broadcasters

Writing about the Internet Radio Fairness Act, musician David Fagin points squarely at the "one-sided, unfair exemption terrestrial radio currently enjoys" on royalties, and says the solution is to "make them pay their fair share of performance royalties to artists and labels -- just as the rest of the radio-playing world has to do."

Fagin is also a writer and producer and former member of the band The Rosenbergs, and represented independent artists in webcasting copyright hearings in 2001.

In a piece for the Huffington Post, he suggests IRFA foes are really on the same side when it comes to wanting to artists to succeed and get paid, and on the matter of FM radio's royalty exemption. But the music industry and webcasters are stuck fighting each other, because neither has the power to fight broadcasters. 

"Congress is scared to go after big radio and their lobby, and the RIAA is 'just fine' with the status quo. In the meantime, both sides have decided to just kick each other's asses, instead."

(Interestingly, he holds that the current royalty situation is harming the webcasting industry, evidenced by the fact that just a single "brand-name" success exists, Pandora. He also cuts through the music industry anti-Pandora rhetoric: "The 'fleecing of artists'... argument makes no sense, whatsoever. Why would a company, whose main business model consists of promoting independent artists over 60% of the time, and is practically the only place to hear new music on a regular basis, want to destroy the very artists whose careers it's sustaining, and who are sustaining it?")

Interesting read, in Huffington Post, here.

We've heard (at the recent House Subcommittee hearing on the Internet Radio Fairness Act for one, but elsewhere too, and often) the recording industry:

• doesn't like the amount of royalties streaming services pay to play copyright recordings, and wants more;
• really doesn't like that U.S. broadcasters don't pay at all; but should, like the good folks of the non-U.S. broadcast world.

So, how much does, say, a UK radio broadcaster pay to play a copyright sound recording per listener, and how does that compare to other services, like Spotify or Pandora?

Enter David Touve (you may remember him as the Washington and Lee University Assistant Professor of Business Administration who estimated that U.S. broadcasters would owe the recording industry $2.5 billion a year if they were required to pay at the webcasting rate here).

Using data from PPL (which collects royalties from UK radio) and RAJAR (which measures listening), and estimating 12 songs per hour, Touve estimates "the value of a single radio play to a single listener in the UK for only that portion of the royalties that are paid to record labels, featured artists, and performing artists" is £0.000073, or $0.00012.

"For comparison, I believe the value estimated above is 1/36th the rate reported by Zoe Keating ($0.0042) [Touve's referring to this] for her receipts from streaming music services (e.g., Spotify), 1/10th the rate ($0.0011) paid by Pureplay Webcasters in the U.S. (e.g., Pandora), and 1/18th the CRB-established default Webcaster rate ($0.0021) in the U.S."

Put another way: Pandora currently -- under the settlement "discount" rate -- pays at a rate ten times what UK radio pays to perform sound recordings.

(The difference in audience size between Pandora and the broadcast industry of a country like the UK, much less the U.S., naturally means the recording industry's take from broadcasters will be much larger. But what Touve is putting in high relief is the discrepancy between the rates.)

Read Touve's latest Rockonomics blog entry here.

"Radio is foolishly ignoring streams today," writes Radio Ink publisher Eric Rhoads. "Streaming will be your primary source of revenue," he tells broadcasters in a new editorial, predicting that by 2016, "your transmitter will make up only a small percentage of your listening."

Rhoads sees broadcasters tripping over the same mistakes when it comes to streaming as they did with HD Radio: allocating minimal resources and trying to do things "at the lowest possible cost" with the least effort. The results are eerily similar: content that sounds "badly programmed" and feels like an "afterthought." Is it then any wonder "why HD Radio has not been embraced" by listeners, or why streaming audiences are smaller than they might be?

This "sloppy" approach imperils radio's future, Rhoads argues. "Radio must put its best foot forward in everything it does," he writes. "You have to sound great."

But it's not just a matter of improving stream quality. As a broadcaster, you must "be everywhere your listener is, which means on every device," because "the transmitter is no longer [radio's] only form of distribution" and it could be flat-out "irrelevant" in the future.

"If you’re not streaming, don’t have a mobile app, are not on aggregators like TunedIn or iHeartRadio, if you cannot be found in every possible device, you’ll dilute the impact of your brand. If people want to listen and you’re not there, they will find someone else."

Rhoads concludes, "Ignoring [streaming] is ignoring millions of listeners, and they all have other alternatives."

You can find Rhoads' full post in Radio Ink here.

RAIN Summit Dallas will include an entire panel dedicated to issues like those discussed by Rhoads. The "Online Strategies for Local Broadcasters" panel will feature members of CBS Radio, Triton Digital, Emmis Digital, TargetSpot, Marketron and more. Click here to find out more.

Last week Saga announced it would no longer substitute "online only" content for the on-air ads on its station's web streams (RAIN coverage here). The move sparked criticism from Fred Jacobs, Ken Dardis and Bob Maccini among others (more here).

Now Rob Green, CEO of Abacast (which offers ad-replacement technology for broadcasters among other services) has penned a guest editorial for Radio Ink (here). Green argues that "the radio industry today has, at best, a muddy message about its digital future, and the choice to simulcast looks like a step backward."

Meanwhile, Radio Ink editor Ed Ryan tried listening to a few random radio stations' simulcasts online. He posted the results of his experiment here. "Is the [online] product comparable to what goes out over the air?" The answer is easy, writes Ryan: "The products are not even close."

Portland-based company Vadio creates video channels out of a radio stations' audio streams. The service plays the music video (from YouTube of Vevo) of the song currently playing on a radio station. And during commercials, stations can display logos and positioning statements. Vadio can also incorporate in-studio webcams and is aiming to add more video ads, including pre-rolls, reports RadioInfo.

All said, it provides online users the option to "watch" radio instead of just listening.

Vadio already has two stations using its service (Seattle's Hot AC Star 101.5 KPLZ-FM and 99.9 Real Country WHFB-FM in South Bend, IN) with "many more" set to go live in the new few weeks, says Vadio's Bryce Clemmer. KPLZ PD Kent Phillips tells RadioInfo page views have increased eight-fold and time spent on the site is up 30% since adding Vadio. 

You can find more coverage from RadioInfo here.

Social Radio, which designs software for radio designed to improve online engagement, has unveiled a new player design and interactive software demo.

Steve Allaway, Social Radio CEO, said, "The Social Radio platform is the first of its kind to blend what listeners truly love about radio, the great content and local personalities that connect with them, with the kind of choice, control and personalization that is native to online and mobile media consumers."

Social Radio offers broadcasters "SoundExchange compliant" streaming with features like "Personalized Local Radio, Listener Choice and Control, Song Skipping, Song Rating, Sharing Radio to Facebook, Advertising Accountability, Targeted Advertising for Radio, Multiple Channels for Online Radio Stations, Social Radio Listener Experience, Social Radio Advertiser Experience, and more."

The new demo is available here. Read Social Radio's entire press release here.