Internet Radio

Subscribe to Internet Radio via RSS

I’ve just returned from this year’s Radio Advertising Bureau convention in Dallas.  In reflecting on the convention, and in discussing it with many who were in attendance, the consensus was that this was not your Father’s RAB convention.  I was surprised by how little discussion there was of traditional radio at the conference.  The sessions weren’t the typical…

The FCC yesterday adopted two orders approving the initiation of operations by Qualcomm of its MediaFLO wireless multimedia system on television channel 55 in the Richmond/Norfolk area of Virginia, and in St. Louis Missouri.  Qualcomm purchased the nationwide rights to use Channel 55 in an FCC spectrum auction several years ago.  At the end of the…

About this time every year, predictions are offered as to what will happen in the coming year.  Since everyone else does it, we’ve offered our own predictions as to what Washington has in store for the broadcast industry in 2007.  Find a copy of our predictions in the memo on our firm website, here. …

In a recent article from the Boston Globe, an interview with the new manger of WBZ-TV in Boston stressed the importance of the stations call letters.  The article talks about the connection that the local audience had to the well-known station call letters , and how the station had suffered to some degree by de-emphasizing those call letters while using…

While recent press reports talk about the growth of Internet Radio and the increasing presence of terrestrial radio companies on the net, the amount of the music royalties that will have to be paid by Internet radio companies for the 2006-2010 period remains unresolved.  The trial phase of the proceeding to set the rates, held before the Copyright Royalty Board, is now completed, and the upcoming decision of the Board may have a profound impact on the economics of the Internet radio industry.  Final briefs in the case were filed with the Board in December, and an oral argument was held on Thursday, December 21.  With the completion of the argument, the decision is now in the Board’s hands, and the amount of the royalties for the use of the sound recordings will be decided by the Board on or before March 4. 

In the on-line world, and in most digital communications channels other than over-the-air digital broadcasts, a royalty for the use of the "sound recording" (the actual recording made by a particular artist) must be paid in addition to the royalty for the use of the composition (i.e. the underlying words and music) that is paid to ASCAP, BMI and SESAC.  Our summary of the royalty rates that Internet radio stations should currently be paying can be found on our firm’s website, here.  As we make clear in that memo, the rates that are currently being paid expired at the end of 2005, so the rates that are adopted in the current proceeding will be retroactive to January 1, 2006.

The proceeding to determine the new rates has been underway for more than a year.  Written cases were filed by the parties in October 2005.  Discovery, including depositions and document discovery, took place in the early part of 2006.  A trial began in May and lasted through the first week in August, with a rebuttal phase that ended the week after Thanksgiving.Continue Reading Copyright Royalty Board to Decide Internet Radio Music Royalties By March 4

The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) has just announced the required recordkeeping format for Internet webcasters streaming on the Internet. The full text of the decision can be found at http://www.loc.gov/crb/fedreg/2006/71fr59010-9.html

Basically, the requirements set forth by the CRB obligate those streaming their signals on the Internet must keep track of the music that they play for at least two weeks of every quarter, and report that music to SoundExchange in an ASCII format. The CRB found that an ASCII formatted report could be generated by Excel or Quattro Pro spread sheets. The Board’s decision also sets forth specifics as to format, headers and other details of the reported information.

SoundExchange had previously prepared model reports for recordkeeping using Excel and has been ordered by the CRB to develop one for Quattro Pro. The Excel model will presumably be modified to come into line with the CRB’s decision. A copy of SoundExchange’s model can be found at http://www.soundexchange.com/licensee/licensee_cws.html#reporting

Services have been required to keep information about the music that they play since an interim Order issued by the Copyright Office in April 2004. The new Order from the CRB contemplates that the information that has been retained by Internet services be provided using this newly mandated format. Continue Reading Copyright Royalty Board Announces Music Recordkeeping and Reporting Requirements for Internet Streaming

The NAB Radio Show held the week before last, in conjunction with the Radio and Records Convention, was notable in its attention to new media. It’s been years since the NAB has devoted so much time to new media issues (remember the Streaming at NAB sessions that were held at the radio show early in the decade?).  And the new media sessions have perhaps never been as central to the Convention. Sessions on streaming, podcasting, downloads, blogging and just generally dealing with the media competition abounded at the convention.

The emphasis on the new media was perhaps most evident and presented most starkly in a pre-convention Summit put on by Jacobs Media. There, one presenter, Gordon Borrell of Borrell Associates, Inc., talked about the reach of media and information on the Internet, and just how prevalent it has become – even in reaching fighting for local advertising dollars – perhaps the one place that over-the-air broadcasters thought was most securely their own. Mr. Borrell pointed to websites such as those run by the Cape May Herald and the Lawrence County Kansas Journal-World as ones which show the power of the Internet to contribute to or eclipse their traditional sponsoring media (he said that the Lawrence site did over a million dollars a year in on-line revenue),. Even sites with no traditional media  partner, like Hartford.com, were said to be generating hundreds of thousands of dollars in local advertising revenue. What was perhaps most surprising was his assertion that in 40% of markets, there is an on-line site that has greater advertising revenue that the most successful radio station in the market.

Another presenter, Jason Calacanis, CEO of Weblogs,  went so far as to suggest that the principal purpose of today’s radio station should be using the station to drive traffic to the station’s website before the station itself became obsolete. Videos of the Jacobs Media Summit are available on-line, here.  While many others found this view to be extreme (Jack Isquith of AOL Music, in a session on streaming held several days later, talked at one point of the “elegance” of radio’s ability to reach local mass audiences more efficiently than on-line media), the whole convention seemed to be in agreement that radio needs to concentrate on the new media and develop their web presence. Continue Reading Radio Show Focus on New Media

In recent months, SoundExchange has been reaching out to webcasters seeking to identify those who are delinquent in their royalty payments for music used on the Internet. Numerous broadcasters and webcasters have received calls or letters from SoundExchange seeking information about apparent underpayments or missing mandatory reports of royalty liability that should be filed regularly by…