BMI, iHeartRadio, and a Madonna collab all showing up in the same top-ten conversation — Sabrina had the industry checking every box in one week. This is Sabrina Carpenter Daily. I'm Cassidy, Joey's here, and today we're actually unpacking the BMI story: what it measures, how that compares with 'Espresso' taking Pop Song of the Year at iHeartRadio, and what a Hot Dance/Pop Songs debut says about where the Madonna collab is landing. Two different award systems, two totally different ways of counting, and they both point at the same catalog. That's the whole episode right there. All right, let's get into it. Sunday Guardian Live, with Shiwani Kumari:
The 2026 BMI Pop Awards brought together some of the biggest names in music on May 12 at The Beverly Wilshire, honouring the artists, songwriters and publishers behind the year’s most-played pop tracks in the United States. While the evening celebrated several chart-topping musicians, it was Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter who emerged as the biggest talking points of the night.
So the Step Back segment earlier this week finally gave us the clean BMI answer — it’s a performing rights organization, it tracks royalties and radio-style plays, and it measures what actually got used in public. Then Sunday Guardian Live puts the scoreboard on it: Sabrina shared Songwriter of the Year with Taylor Swift, and Swift is now six-time, three-years-in-a-row. Different levels of career, same room, same night. And the song list is the part that matters — Bed Chem, Busy Woman, Manchild, Juno, Taste, Good Graces. That is not one breakout single dragging the era over the line. That’s six songs all doing enough on radio and public performance to show up with the whole field. Which hits even harder after iHeartRadio gave 'Espresso' Pop Song of the Year the same week — that one’s fan-voted, radio-driven. BMI is the publishing and royalty lane; iHeart is the audience lane. Both pointing at the same Short n' Sweet catalog from different angles is the real story. From r/SabrinaCarpenterFans (49 upvotes):
BMI is one of 2 major companies that license music for people to broadcast. The award goes to the songwriter who has the most performed songs of the year, Sabrina receiving it for Bed Chem, Busy Woman, Manchild, Juno, Taste, and Good Graces. She shares the award with taylor swift. Sabrina in the acceptance video, per ABC >I feel so privileged because storytelling is one of my favorite things and has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. >Songwriting is sort of like being in a…
Honestly, the six-song breakdown from that Reddit post is doing more for the picture than a lot of mainstream coverage. Naming Bed Chem, Juno, Manchild, Taste, Busy Woman, and Good Graces shows you which Short n' Sweet cuts actually traveled on radio instead of just streaming. That’s not a mood read, that’s the playlist. And that acceptance quote — 'storytelling is one of my favorite things' — is interesting, because that’s the frame she’s putting on a performing-rights win. This is about plays and royalties, not just abstract craft. Smart angle to take in the room. Okay, so Sabrina just picked up BMI Pop Songwriter of the Year — but what is BMI actually measuring there? Is this a popularity thing, a money thing, a critic thing? What are we talking about? Great question, and it’s very different from anything fans vote on. BMI — Broadcast Music, Inc. — is a performing rights organization, and per its own description, it negotiates music licenses and distributes royalties to songwriters and publishers every time music is publicly performed, whether that’s radio, streaming, TV, whatever. They represent over 22 million musical works and more than 1.4 million songwriters. So when BMI names Songwriter of the Year, they’re tracking which writers had the most-performed songs in the U.S. over the past year — actual airplay and performance data, not fan votes, not judge panels. Sabrina shared the 2026 award with Taylor Swift after each wrote six of BMI’s most-performed pop songs of the year, per reporting from Mix 92.9. And the BMI Pop Awards more broadly cover Song of the Year, Songwriter of the Year, Publisher of the Year, plus the 50 most-performed pop songs in the country — so the whole night is basically a performance-data ceremony. So this is Sabrina’s first time winning it — does that tell us anything specific about where she is right now compared with, say, a Grammy nomination? It really does. A Grammy nomination — and Sabrina did get Grammy nominations for the 68th Annual ceremony, per BMI’s own congratulatory post — is a peer-judged prestige signal. But the BMI Songwriter of the Year win is a volume-and-reach signal: it means her songs were among the most-played in the country, consistently, all year. For fans, that’s the award to watch if you want to know whether the music is really penetrating culture at scale. And for a first-time winner sharing the stage with Taylor Swift, who’s won it six times, that’s a pretty loud answer. From Europe Says:
Madonna debuts her new single“Bring Your Love” on this week’s Hot Dance/Pop Songs chart. The tune, a collaboration with current hitmaker Sabrina Carpenter, opens at No. 7, marking an important win for the two singers.
Okay, the Friday lineage thread finally has a number attached to it — 'Bring Your Love' opened at number seven on Hot Dance/Pop Songs, and Billboard only launched that chart in January 2025. So we’re talking about a ranking that’s barely 18 months old, and Madonna already has a second career entry on it. And that’s the part worth sitting with — Madonna’s first hit on this chart was recent enough that her second one is 'Bring Your Love.' Sabrina didn’t just land a collab, she’s literally in the same debut window as one of the biggest dance-pop acts ever on this specific tally. What I’d flag is that Hot Dance/Pop Songs is radio-adjacent in a way Sabrina’s solo singles haven’t usually moved, so a top-10 debut there tells you something different about how this track got routed. And that lines up with a week where she’s also holding BMI recognition and an iHeartRadio fan vote. Three separate commercial lanes, same catalog. The Awards Psychic writes:
Song of the Year:
“Beautiful Things”- Benson Boone
Pop Song of the Year:
“Espresso”- Sabrina Carpenter
Pop Artist of the Year:
Sabrina Carpenter
Artist of the Year:
Taylor Swift
Best Collaboration:
“Die With a Smile”- Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars
Best New Artist (Pop):
Teddy Swims
iHeartRadio Music Awards recap is in — Sabrina cleaned up the pop lane: Pop Song of the Year for 'Espresso,' Pop Artist of the Year, full stop. And these are fan-voted, which matters, because the BMI win we’ve been walking through all week is the mirror image — that’s the industry’s royalty-and-radio machinery saying the same thing. What gets me is the specific BMI list — Bed Chem, Juno, Manchild, Taste — those are the radio-traveled cuts, and then iHeart’s fan vote lands on the same album cycle. Two totally different systems, zero coordination, same catalog. That’s evidence, not a vibe read. One wrinkle worth naming: overall Song of the Year went to Benson Boone’s 'Beautiful Things,' so 'Espresso' didn’t sweep the room, it won its lane. Honestly, that’s a cleaner data point than a sweep would be, because it tells you exactly where the audience is routing Sabrina versus where they’re routing pop overall. I’ll take Pop Song of the Year over Song of the Year for this conversation every time. Song of the Year is the all-genre ballot; Pop Song of the Year is the genre receipt. That’s the one that lines up with what BMI is counting. Got thoughts on the show, a story idea we should chase, or a correction? Send us a note anytime at sabrinacarpenterdailyfancast at lantern podcasts dot com. We’re always listening.
You’ll find links to every story we mentioned today in the show notes, so if something caught your ear, you can head there and read a little deeper.
That’s Sabrina Carpenter Daily Podcast for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.