From Bloomberg.com: "Webcasters and the recording industry
are submitting their views to the U.S.
Copyright Office as arbitration begins to determine how much record
companies get from Web sites that offer music programs. The music
companies want more than 10 times what Web sites offered, the Webcasters'
lawyer Ken Steinthal said...
"'The Webcasters are asking the arbitrators to apply
historical broadcast industry standards to the Internet and then
to discount them for two significant promotional components,' said
Jonathan Potter, executive director of the
Digital
Media Association. Those are 'the song album and artist
information, which is always provided by Webcasters, and the ubiquitous
buy button that allows every listener to click to buy the album...'
"Web companies estimate that radio stations pay
0.22
cent per customer for every hour of traditional broadcasting.
They want arbitrators to set royalties at
0.15
cent per customer for each hour listened to using the
Internet.
"The Recording Industry Association
of America asked the government to charge Web companies
0.004 cent for each transmission of a
song,
per listener, rather than seeking a per-hour rate.
"A three-person arbitration panel will begin hearing
arguments at the end of July and likely begin writing a decision
by late November, to be submitted to the office by the end of January
2002, he said. The office will review the result, with a final royalty
schedule probably taking effect next April."
Read this article
here.
...
 |
Wait a minute. Does Bloomberg mean 0.004 dollars
(other sources are saying the RIAA is demanding four-tenths
of a cent -- not four-thousandths)? If the RIAA is proposing
0.004 cents per song per listener, DiMA oughta take it and
run.
To add to the confusion, R&R is reporting that
webcasters are offering fifteen cents per customer per hour.
Sounds like a good deal for record labels!
In all likelihood, the RIAA wants 0.4 cents per listener
per song. So, say you stream twelve songs per hour. At that
rate, you'd owe labels 4.8 cents per listener per hour. DiMA
wants to pay 0.15 cents per listener per
hour (not per song). So 4.8 cents (the RIAA's demand)
is actually thirty-two
times 0.15 cents (what DiMA wants to pay).
This is a little confusing. How does DiMA come up with
0.22 cents per customer per hour for broadcast radio? Does
this represent songwriters' copyrights, paid to BMI, ASCAP,
and SESAC? If so, this has nothing
to do with the RIAA or the fees they're demanding
from webcasters for performance copyrights. Traditional broadcasters
pay nothing for performance
copyrights.
To the best our knowledge, broadcasters don't pay any
sort of fee of this nature based upon listenership (but for
argument's sake, this "per customer per hour" figure
could have been derived by taking the average
station's payments divided by their average
audience size).
... |
Radio Ink has obtained and posted on their site a letter
from the joint policy committee (JPC) that handles labor
union relations for two advertising groups (the ANA and the
AAAA).
From the letter: "In light of the different positions
of the parties, and in order to lessen the potential for claims
for talent payments as a result of passive streaming, the JPC recommends
that media contracts contain a provision that
limits
a station's authority to stream commercials on the Internet
to situations in which the advertiser or agency has provided written
authorization.
"The JPC recommends this as a precautionary measure. Failure
to follow this precaution is not a concession that talent payments
are due as a result of passive streaming."
See the entire letter at
Radio Ink
here.
Note that the JPC defines "passive streaming" as
station Internet streams that are put up without prior knowledge
or arrangement with advertisers whose commercials are part of the
stream. "Active streaming," on the other hand, would be
when stations charge extra for or "bonus" advertisers
the commercials that are streamed -- in other words, the advertisers
have prior knowledge that these spots will be on the Internet.
In the letter, the JPC denies responsibility for extra payments
to AFTRA members who appear in commercials "passively"
(that is, without their prior knowledge) by stations.
...
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...
BY KURT HANSON
So, a question nobody has addressed is this:
Are you free to do
what you like with your signal?
Suppose an agency wrote you, "Do not play our spots
if you're playing your radio station for your switchboard's
'music on hold.'" Would you feel obligated to honor that request?
Similarly, suppose your local ball clubs were playing
your station over their PA systems before every game. If an
agency asked you to delete their spots from such uses of your
signal, would you feel obligated to do so?
Basically, the ANA/AAAA letter commands
you not to stream portions of your signal on the Internet.
This seems like a very aggressive stance for them to take.
