Slashdot Mirror
AFTRA Halts Many Radio Stations' Webcasts
livitup writes: "Surprised when you couldn't listen to that live stream of your favorite radio station at work today?
AFTRA (The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists), the union for Radio and Television actors has dealt a blow to the internet. AFTRA is now requiring radio stations to make supplemental payments to AFTRA members on stations rebroadcast on the internet. So they have in effect shut down internet radio rebroadcasts, because no radio station in their right mind would pay their DJs 300% more just to stream over the internet. This NYPost article quotes Clear Channel, which owns 1170 radio stations has ordered them all to stop streaming their on air feeds."
"But what we're talking about is replacing one mom-and-pop radio station with five corporate affiliates. That's the situation on your dial these days, overall."
No, it isn't. And it will never be, as long as there are a finite number of FM radio stations available for licensing in any given area. When there is replacement these days, it is to replace a current station's management with new management. Not to replace one station with "five corporate affiliates."
And, having lived in 3 different metropolitan areas of different sizes over the last 6 years, I can vouch for the way clear channel and it's bretheren have been innundating local markets with "market music." Just because the phonomenon started 10 or 15 years ago, doesn't mean it isn't worse today.
Let's try not to let fact interfere with our speculation here, OK?
Kinda revealing to me about the true nature of the union. Instead of representing the people who (arguably) need representation the most, it concentrates on people who are likely to be able to provide the most dues (salaries in major markets are *much* higher).
(They misspelled "due", not me. :-))
So, in their case, it has nothing to do with their air talents, who are not likely to be AFTRA members, but with the talents on commercials that they air.
OK...that's just stupid, and indicates an extortion scheme. Does anyone disagree? I hope not.
Try to tell the stations that if they want to move into a new medium (the net) that they should share some of the procedes with the folks who make the content.
In reality if the DJ's etc have a contract with the stations then they should expect the stations to stick to it. If the stations want to move into a new market, they need to share what they are doing with the DJ's.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
I don't know you can't swap Pedro Martinz for Joe pitcher and get the same results. However many people here on /. work in jobs where you can distingish yourself from the next guy. For many jobs from flying an airliner to driving a school bus there is not a lot of difference between an OK person and a great person.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
Part of the thing is that I think unions work a lot better in places where people are more or less interchangeable. For example airline pilots. Now I know some airline pilots they are very highly skilled and well trained. But lets face it if you take 2 guys who are both rated in the same plane (say a 737) then there is not much difference between them. One is not going to get the plane there any faster then the other.
On the other hand a good ball player or school teacher is not replacable by another. But even in that case for every great person you have a hundred people who are good and get the job done without being amazing, they still deserve some protection.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
It is not by accident that I used OPEC; the similarity reveals one thing: labor unions are cartels.
Possibly, but they are not necessarily monopolistic cartels. For example I can reel off three UK teaching unions -- NUT (National Union of Teachers), NASUWT (National Association of Schoolteachers/Union of Women Teachers), PAT (Professional Association of Teachers) -- and there are more. These unions compete for members, have slightly different values, and their campaigns and their aims will not always overlap.
--
Well Metro Radio is worse. Used to be the best local radio station in the UK and now is one of the worst.
Ana Schofield - Metro's breakfast DJ is worse than anything radio 1 can come up with.
Whatever resurgence there is right now in talk radio, it is all (and I do mean ALL) owed, for better or worse, to Howard Stern.
EVERY radio station now has a show with a central host accompanied by a pair of chatty co-hosts and a sound effects/sound byte engineer. Most of them are annoying in there desparate failure to approach the self-deprecating humor, interpersonal interplays and spontenaity (or successful illusion of spontenaity) that make's Howard Stern's show so staggeringly successful.
It's kind of like when Nirvana came out with "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and a whole new wave of bands scratched their heads and said "Loud...then soft...then loud again. Cool!" Dynamics were re-introduced to pop music for the first time in a long time.
The Stern format is interesting and is probably here to stay, if people can find the courage to do it their way instead of imitating his.
**>>BELCH
That was my goof on the Nielsens - I had an early-morning brain cramp. I knew it was Arbitron, lord knows I've heard Imus rant about it enough times during drive-time.
