Fresh Air is an essential manual on marketing radio stations and the radio industry, by Mark Ramsey. Read the AFTRA dives into the Radio Performance Rights Issue
And now the heat turns up on Radio.
Here's the message that just went out to all (ALL!) AFTRA members:
Support Public Performance Rights - Tell Your Legislators to Support the Performance Rights ActJoin with AFTRA recording artists, singers, broadcasters, and performers in supporting legislation to assure that recording artists receive compensation when their performances are played on over-the-air radio.
It's the Performance Rights Act -- S. 2500 and H.R. 4789 -- and it will grant a long-overdue performance right to performers when their music is played on the radio.
The AFTRA Broadcasters' Caucus supports this legislation: "Recording artists, singers, and musicians deserve to be fairly compensated when the sound recordings they create are broadcast over the air on terrestrial radio."
It's time that recording artists and singers are recognized and compensated for the hard work and for the contribution to making this country's music industry -- and broadcasting industry -- the strongest in the world.
Send a message today to your Senators and Representative asking for their support of The Performance Rights Act!
It includes an email link to Congress.
The central difficulty for radio is this: The entirely correct argument that "Radio sells the music industry's product without charging it for the the valuable airtime" involves faceless corporate behemoths on both sides. But the argument that "Radio steals from recording artists and makes a boatload of money" involves individuals - human beings - on one side, and a faceless corporate behemoth on the other.
And sympathies among people will always be for people first.
This is a key issue, and I hope NAB and our industry's boosters are smart in the way they handle it.
So far, I'm not optimistic.
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It's interesting how the AFTRA message doesn't mention that 60% of the money will go to corporate record labels, most of which are foreign conglomerates.
I thought AFTRA was supposed to support the workers, not the owners.
AFTRA should be doing more to help and support unemployed radio performers, instead of looking to transfer radio money to other countries.
No one argues that the artists and musicians have been screwed over payments they deserve. But their contracts are with record labels, who've taken their creations and resold them multiple times, and not shared any of the profits with them.
Posted by: George | December 21, 2007 at 08:21 AM