... |
BY PAUL MALONEY
Usually about this time of year, when winter has long lost
its charm and we're teased by a Spring not yet ready to make its
commitment, we think about getting away. This week, let's go somewhere
it's still
summer -- Auckland, New Zealand's 95
bFM.
Maybe it was the change in atmosphere (or hemisphere...),
but bFM is one of the sharpest, most polished radio sites we've
seen. There's not a ton of information or resources on the site,
and no real "groundbreaking" innovations or ideas. But
it looks great, the station and the stream sound great, and the
site leaves one with the impression that whoever is behind the
design and implementation knows and cares about what they're doing.
You won't hear a commercial radio station in the United
States with bFM's music mix. Most of the artists one hears on
bFM seem to be at least reasonably recognizable (assuming that
some artists with high profiles in New Zealand might be unknown
here in the US).
But the swings in genre are drastic -- schizophrenic seems
to be an appropriate term. Even in the middle of the day (we listened
late at night stateside), the music flows from Ben Harper, to
a new punk song, old-school Black Sabbath (!), commercial pop,
and club-style electronic.
The presentation of the on-air announcers, while professionally
executed, is again reminiscent of non-commercial radio here in
the US. The jocks we heard did their breaks over music/sound effect
beds. This seems to add some continuity to the listening experience,
providing "forward momentum" and pulling together the
music and the breaks into a unified "show." This is
something we hear more and more in North America, especially with
younger, higher-energy formats.
But in this country, the trend is for corporate "Vice
Presidents of National Programming for Homogenized Radio USA"
to insist that their air talent make their breaks shorter and
shorter, in the process
removing more and more opportunity to develop personality (full
disclosure: the author of this article is a former program director
who's gently and in a fatherly fashion instructed some jocks to
shut up and play music).
The trend at bFM seems to be the opposite. The jocks here
are given (or at least take) much more liberty to talk about the
music -- and whatever else -- often seemingly droning on without
a point in sight -- more like the unrefined, undisciplined talent
on American college radio.
"Thumbs up" on the stream. As far sound quality
goes, we're liking streaming MP3 more and more these days, and
apparently so does bFM. There are dial-up and broadband streams.
It's not an embedded player (the stream just launched our WinAmp
software), but we see those mostly with WindowsMedia and RealAudio
anyway.
The station
seems to use its Internet presence in much the same ways as
others we've seen. On the site, there's streaming audio, a concert
guide, a short list of station personnel, a list of the top "current"
songs on the station playlist, a program guide, a station store,
photos, and "contact us" information. All functional,
but nothing too novel.
You might want to check out "b-Mail," and the
"bCard." We've seen plenty of Internet-only webcasters
get some visibility in front of their P-1 listeners on a regular
basis (plus build a valuable database) by
creating a weekly or monthly newsletter, but not too many broadcasters.
This is an opportunity afforded by the Internet of which more
stations could take advantage. E-mail newsletters can have all
the positives of direct mail. Use them for positioning, or to
set up contests to build "cume" and time-spent-listening
building.
Newsletters can give listeners the feeling of belonging
to the station's "inner circle," and offer another income
opportunity through sponsorship. And if you do a good job, you
may even give your listeners something they'll value. And e-mail
newsletters are (almost) free.
The bCard is a pretty tried and true vehicle for some revenue
opportunities, visibility, and "inner circle-building"
as well. It's basically a discount card for local merchants that
are good lifestyle "associations" with the station's
programming. BCard holders get discounts on music, clothing ,
bikes, video rentals, party gear, sunglasses, and so on. But conversely
from the b-Mail, the bCard promotion is something we've seen a
lot of broadcasters do, but not webcasters (many of whom don't
associate themselves with local markets).
But it's the design that's most impressive about 95bFM.com.
The look is very stylish and refined. The use of colors
is very conservative and classy (it's almost all red, white, and
black). The rollovers and animations are gorgeous. We invite you
to pull up the home page, and see how the positioning statement,
mostly transparent, floats down the stylish photos at the top
of the page. Listen for the audio roll-overs when you move the
mouse of the station logo in the upper left. The symbols (though
maybe not the clearest navigation tools) in the upper right look
really nice, and their function is made apparent by the rollover
pull-down menus. Maybe we'd come up with another way to present
the photo gallery (as opposed to one per page, why not "thumbnails?"),
but that's a minor sticking point for a really elegant graphical
presentation.
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