When you have technology in place to broadcast only the content and block the ads, make sure you run a "this is ad time that you'd hear if AFTRA wasn't a bunch of ninnies" PSA during the breaks so people don't think the stream died.
I'd suspect that the more specialized the fare, the easier it is to find a streaming audience. Talk shows, sports programming (like regional sports stations), and specialty music would seem like obvious things that would find a Net audience - Top 40 I'd expect nobody to stream if they have a radio available (since there's a Top 40 station in pretty much every market). Christopher Lydon, according to an article I read a few days ago, is drawing about 2000 listeners per streamcast so far (he's done a handful) since leaving WBUR and The Connection. However, that's a fraction of the radio audience. Ironically, a couple of radio stations are now broadcasting the webcast of a show that used to be broadcast. It makes your head spin...
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Internet-based radio streams are useful as a way for a radio station to widen their audience somewhat, and a way for people to listen to their hometown radio when they're away. I strongly doubt, though, that Internet broadcasting (except maybe in a very few cases) of a radio station gathers anywhere near even 5% of that station's over-the-air audience.
The interesting thing, though, is that it's easier to measure the audience on the Internet - just count server connections and you've got a pretty accurate audience measurement. As opposed to the satistical sampling of radio diaries by Nielsen. So if stations could sell those additional numbers and pay unions/labels appropriately, then it'd be worth it to stream.
The problem there is that I suspect Internet listeners are going to be (because of the dispersion) listeners that advertisers don't want. A large proportion of radio ads are local, and only have appeal to the local audience. If I'm listening to a Boston radio station in San Francisco over the Internet, does Bernie & Phyl's Furniture really care that I'm listening? They don't go any farther west than Westboro - heck, Springfield is out of their market, let alone San Francisco!
Basically, that's the problem - if an Internet simulcast gets a lot of listeners, it's often going to be because those listeners aren't in the market and therefore won't buy the stuff in the ads. The unions and record companies want stations to pay based on audience, the statons would rather pay for that part of the audience that they can actually sell to.
They need to meet somewhere in the middle - but if our experience to date with the record lables is any indicator, that won't happen.
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
There seems to be some confusion as to exactly why radio stations are discontinuing their internet "simulcasts". Does AFTRA represent announcers, i.e., DJs, and is it asking the stations for more money for them, or is it asking for more money for the voice talent used in producing advertising, which is usually recorded and then sent to advertising agencies who then send dubs to the stations they buy time from. Why shouldn't the advertising agencies (who control who is or isn't hired to be in a particular ad) be the ones to pay the actors more instead of the radio stations who have no control over the creation of the ad. Do radio stations who simulcast on the internet get to charge the clients who are buying the air time more for the time than if they don't simulcast? Does the guy running the car lot in Hartford or Phoenix really feel that getting "airplay" for his commercial on somebody's computer in Tallahassee or Des Moines is worth paying extra for? Thank you in advance for a prompt, informative reply.
Perhaps businesses in Des Moines might still benefit from your hearing of their ads (you might buy something from them when you go back to visit, etc.), but for the most part I can't see where there's any great value added for local businesses when their ad is heard in some other media market far, far away. Perhaps I'm wrong, I last worked in broadcasting a couple or three years before commercial radio via the internet amounted to anything, but I can just hear the local merchants saying "I'm paying extra for what?"
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
As far as that monkey is concerned, it is Dave's or Microsoft's. Either way, be sure to clean up after it. And the chicken, too.
As far as using the letter s at the end of a word to form the plural, to create the possessive, and for contractions involving "is" or "has", the responsible parties should have been ashamed at creating such a linguistic and typographic minefield.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Conclusive evidence that the moderation system is totally hosed is that the above has been up for almost half a day without being modded up as informative, interesting, or insightful.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
When record companies pay radio stations to play their records it's called payola. It's not legal.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
C'mon now. Radio DJs don't make the kind of money that lets them indulge in all the latest fads like scooters. They borrowed it from a rich relative when their old Pinto or Vega broke down (again).
