Some Radio Stations Not Streaming Over The Internet

[Mark Giardina]

The Copyright Royalty Board has announced a fee structure for music webcasting that imposes commercial financial and reporting requirements on public radio webcasters, who now face huge increases in royalty payments for the music programming on their webstreams. Some stations are participating in a “Day of Silence” on June 26, 2007, to protest the increased fee structure. W*** has chosen not to deprive our internet listeners of programming. You can find out more about the Copyright Royalty Board’s new fee structure and how it affects radio: www.tellthempublicmatters.org

Anyone have comments about this?

 

[JakeLongwell]

This really is sad. I recall a few years ago when there were issues with extra royalties for streaming, and quite a few stations were forced to turn off their streams. Now, no sooner do we get most of these stations back on the internet, and we are facing this issue yet again. I am sure that once again, we will lose a lot of the commercial streams on the net, but let us hope that this doesn't have so much of an impact on public and non-commercial stations that stream.

As for the "day of silence", while I think it is a noble attempt to heighten public awareness to this issue, I doubt it will have any impact on the CRB's decision. So, my advice to everyone is, enjoy those streams while you can. My guess is, they won't be there by the end of the summer, or perhaps even earlier.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Preview?

The most unfair part of this whole situation is the fact that royalties will be retroactive to 2006. How on earth can they justify that decision?

The NAB and terrestrial broadcasters couldn't have come up with a better plan to kill Internet radio. As WiMax and cell technologies make wireless Internet access even more convenient and less expensive, Internet radio was poised to become a significant player in the terrestrial/satellite/HD radio marketplace.

Stand by for even more illegal downloading and file sharing. The artists won't see an extra dime from this short-sighted decision. If there's any benefit, it may be to unsigned artists who put their work into the Public Domain, where netcasters can offer their music in place of some or all of the music currently on their streams.

Surely, broadcasters will modify their streams to avoid paying the higher fees. Just how they'll do that is open to speculation. I can see the demise of many webstreams that just reproduce the on-air presentation.

 

[Element9]

This may say something about what's going on here:

Radio's the top media pick for 17% of the U.S. When asked what their most important medium is by Edison Media - nearly a fifth say it's radio. That's down from 26% in 2002 - as the Internet leaps ahead. The Web is now considered the most essential by one-third of Americans. Only TV rates higher with 36%.

Pardon my jaded perspective, but it appears to me that radio as a business, is protecting its collective assets with the CRB decision. Yes, the decision affects radio, but it more critically impacts the independent web casters. If and when push comes to shove, radio can go without its Internet streams because it controls the most active and accessible non-wired stream in America, that being AM & FM bandwidth. Furthermore, as a whole, it can cover the increased Internet rates whereas sites like Pandora may not be able to do so.

Anybody smell a dead fish?

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[Element9]

A summary can be found at Edison Research.

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