Today I was home watching tv when a friend came over to visit. He knows I "dabble" in radio a bit and told me about something heard on the radio about a bill to be passed tomorrow (May 13th) that could put a lot of small radio stations out of business. Not knowing much about it, I told him I would look it up and see what it was about.
What I think I have found is something Congress wants to pass called the Performance Rights Act, and what it basically means is that the artists of all the songs played have to be paid. Now, remember with SESAC and BMI, the royalties of the writers of the songs are compensated, but this new bill will also reward the artist themselves.
This would add up to be thousands of dollars per year for radio stations, from what I understand, non profit news radio like NPR would I think pay about $1000 a year. Smaller stations might pay as much as $5000 a year, and larger ones as much as $10,000. From what I read, it said that religious stations or programs would be exempt, but I am not too sure about the exact wording.
If the latter is true, then likely the local stations here in Wilson would not be affected, if indeed the bill makes religious stations exempt. But if that is not exactly on the letter, then this pulls a LOT of local stations into some serious problems. I am going to imagine that if this bill passes, then an artist that puts out a religious CD would have every right to collect just as much as an artist on a top 40 station...that remains to be seen.
This could be very interesting,and could be a serious blow to local stations that are at least non-religious, especially if locally owned. There are some that are for it, saying that artists deserve to be compensated just like the writers, but there are some that say this is not fair to radio at all, because most of those artists would never be popular without some radio station giving them the play.
So, how do you see it, and how could this impact ENC stations, if at all?
What I think I have found is something Congress wants to pass called the Performance Rights Act, and what it basically means is that the artists of all the songs played have to be paid. Now, remember with SESAC and BMI, the royalties of the writers of the songs are compensated, but this new bill will also reward the artist themselves.
This would add up to be thousands of dollars per year for radio stations, from what I understand, non profit news radio like NPR would I think pay about $1000 a year. Smaller stations might pay as much as $5000 a year, and larger ones as much as $10,000. From what I read, it said that religious stations or programs would be exempt, but I am not too sure about the exact wording.
If the latter is true, then likely the local stations here in Wilson would not be affected, if indeed the bill makes religious stations exempt. But if that is not exactly on the letter, then this pulls a LOT of local stations into some serious problems. I am going to imagine that if this bill passes, then an artist that puts out a religious CD would have every right to collect just as much as an artist on a top 40 station...that remains to be seen.
This could be very interesting,and could be a serious blow to local stations that are at least non-religious, especially if locally owned. There are some that are for it, saying that artists deserve to be compensated just like the writers, but there are some that say this is not fair to radio at all, because most of those artists would never be popular without some radio station giving them the play.
So, how do you see it, and how could this impact ENC stations, if at all?