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Doesn't really matter where you live, radio sucks. The best is when a new station comes in, and plays a bunch of stuff you've never heard.
But then, after a couple months, you realize that it's the same-old-same-old - the same rotation of the same fucking 100 songs getting the shit played out of them until you puke in disgust.
If I hear "What if..." or that same damned song from Godsmack again I'm going to be sick. Great songs, the first 10 - 20 times you hear them, but give me a break.
Fucking play something new, play something unknown, play some other song off the same album as a chartbuster. Don't play that shitty song "Mother" from Danzig, play some of the scary shit off the same album.
Give us some depth of perception. Get out of your weenie world. Don't give me the pathetic excuse "We only play things that have been released as a single..." Bullshit, Stairway to Heaven was NEVER released as a single. With your bullshit clonish corporate attitude, that beautiful song would have never been heard by millions. Play the GOOD music, play the REAL music, not this pre-packaged pap that gets puked out by the music marketing companies.
Have some balls. Have some spirit. Give your radio station some style, rather than just another sad format station. Give your DJs autonomy -> "You have to play these 15 songs today, but there are 10 other slots that you get to pick". This depends on a bit of intelligence from the DJ, the DJ'd better not play some Brittney Felcher crap on a metal station, but what's wrong with the DJ saying "Hey, I heard this great song over at my friends and thought you people might like checking it out..."
Instead, you fuckers give us the sameold sameold sam eold sam eolds ameoldsa meolds ameoldsam eold sameolds ameo ldsameo ldsameol dsameol dsam eoldsameol dsame oldsa meoldsam eoldsa meoldsa meoldsame olds ameold - Ack! FuckingStopAlready! and think you know all about it.
No - you just know how to play the bullshit musicopolitical game.
You're not important, in fact, you suck.
And you still haven't learned about the real world... How sad.
Given the rate at which people in the tech sector are being laid off and pay rates are leveling off and even starting to decline, I would have thought the brand of thuggish, anti-union conservatism so popular among geeks the past few years would be on the wane. (How exactly is it "libertarian" to argue that government should assist companies in blocking people from engaging in collective bargaining?)
When you guys get laid off without severance pay in a couple of months because your department's project is being moved to a subcontractor in Russia or India, let's see how anti-union you are. Right now, the only hot jobs are for J2EE programmers and senior sysadmins. Even those are likely to dry up at the rate things are going.
Anyway, back to the AFTRA/media-company standoff:
The broadcasters have had a good five years to negotiate terms for Internet rebroadcast with AFTRA. That's how long decent streaming has been around, so it's not as though this whole "internet" thing just blindsided everyone. When the broadcast companies decided to start collecting additional advertising fees for their Internet rebroadcasts, their lawyers were well aware of the terms of the AFTRA contracts that were in place.
The New York Post is a right-wing tabloid; be aware of their bias and as with any publication, read it with the appropriate decoder ring. Clear Channel has a business unit that runs separate Internet-only "radio" stations. It's entirely possible that this cutoff has less to do with AFTRA than it does with their desire to "replace" Internet rebroadcasts of radio stations, and eventually those stations themselves, with their cheap-to-run Internet stations with their anonymous, interchangeable, and non-union deejays.
One type is, as you mention, those that listen from afar to their hometown radio. The other, which is possibly much bigger, is people listening to it at work within the coverage range of the station and would rather use their employer's expensive hardware and network infrastructure instead of buying a cheap FM radio.
-
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
For the record, the reason that you don't hear anything decent on the radio anymore is, for a large part, due to the fact that approximately 90% of radio stations are owned by three companies.
I think radio right now is the best it's ever been.
I'm no expert, but I have been a #1-rated DJ (in a small market) and a Music Director / Assistant Program Director, so I'm not without expertise.
I recall a time when I could drive down I-10 or I-12 and hear nothing but Country stations, but now it's very rare for me to find a stretch of road where I can't pull in Classic Rock, Hip-Hop, even National Public Radio.
News/talk is seeing a resurgence it hasn't had since FM was invented, and a lot of it is in the FM band.
Those "three companies" are bringing economies of scale into the administration and advertising sales that results in a lot more money being available to pay the talent, upgrade the equipment, and license good programming.
