PRA Resolution Requires Changing Business Model

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AG News: Tuesday - 8/17/2010

PRA Resolution Requires Changing Business Model

So now we're reading in nearly every radio industry trade publication that the NAB's proposed 1% fixed royalty is the top-of-the-arch for what radio is willing to settle on. It appears that if there's to be any agreement to impending performance royalty payments, the musicFirst group needs to roll over and agree to what radio executives demand.

Readers have weighed in; most are stating that these "demands" by the radio industry are either caving in or unavoidable. Many call it a wavering from outright refusing to pay or charging of record labels for playing songs. This new list of "acceptable" demands by radio shows just how much the NAB board underestimates the fight ahead.

There's also one big note that appears to be missing from it all. There has not been a discussion on changing the business model which radio operates under, relative to its relationship with record labels. Nor have I seen mention of creating new approaches to the introduction of music from new artists by the radio industry - sans the comments about "start charging for every record played." (Do that, and you'll soon see how much the record labels feel they need to be on your station.)

Is anyone considering that the "out" to all this rests in radio coming up with an alternative to how it currently receives music?

In all the reading that you do, are you seeing anything that mentions radical new approaches to music selection for airplay? Is there ever mention of creating a new system for fledgling artists to get access to radio playlists? The simple answer to both questions is "no."

If those in broadcast radio would spend half as much time thinking up new concepts as they do complaning about an impending Performance Royalty (which was warned of many years ago), the industry could possibly solve this problem without negotiating. Radio could, with some brainstorming, end up with a system wherein it simply tells the record companies to take a hike and "make it on your own, online."

If any discussion is needed at this time, it will have to be one about ways to get around the old system - and it will need to begin in some of those radio industry trade publications. It's sad, but they seem to be the only place where radio executives go for guidance.

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From: Deon Woods

I think radio stations, who believe they should have the right to use musical performances to attract listeners, in order to sell advertisement spots and not pay, are completely insane. And every artist and writer has a right to be compensated at an equal rate whatever his star status is.