire history in 2025. And because ASCAP is the only US PRO that operates on a not-for-profit basis, ASCAP members are the sole beneficiaries of our growth and success. That truly sets us apart.
Beyond delivering outstanding financial results, ASCAP continued to innovate and lead throughout 2025. Just a few highlights:
- ASCAP distributed $1 million in emergency relief to our songwriter and composer members impacted by the devastating Los Angeles fires.
- ASCAP secured a landmark settlement with the Radio Music License Committee, raising royalty rates for nearly 10,000 commercial terrestrial radio stations across the country.
- We announced the expansion of Songview to include copyright data for more than 38 million musical works licensed by all four major US PROs.
- We helped shape Federal policy around generative AI, making clear that technological progress must strengthen – not diminish – the rights and livelihoods of music creators.
- And, finally, we announced the ASCAP Experience 2026, returning to LA on February 12 – 20 years after its origin as the only conference dedicated to educating, connecting and empowering ASCAP songwriters and composers like you.
The new year will bring new challenges that force us to innovate and evolve. But ASCAP has thrived for 111 years because we have one bedrock principle upon which we continue to build: We always put creators first.
Thank you for your songs, scores and symphonies, your ideas, lyrics and melodies, your empathy, passion and vision, and for being that radiant force for good that our world needs now more than ever.
Finally, thank you for being an ASCAP member. I wish you and your loved ones much health, peace and fortune in 2026.
Happy New Year!
Paul Williams
ASCAP President & Chairman of the Board