Radio sucks the least it's ever sucked. I suspect that you think this because one radio station you liked changed formats and nobody replaced it. That has always happened, even at tiny little mom-and-pop radio stations in the rural midwest.
-
The difference is that, 10 or 15 years ago, in larger markets, the DJs would occasionally play a local band JUST BECAUSE THEY WANTED TO.
You really don't know much about the radio biz, do ya?
10 or 15 years ago, I was Music Director and Assistant PD for two stations in Oklahoma, and spent most of my free time socializing with my buddies from other radio stations, including folks from much larger markets and one guy who was syndicated on the Star Network. They all said the same things you're complaining have "changed" since then.
On just as many stations back then as now, you played what the Music Director said you played, or you went and looked for another job.
The difference nowadays is that there are more radio stations, about the same number of total jobs for DJs (because although there are a lot more stations, there are a lot more that play syndicated programming, so it evens out), and the jobs pay a lot more.
On one of the local stations, an alternative/college rock station, a DJ decided to play one of their songs and was promptly put on the vampire shift, for "playing music not in line with the station format and our corporate strategy."
He'd have gotten that same speech from our General Manager in 1986, only he'd have been representing the strategy of a much smaller corporation. (I.E., owning one station instead of 1,000).
Unfortunately, I simply cannot agree that replacing mom-and-pop radio stations with corporate affiliates is any better than replacing mom-and-pop stores with Wal-Marts.
But what we're talking about is replacing one mom-and-pop radio station with five corporate affiliates. That's the situation on your dial these days, overall.
Oh, I'm sure there will be half a dozen posts now from people who live in specific areas where things suck, but there are always half a dozen counter examples to anything.
However, opinions vary, and you are welcome to yours.
Mine is based on having done the job for years, and having kept my nose in it since then.
-
The issue is that the 4A wants them to pay triple for the ads. Remember the commercial actor strike? They were complaining that they weren't getting paid when their ads show up on the internet.
No one is demanding that DJs be paid more...
-- Don't Tase me, bro!
Actors in radio commercials get paid more if the commercials are also broadcast on the Internet. The advertisers do not want to pay the additional fees if they never asked to have their commercials simulcast on the Internet. The radio stations could pay the difference in fees to the actors or delete the commercials from the Internet feed.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
It seems that whenever there's a cool technology that benefits consumers, some greedy dickhead(s) has to come in and tear it down.
Net radio is pretty nifty, I mean how else could I listen to another station hundreds of miles away, that might have a different format or wider variety of music than any of the stations in my area.[1]
Not to mention, net radio is nice for cubicle-dwellers stuck inside, where bandwidth is available, but radio signals are weak.
The radio stations are already paying a license fee so they can broadcast, why should they have to pay another one just because a transmission media has been added?
Greed sucks.
[1] IMO, Denver radio bites. KBPI has a couple good DJs, but the playlists are too repetitive.
KTCL used to be pretty good, 'till they sold out, and KXPK has that annoying ex-MTV chick. Ugh.
The only station I remember as being really good was 92X (KNRX, I think) but they only lasted a couple years.
C-X C-S
Dinosaurs will die.
In the construction industry in California, the unions provide training for new workers, and generally only make noise over pay scales. Union construction companies in return don't generally pull lots of arbitrary and heavy-handed shit on their employees.
Stories I've heard from people working for PacBell or AT&T indicate that the unions fight hard to keep incompetent workers, people who show up stoned, and otherwise make a general nuisance of themselves. In return, the companies will fire people for minor infractions that wouldn't even rate being reprimanded in a sane work environment. Then the union files a grievance, and the employee gets reinstated, without back pay for the day missed.
Teachers unions are notorious for fighting against any form of accountability for their members, for demanding more money every time any budget at the school gets increased, even the maintenance budget, and for opposing any kind of change in the way that schools are run. In return, school managements play nasty political BS games with the teachers, over rooms and scheduling, and have kept teachers poorly paid, which is directly related to the lack of accountability the unions cherish.
Aside from gathering otehrwise useless liteners (those who can't buy the stuff advertised)...
