Johnny McDaid to Receive BMI President's Award at 2026 BMI London Awards
BMI will present Johnny McDaid with the BMI President's Award at the 2026 BMI London Awards, the performing rights organisation announced on August 18. The ceremony takes place at The Dorchester in London on September 28, hosted by BMI CEO Mike O'Neill, EVP and Chief Revenue and Creative Officer Mike Steinberg, and VP of Worldwide Creative Barbara Cane (Music Business Worldwide).
The BMI London Awards honour the British and European songwriters and publishers behind the previous year's most-performed songs on US streaming, radio, film, television and visual media. BMI, which represents a repertoire of more than 25 million musical works, uses the President's Award to recognise a songwriter or composer for their overall contribution to music. Fraser T Smith received the honour in 2025; Noel Gallagher was a previous recipient (Billboard).
McDaid, originally from Derry in Northern Ireland, moved to London as a teenager and busked on the city's streets before building a career as one of the most performed songwriters in contemporary pop. His songs have been recorded by Ed Sheeran, BTS, P!nk, Robbie Williams, Alicia Keys, Lewis Capaldi, Jung Kook, Weezer, Shawn Mendes, David Guetta and Kelly Clarkson, among others.
The numbers attached to his work are striking. "Shape of You," co-written with Sheeran, was the first song in Spotify history to reach two billion streams and has since passed five billion. It spent 12 consecutive weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 — the US singles chart — and 14 weeks at the top of the UK Singles Chart. The track is certified 13× Platinum by the RIAA, the body that measures US sales, and was named Apple Music's most-streamed song of the decade.
His other Sheeran co-writes tell a similar story. "Photograph" has reached 3.5 billion Spotify streams, "Shivers" 2.1 billion, and "Bad Habits" two billion. McDaid holds 17 BMI Awards, including the BMI Pop and London Song of the Year in 2018 for "Shape of You" and the BMI London Song of the Year in 2022 for "Bad Habits." He is a two-time Grammy nominee, a two-time Ivor Novello winner, and has earned 14 Diamond and more than 600 Platinum certifications worldwide.
Most recently, McDaid co-wrote "Bottle Up" for the Backstreet Boys and "Animal" for KATSEYE, a girl group jointly developed by HYBE and Universal Music Group. "Animal" debuted at number 10 on the Billboard Global 200, the group's first top-10 entry on that chart.
The 2025 BMI London Awards, held last September, honoured 57 first-time BMI London award winners (BMI Awards). BMI published its official announcement of McDaid's honour on its own news page at bmi.com on August 18, confirming the date, venue and hosting details (BMI).
