The Point FM

Music

A hot issue lately is how some recording artists and record companies are pushing for additional fees when their music receives radio airplay. Here are some thoughts on the subject from The Point's Program Director, Zeb Norris...

The Burlington Free Press recently published the editorial "Musicians deserve pay for radio play." As a radio Program Director I welcome debate on this issue, but it’s a lot more complicated than the editorial suggested.

Radio airplay has tremendous promotional value to artists. Grace Potter was cited in the editorial as supporting payments from radio. Even so, Grace can confirm the boost her career received after she was given substantial airplay on the radio station I program, 104.7 The Point. Before the airplay she was one of many talented unsigned artists. After the airplay sales of her independent CD surged and she signed to Disney’s Hollywood label for a reported million dollar advance. Naturally we didn’t ask Grace for a slice of the action. We play her music based on its merits and we are thrilled for her success. But we don’t feel we should have to pay Disney for the honor of helping launch her career. (NOTE; in subsequent conversations with Hollywood records and a member of Grace’s band The Nocturnals I was informed that the entire deal might have been worth a million dollars, but the advance was not that large)

Big multi-national record companies are the diving force behind the Performance Rights Act. While recent years have been hard on them, the labels’ responses to their challenges have only exacerbated their problems. When illegal "file sharing" via Napster surfaced the labels tried to sue the problem away rather than recognizing the opportunity they had to reduce or eliminate physical inventory and distribution costs by buying Napster and converting it to a pay system. That left the market for a pay system unclaimed… but not for long. Steve Jobs put it all together with Apple’s I-Tunes store and I-Pod technology. As a result labels get only 20% of the revenue from the songs sold on I-Tunes rather than the 100% they could have had if they had bought Napster.

So with sales way down and the labels getting only a small percentage of the one segment of music sales that is growing, they’ve turned to legislation in a desperate effort to improve their bottom lines at radio’s expense.

Make no mistake: that’s what this is about. Fully 50% of the money taken from radio in this legislation would go to the labels, not the artists. That’s a far worse deal for the artists than they get on songwriting royalties. The two big performance rights organizations, BMI and ASCAP, are both non-profit. They retain only the cost of administering their programs to collect songwriting royalties from radio stations. That’s nowhere near 50% of the revenue. And given the record companies’ history, it is laughable to suggest that labels will promptly, fairly, and transparently distribute this new revenue to artists.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

For example, because the bill doesn’t exclude public radio stations, many of which receive financial support from the Federal Government, it will result in taxpayers’ money being paid to foreign-owned record companies like Sony and BMG.

Also, the legislation doesn’t preclude labels from waiving the fees and creating a new incentive for radio to play songs the labels want exposed, while circumventing existing anti-payola laws.

There are lots of other serious problems with the proposed legislation, but space precludes me from citing them all.

Please understand; I agree that musicians deserve some compensation for the broadcast of their work. But it should be modest, keeping in mind the promotional value of radio airplay, and it should be structured like the longstanding arrangements radio has with BMI and ASCAP.

While I respect Senator Leahy, the legislation he is sponsoring benefits record companies at the expense of both radio and artists and creates an onerous burden on radio that will result in fewer jobs in an already contracting industry, fewer promotional opportunities for artists, and less music on the radio for fans.

Zeb Norris is a radio broadcasting veteran and is currently Program Director of

WNCS/WDOT/WRJT "The Point"