Why should people be paid more for doing the same job, but more efficiently (the DJs are doing the same shows, just getting pushed to more ears)? If I get a better PC and it crunches my data faster, but I do no more work, I still get paid the same.
FWIW, NPR is still on the net.
you'd better make sure it's an original tune. And don't even think of any lyrics, or Harry Fox himself will come, unbidden, into your mind - ala Freddy Kruger - to force you to write him a check.
I would put a smiley on this post, but the possibility of these things coming true is so close as to be more frightening than any horror movie.
*** Da Da Da Dum, De De De Dum *** -- at least this is in the public domain.
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. - George Orwell or George Bush?
So my options of getting "legit" music reduce down to: listen to the "alternative" tenny bopper pop station, listen to the Steely Dan station, listen to the Metallica station, listen to the Kool & the Gang station, pay $18 for a CD, pay $6 for a cd-single.
I think I'll hum quietly to myself.
This is why I now listen to foreign radio at work.
Feel free to chime in with yours...
Code commentary is like sex.
If it's good, it's VERY good.
My office has been taken over by iPod people.
If you want to call up SAG and voice your concern about their greediness, have a look here.
http://www.sag.com/whoswho.html
Have a look here. SAG is involved in this.
Oh, and it is about advertising rates, but what really pisses me off, and you can see that at www.poliglut.org, is that SAG/AFTRA is trying to get money for distribution of commercials that radio stations are not charging more for. WGN radio would have a helluva time trying to get Old Style (obscure Wisconsin/Chicago beer) to pay for one of their commercials streamed to Thailand.
SAG/AFTRA are trying to get money from a revenue source that does not exist, and therefore shutting down a free service.
Oh, and yeah, I don't believe in residual payments to actors. That is, I think SAG/AFTRA is wrong to insist upon such a ridiculous payment scheme. But anyway, go to the link above if you are interested in more debate...
As one involved with a noncommercial streaming project motivated by the desire to disseminate points of view that don't make it in the commercial media I have to say this is good news. That capitalism's "warring brothers" shackle themselves in this new medium with licensing agreements and industry consortia that get a percentage demonstrates the value to society of information that is licensed for use by civil society (ie GPL, Open Content) or in the public domain.
... umm artist's songs off of Napster, I say let them cut their own throat, the independent music industry will flourish. If Clearchannel (which controls 25% of the nation's radio advertising revenue thus can control the airwaves) can't webcast their thousands of carbon copy RIAA bitch radio stations, I say great, this is an opening for independents and noncommercials to take advantage of.
So if the RIAA wants to get all its slaves
This is of course only a temporary window of opportunity. No one believes that Clearchannel will not be able to get on the web. Ultimately this will probably speed consolidation in the radio industry, as the big players like Clearchannel will be able to leverage deals that small independently owned stations can't.
It hasn't been the same since Opie and Anthony were canned, if you ask me. Those guys were the life of the station.
The DJs are still better than WBCN, though.
--
--
"I personal[ly] think Unix is "superior" because on LSD it tastes like Blue." -- jbarnett
well.. should I ever feel the need to go on strike, I'll loose payment for that time, if not my job.. I'd love to have a union. a union allows workers to stand up to large companies, and is essential to the proper operating of any industry, who'd otherwise just screw their workers under the guise of either efficiency or profit.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Its also hard when you've always been an employee to understand being the employer looking at a loss of several million, or several hundred million dollars. Its even harder when you're the employer and you're publically traded and for no good reason, your shareholders could decide to tear your company to shreds. Public companies (which many current tech companies are) are run by shareholders in the end -- the shares go up or down based on the decisions made, and if the shareholders want people laid off, guess who gets laid off.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Have you lived under a rock most of your life? In many cases Unions are mob protection schemes. In recent years the unions have improved their image a little bit, but it wasn't all that long ago that the teamsters union was run by the Mafia.
_____________
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
Is it just me or are the DJ's getting entirely too annoying recently? They don't seem to add anything at all to the content of a typical Rock music station. The morning programs are the worst of all, getting downright disgusting.
