Radio May Have To Pay To Play

devjj writes "Ars Technica reports that Congress is considering two bills that will remove the exemption terrestrial radio broadcasters currently enjoy that allows them to broadcast music without compensating the artists or labels for it. In the current dispensation only songwriters get paid. The National Association of Broadcasters is furious at the RIAA, which is pushing repeal of the exemptions, and has responded by agreeing that artists need better compensation — and is asking Congress to investigate modern recording contracts. "

It doesn't matter at all

[daemonenwind]

Payola still exists today; it is the practice of recording companies paying radio stations under the table to play their music. Rather than paying radio stations directly, they just funnel it through advisory companies. Ever wonder why Ashlee Simpson's music didn't disappear from the radio after her SNL lip-synching exposure? The RIAA invested enough in her that they needed to reinforce her career with payola. Otherwise, she would have fallen off the radio like Milli Vanilli.

See The New Yorker [newyorker.com] for more information.

All the RIAA is going to do is find a way to pay the radio stations what they pay in royalties, and then charge that cost back to the artists via some "promotional fee" or other such garbage.

The only solution to getting artists paid is the death of the RIAA and its component companies.

IMO listenning to music is overrated anyway

[roman_mir]

From my point of view listening to music is way overrated. Everyone is supposedly listening to tons of music all the time and from my POV the music became some sort of a drug, just another escape from reality. You've got your music on your MP3 players, your radio, TV, CDs, DVDs, Vinyls, tapes and 8tracks ;] Are you all constantly listening to it for real? I prefer talk show radio, where I am (Toronto) the talk shows are really good, talking about local and global stuff, allowing the listeners to call in and express an opinion. To me this is way more entertaining than constantly repeating noise pollution that passes for music. Even if the music is good, there is no reason to be obsessed about it.

I wish there was more talk shows and various educational stuff on the radio instead.

Re:Good, maybe REAL artists will now have a chance

[idobi]

You're confusing performance royalties with copyright royalties. All radio stations, Canadian and US, pay performance royalties - about 1.7% of revenue. College stations typically pay a flat fee of $450/year. RIAA wants stations to pay, in addition to performance royalties, copyright royalties of about 7.5% of revenue - with low income stations paying $5000/year.

Does anyone still listen?

[PHAEDRU5]

Once you get satellite radio, you never go back.

I think the bigger story here is how terrestrial radio broadcasters utterly squandered a franchise.

Re:Good, maybe REAL artists will now have a chance

[multisync]

You've got it backwards. All stations - Terrestrial and over-the-air - pay royalties to the copyright holder of the song itself. These royalties are paid to organizations like ASCAP [ascap.com] and BMI [bmi.com], who then distribute the money to the songwriter. The royalties this article discusses are collected by SoundExchange [soundexchange.com] on behalf of the copyright holder of the "performance" of the song (ie the recording the radio station plays). This copyright is generally held by the record company.

Terrestrial stations have so far been exempt from paying the performance royalties, but it looks like that may change.

Re:Paying others to advertise for them?

[zentinal]

Sorry, but you're displaying a fundamental lack of understanding about how radio works (from a financial point of view), along with a lack of knowledge of radio history. Understandable, because no one knows this stuff anymore except for telecom geeks.

Playing music over the radio has, since it's inception, been about advertising to promote sales of music (records, sheet music), advertising to promote attendance at live events, and to provide programming to attract listeners for, of course, advertising other goods and services. In the last case, think of how flowers use nectar to attract bees. Giving away nectar is just a cost of doing business if you want to be polinated.

Of course, it isn't a perfect analogy, because unlike flowers, radio stations aren't producing what they're giving away.

What radio explicitely hasn't been is a revenue source for song performers. Song writers, absolutely. I'll leave it up to you to look up the ASCAP / BMI controversy of 1939/1940.

In fact, what is amazing about this is that, were the RIAA's proposal to be adopted, it would end up setting up a system exactly the opposite of the Payola scandal, where record producers paid / bribed radio station employees and execs to play records [history-of-rock.com].

I also have to wondeder what ASCAP and BMI will think of this. If this proposal results in a drop in radio play, then payments to songwriters (as opposed to song performers) will fall.

Oh, and this could definitely blow up in the RIAA's face. Clear Channel, Infinity and the like are notorious for being very, very tough business people. If this proposal goes through, and if they aren't able to negotiate a miniscule enough rate per play, I wouldn't put it past them to start buying up the larger RIAA members, just to get their music catalogs. Would there be anti-trust implications? Sure. Would it be worth a few tens of millions here or there to try. Absolutely.

Re:This is an old tune:

[jedidiah]

Actually, the songwriter gets a pretty decent cut. If you only
write songs and don't have to produce albums it can be a pretty
cushy gig. You get income but you don't have to become indebted
to the labels for all of those recording costs.

Re:Good, maybe REAL artists will now have a chance

[idobi]

I got it right. It's just a little confusing. ASCAP and BMI collect performance royalties, for performing the songs on the air, and use the money to pay the copyright holders. Soundexchange wants to collect copyright royalties and pay the record companies. Terrestrial stations have always paid performance royalties to ASCAP and BMI.

Re:IMO listenning to music is overrated anyway

[Hatta]

Well I wasn't so much defending radio as I am music. Yeah music on the radio sucks, unless you're lucky enough to get a good jazz station(KCCK). On the other hand there's this thing called the Live Music Archive, where you can fill your music player with hours upon hours of live music from talented musicians. Go download some Steve Kimock, Oteil Burbridge, or Hot Buttered Rum and tell me you're not happier at the end of the day.

Re:IMO listenning to music is overrated anyway

[j.sanchez1]

On the other hand there's this thing called the Live Music Archive, where you can fill your music player with hours upon hours of live music from talented musicians.

Here is the link to the Live Music Archive [archive.org] in case anyone is interested.

Re:Good, maybe REAL artists will now have a chance

[Miszou72]

Nobody plays industrial on the "radio", but I listen to a combination of these commercial-free internet stations all day every day at work, for free.

• Digital Gunfire [digitalgunfire.com]
• Tormented Radio [tormentedradio.com]
• RantRadio [rantradio.com]
• di.fm (FuturePop channel) [www.di.fm]

And yes, I've bought numerous CD's and Amazon MP3's after hearing tracks from these sites. The last one I bought was MenschDefekt by Massiv In Mensch - it's great for the treadmill ;)

I also bought Troops by Dunkelwerk after hearing "Bastard". It was the only track from the album I'd heard, and I only heard it once, but I thought it was so awesome, I went straight out and ordered the album online.