As far as radio wanting compensation for the “free” publicity that they have given us, I would put forward that the radio industry would have been NOTHING without music. They have garnered billions of dollars on our backs. Without music there would have been nothing but drama shows (free, I am sure), news and discussions. Really – try to convince me that the billions of American teens through the decades listened to radio for the friggin news! (Which is already totally politically biased).

Get real radio – you are a dying industry – go ahead and pull your music as you wish to keep threatening – go on, throw all your toys out of the crib!

Wonder what all your valuable DJs will do for a living next?

“We’d be careful about throwing the word pig around. The ugly fact about PRA is that it not only refuses to acknowledge radio’s role in promoting music, it takes money from radio and divvies it up between the haves of the music world, leaving the rank and file musicians to divide up the crumbs.

We’ll do the math for you again. A radio station plays a song – basically a three minute commercial for the song, its label and its performer – and the label and headliner not only want the air time for free, they want cash on top of the promotional benefit they are getting.

Once they have the cash, here’s what they do. Let’s say the song has a headline singer, three background singers, a piano player, a guitar player, a bass player, three horn players and a drummer. For every dollar radio pays, the label, which “performs” nothing, gets 50 cents. The headliner gets 45 cents.

Meanwhile, the three background singers, the piano player, the guitar player, the bass player, the three horn players and the drummer will split a nickel, so that in the end each will rake in the astonishing sum of one half of a cent.

When the recording industry talks about the justice of its cause, it almost always wraps itself around the poor starving musicians struggling to make a living. But here we see exactly what the industry thinks of them – they are great for a PR campaign, but not so important when it comes time to divide up the booty.

Pigs, indeed.”

You can read Jim’s daily observations at http://www.RBR.com

“PRA will simply chase music off the air. Those stations that do bite the bullet and pay for the privilege of running what is essentially a three-minute advertisement for the artist will choose what they buy very, very carefully.”

http://www.RBR.com

“Record labels have to pay radio stations and their present or past owners (or their estates) for all the free publicity they derived by getting so much airplay focused on so few records that the repetition alone harmed the radio industry”

”A percentage of every piece of product – single or album – that radio stations helped the labels sell.” And…” Make it retroactive to 1945.”

You can read Jerry’s full blog at http://bit.ly/JudgeJerry

The whole thing should be reformed. There needs to be a general tax pool (an actual tax, like the way we pay for the fire department and hospitals) and then simply devise a voting system based on local/regional/national/international. I’m thinking 20/20/50/10.

I understand that unemployment is hitting radio..but this is because unemployment is going to go up EVERYWHERE because the private sector cannot solve our problems because not everything can be monetized..and is not profitable.

Anyways i’ll leave it at that.

That’s my track.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEhn1dNLdDI

“For over 80 years, radio broadcasters have had a mutually beneficial relationship: free radio airplay of music by over-the-air broadcasters, which in turn promotes record labels and artists and generates millions of dollars in music, hospitality, small-business and merchandise sales…Yet against this backdrop, the big record labels have embarked on a crusade that could cripple the financial viability of many free and local radio stations or even new artists.

In an unprecedented campaign due to their broken digital recording and Internet business model, the Recording Industry Association of America is bankrolling a lobbying initiative in Congress that would change copyright law and require radio stations to pay hundreds of millions of dollars annually to RIAA member companies that are based outside the U.S…The free publicity Nashville has enjoyed over the years would change if this radio fee was to become law. Thousands of jobs have been lost in the radio business during the economic down-turn; a new tax would force broadcasters to lay off thousands more. This kind of revenue loss would force many radio stations to cut back on public service and charitable activities in the communities we serve. Some radio stations that now play music will simply switch to an all-talk format — thereby avoiding the new RIAA fee. How would that benefit Nashville’s songwriters and the artists?

For the sake of our region and the future of music, we should not risk the viability of free and local radio stations that have been such a huge economic engine for Nashville over the decades.”

“Don’t try to tax radio stations. Go to St. Patrick’s Cathedral and get on your knees and pray that the radio industry survives in some form or another. It is in your best interest.

Loosen the grip on webcasters and podcasters regarding royalty fees – again, the more music is shared, the more consumers buy. The only people who don’t know this are record execs probably because they don’t get out of courtrooms long enough to observe consumer behavior or read research.”

You can read Jerry’s blog in full at http://insidemusicmedia.blogspot.com/

Musicians, unlike this area of the radio industry, are not looking for charity work.

Don’t worry, you will do just fine.

PS