ShareThe First Thing for Radio in 2010 – Change It’s not been a good week for the radio industry. We’ve had to deal with Citadel filing bankruptcy (and, now, Next Media), a most idiotic stunt gone awry with a more idiotic explanation from the offending station (as if the audience has “stupid” stamped on its [...]
ShareCitadel Broadcasting Corp., the nation’s third-biggest radio company and parent of Chicago’s WLS-AM 890 and WLS-FM 94.7, is preparing to file a prearranged bankruptcy before the end of the year, according to the Wall Street Journal and later the New York Times. And, while all this is going on, Chicago Public Radio blogger Robert Feder [...]
New legislation in Congress could drastically change music-industry economics. As it currently stands, musicians in the U.S. aren’t paid when their songs are played on the radio unless they wrote the songs, too. Only songwriters get radio royalties, not the folks who play and sing their tunes. Two bills moving through the House and Senate would change that, by making radio broadcasters pay royalties to musicians, too.
Radio broadcasters hate the idea of performance royalties — really, really hate it. They’re speaking up in Congress and on air.
November 24, 2009
A new report from Washington Research Group Concept Capital says that is it becoming less likely that the Performance Rights Act, which would force radio stations to pay royalties for playing music, will become law. In recent months, the House and Senate Judiciary Committees have approved the legislation, and a meeting was held between broadcasters and record labels to engage in mediated discussions over a possible compromise. However, Concept Capital says the odds are dropping for the legislation to pass in the 2009-10 Congress. The research group reduced its estimate from 60 percent to 40 percent odds of the bill passing in the next 12 months.
November 24, 2009
Arbitron has been invited to testify next Wednesday, December 2 in front of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The hearing will examine the PPM ratings service and discuss “whether the PPM technology and methodology accurately measure radio audiences and whether PPM has a disproportionately negative impact on radio stations owned by minorities or targeted toward minority listeners.”
NACA and the College Gig
How to Navigate The Educational Market
By Will Morgan
The college gig, in one respect, can be thought of as the generic store brand in the music industry supermarket – only a few people seem to be aware of it, despite its relative value. As a culture of advertising-inundated consumers, we instead reach for the big names on the shelf, or for the purposes of this example, the principal venues with established reputations. And more often than not, especially if you’re a musician, these items are beyond our means, financially and otherwise.
According to major label vet Ted Cohen , “the main problem centers around the minimums [that services pay labels for the use of music],” he wrote. “The economics just don’t work. A ‘mea culpa’, I was a big proponent of per-track minimum rates for both paid subscription and ad-supported services when I was at EMI. I WAS WRONG!”
Online radio audience grows to 42 million!
Last week Arbitron Inc. and Edison Research released their latest study “The Infinite Dial 2009.” This study showed that the usage rate of digital audio platforms, suck as online radio, iPods, podcasting, etc., has significantly increased since 2008. Interestingly enough, weekly online radio audience has grown to roughly 42 million Americans, up from 33 million in 2008.
Representatives from the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) met with members of Congress and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to reiterate the negative impact that local airplay royalties would have on local radio stations that provide free airplay to its 235 million weekly listeners.
ShareThe Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation voted in favor of the Local Community Radio Act of 2009, a bill that would allow for the expansion of Low Power FM stations by abolishing third-adjacent channel spacing requirements for full power FM outlets. The legislation has already made it through two key House committees and [...]