So maybe this will make a few radio stations get rid of the DJ's alltogether. I'd rather listen to commercials than some of their blathering. If I'm tuned into a 'music' station, I expect to at least occasionally hear MUSIC during the hours between 6am and 10am.
So, anyway, I'd like to see the union get taken down a notch for this. After all, it's the number of people listening to the commercials that pays their salaries. Getting more people listening over the internet should be a money-making proposition.
After all, it's a lot harder to switch stream channels than changing radio stations, more people listen to the ads on a stream than listen to them on a broadcast station. The whole ergonomic design of a car has gone to making it absurdly easy to play with the radio, but no one has yet come out with a peripheral that changes the stream channel for you.
Ah - the classic way to karma whore on Slashdot. Find a problem and find a way to blame a corporation for it. Never mind that it doesn't make any sense, the children that frequent this site will mod it up anyway.
For a radio station, broadcasting on the internet means they reach a wider audience. It's no different, conceptually, than if they got a more powerful transmitter and reached more people (admittedly with a different geographic distribution). It is perfectly fair for the artists to want more money - assuming their contracts are structured so that they get paid more for their ads going to a wider audience. Blame the ad agencies if they are not doing that because it's their fault, not the radio stations. Radio stations get paid for the advertising - they don't pay for it.
The article you pointed to on Salon is egregiously naive. Radio stations have two sources of revenue: Advertising and record companies paying to broadcast their music. Advertising is constrained by the kind of listener audience they are able to command. The better stuff they play, the more listeners and hence more advertising revenue. Obviously, not everyone shares your opinion that radio sucks or there wouldn't be people listening to it and therefore no advertising.
Mmmm.. Donuts
Oh yeah. That's what I'd like to see. We should make laws that tell people what they should or should not play on their radio stations beyond what is obscene or defamatory.
Are you being facetious or are you just naturally stupid?
Mmmm.. Donuts
With a few corporations owning majority control over the major-market radio stations in the US, they're all the same anyway. I can't tell the difference between a "classic rock" station in Boston, Chicago, or anywhere else.
Public radio and noncommercial radio are not affected; some of my favorites on the web:
WZBC-FM Boston College Radio
WNYC-AM National Public Radio - Windows Media Player, sorry.
Oh well! There goes the ethernet enabled IM (I think Clear Channel coined IM to mean internet modulation which means streams). Anyone remember Kerbango and a few others of those radios with built in modems for streaming audio?? Looks like they are useless rocks now, unless they can pick up Internet Only streams like Wolf FM.
Gorkman
The other nice thing about internet radio is that you could keep track of exactly how many people are listening and if you have a small form to fill out you could get some nice demographic information and then sell nice targeting advertising at very nice prices.
Now, with all this (potential) extra income, and the fact that the radio station pays the artist/record company based on the size of their listening audience. Doesn't this just make logical sense that they should pay more? (based on the exsisting way they pay)
And before you start saying "Well this is the internet, it's different". People that use Napster sometimes say say that you can trade music in real life, why should it be different over the internet... You can't have it both ways.
--
Free Mac Mini
As someone who has been in the radio game for over 20 years I see this as a good thing. Not because it protects the fat cat idiots that controll the medium, but because it keeps them out of the streaming game. With the advent of streaming, the last thing we would want is this old media controlling a new one. Good. Get them out of streaming. That way the true innovators of the medium can create truly compelling content. We don't need the large broadcast companies turning streaming into another mindless, banal medium like radio has become.
Of course, unions today are nearly as bad as the Evil Corporations, but at least they hate each other and strike a sort of balance.
Corporations are out only to improve their bottom line, and that means perpetrating any and every abuse possible. Our economic and legal system makes this so (shareholder lawsuits and just plain greed). The union system we have today is a DIRECT consequence of that behavior.
Okay, first off, DJ's make shit, so 300% more gets them up to what? $15 bucks and hour? Gimm'e a break, with the exception of a few heavy hitting on air personalities, no one makes huge cash.
Salon.com did an article on the radio biz, and to be honested, it made microsoft seem nice compared to clear channel.
