M.Ted, have you seen this article by Harvey Reid ?

According to Reid:

"ASCAP's 'random' taping of some 60,000 hours of radio airplay as the basis for distributing hundreds of millions of dollars has been challenged as having too much inherent error; that it is not provable that is it indeed a fair and just way to compensate copyright owners for use of their work. For example; currently, the percentage of fees paid by public broadcasting stations is somewhere between 5.8% and 6.3% (depending on whom you ask), yet the sampling system only samples these stations 690 hours per year, which divided into 1500 stations comes to 27 minutes per year per station, or about 4.5 seconds a day, and slightly more than 1.1% of the 60,000 hours. The system is clearly topheavy and greatly favors the few who get heavy airplay."

and:

"ASCAP's policies and the rates charged to copyright users are determined by its 12-member board of directors (who are elected by the membership), and votes cast in their elections are weighted according to the amount of money paid that year. If you did not receive royalty money from ASCAP last year, you cannot vote this year. Because of this, it is unlikely that changes to make sure smaller writers and publishers get a fair share will come from within ASCAP."

--from near the end of the essay.

T.