Basically salon said this:
Top 40 stations in major markets get about 100K annually in marketing co-op (read money to play songs). The people who do the co-op with the station collect from the studio. The studio passes the cost of this co-op to the artist. This is basically how someone who sells 1M CD's ends up will a bill from the label when it's all said and done. Clear channel has bought the middle man out, and basically running a fine line between creative marketing, and outright extortion.
They COULD say "We own 90% of the top 40 stations in the US, if you want your song added to the play list you'll incure 'marketing costs' of 5K per song/per station."
So, sorry to break someones bubble, but in my opinion Clear Channel is part of the problem, not the solution.
Unions haven't driven out manufacturing; taxes and employer greed have. Did you ever notice that the price of goods remains the same for those companies that have moved their plants to places like Mexico? But people keep paying it. Merit pay only works if you have an honest employer. People who bitch about unions are pissed off because they have no job security and are too afraid to speak up when they are upset with their employer. You either have to take a load of crap and get shafted or walk out the door. Yes, there is corruption in unions, but that's just like anything else. Why the hell shouldn't the workers be able to get what they deserve? People complain about how union laborers continue to benefit despite mediocrity and/or laziness. What about those hard workers who get thrown away like they were nothing after 20 or 30 years of dedicated service? You think it's that easy to pick up and move on, especially at age 50 or older? Why not actually get out there and talk to blue-collar laborers and see how easy it is. I don't know about the rest of you, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to fly in a plane with a pilot who's unhappy because he's not being fairly compensated. You think going on strike is an easy power play? Fortunately, my dad's union never had to make the decision to strike, but the threat and fear is real for the whole family. Union funds only go so far and most people don't have enough savings to last any significant amount of time. Frankly, I'm tired of getting into these arguments. People like you are ignorant as hell and are too cheap to pay an honest price for honest services rendered.
Besides, this dispute really seems to be about advertising rates.
If they don't pay the ascap fees then they are doing it it illegally in the first place and then they can be procescuted and stopped. I guess the little guy will have to be a talk station or sing their own copyrighted music. There is no way to follow all the rules they have put in place if you use music with any kind of copyright on it.
This same issue with web publishing of newspapers and magazines is going to the Supreme Court. I think that 300% is a bit high, but if you are rebroadcasting a show, is there not due some additional compensation. Most of the SAG and AFTRA members are not paid large sums of money.
Fight Spammers!
I recently moved back to Dallas after 8 years from Austin, and that's not quite correct. I remember the Edge from when I was in high school here, and here's where the various stations have shifted to on the dial: Q102 is dead and gone from what I can tell, although similar music plays on 92.5 still. For more metallish/hard rock stuff, if that's what you want, there's 97.1. Mostly crap 80s hard rock there, though, with some of the most annoying DJs on the radio here, other than the 93.3 ones. The Edge moved to Q102's old slot, 102.1. For the most part, they play about the same type of stuff they've played since a year after the station started (no old post-punk or other interesting stuff, more current "hard alternative" music for the most part). At 94.5, where the Edge used to be, there's an oldies R&B station, which was an odd but interesting change of pace when I moved back. Hope that helps.
"This is your world. These are your people. You can live for yourself today, or help build tomorrow for everyone."
Actually, there ARE laws in place to prevent record companies from directly paying radio stations to play the songs the record companies want played. They were enacted in the late '50s or early '60s, and are generally referred to as payola laws, after the payola scandal of the '50s. Since the radio industry deregulation, folks have found a way through this by going through "independent promoters" that pay radio stations a certain amunt of money in exchange for the ability to choose a certain chunk of their playlist. These independent promoters then turn around and charge the record companies to make sure their songs are added to the playlist. If you read the Salon article listed above, most of the info is in there.
"This is your world. These are your people. You can live for yourself today, or help build tomorrow for everyone."
No, actually, the reason I think that radio sucks is because radio currently does, in fact, suck.
And, to be fair, for the most part, it's always been hard to hear anything decent on the radio. The difference is that, 10 or 15 years ago, in larger markets, the DJs would occasionally play a local band JUST BECAUSE THEY WANTED TO. Not because their corporation wanted to be the first to break a new band on radio, not because the "band was situated to enter the market," but because the DJ like the way the band sounded, and thought the listeners might, too. A good example of this was a local band from Austin called the Asylum Street Spankers. Fun band, does modern riffs off of old-style music, lots of swing, old-style country stuff with titles like "I Was Flannel When Flannel Wasn't Cool" slamming Johnny-come-latelys in various scenes and "Beer" explaining the singers preference of beer over any other drug. Generally fun stuff, well liked by the college crowd in the market. On one of the local stations, an alternative/college rock station, a DJ decided to play one of their songs and was promptly put on the vampire shift, for "playing music not in line with the station format and our corporate strategy." Now, don't misunderstand me, I know that that type of crap happened before the corporations got involved, but it was less frequent. You know why? Because, in order for that DJ to get that song played, he would have had to talk to one person, who could have simply given him a "Yes" or "No" answer, rather than putting in a request to four different departments, clearing it with legal, etc. Ultimately, the reason that radio stations suck these days is that their programming decisions are made less and less by people who love music, and more and more by beancounters and lawyers.
However, opinions vary, and you are welcome to yours. Thank you for some intersting comments on the current state of the music industry. Unfortunately, I simply cannot agree that replacing mom-and-pop radio stations with corporate affiliates is any better than replacing mom-and-pop stores with Wal-Marts. Ultimately, you reach a point where no matter what store you go to, they're all Wal-Marts or Targets or K-Marts, and you have to buy the same crap.
"This is your world. These are your people. You can live for yourself today, or help build tomorrow for everyone."
You'll note that AFTRA did not start requiring this until AFTER the American Association of Advertising Agencies started requiring its members to pay additional for their ads being simulcast on the internet. Ultimately, the radio stations are to blame for what's happened to them, due to their own greed. However, as Clear Channel and its ilk are wont to do, they'll pass the screwing on to you! "Damn AFTRA for saying that if you get paid twice for an artist's work that the artist should get paid twice as well. It's all the artists that are making us shut off your internet broadcast, not the radio stations trying to get something for nothing, rather than pay the artists their cut."
Fucking radio corporations. For the record, the reason that you don't hear anything decent on the radio anymore is, for a large part, due to the fact that approximately 90% of radio stations are owned by three companies. For an excellent article on the subjct of why radio currently sucks, check out Pay for Play on Salon.
"This is your world. These are your people. You can live for yourself today, or help build tomorrow for everyone."
WBER is a community radio station in Rochester, NY. Except for it's station manager, and programming director, all of the DJ's are 100% volunteer. As with most forms of math, 2 * 0 = 0.
Though I will say that WBER kicks ass, and is one of the reasons I'm staying in Rochester.
-Paul Mischler -Secretary, RIT Student Music Association -http://music.rit.edu/
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
I used to work as a wedding DJ when I was younger. In the early 90's, ascap started clamping down on mobile DJ companies, insisting that license fees needed to be paid for public "performances" of their music (even though the were playing at private parties).
The DJ company I woked for just paid the fees, raised their price a little, and life went on pretty much the same as it always had. (Although we felt more free to burn our own mix CD's, because we were paying a per-song fee anyway. Before all the license issues were sorted out we were careful about using original paid-for disks only.)
If you are running a serious business, the ascap fees will be one of your smallest expenses.
In any case, paying fees on music is certainly less expensive than hiring live on-air talent to run a talk station.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Should you get dragged into court, you can avoid a lot of penalties by being able to show that you made a serious effort in good faith to comply with all licensing requirements.
So the message here is: don't go into business expecting a tiny ammount of ad revenue to be enough. Make sure that your business model and starting revenue is robust enough to absorb unexpected costs.
License costs are not that bad compared to the total cost of doing business, so if they are the straw that breaks the camel's back, you probably did not have a very sound business model to begin with.
If you are just running a hobby site, and hope to reduce your costs by selling ads, remember that selling ads, even at a loss, is comercially exploiting your content, so you had better make damned sure the content is yours to exploit.
A better choice for reducing the cost of a hobby site would be to rely on donations, or perhaps share ownership of the site with a few of your more supportive visitors.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
The scenario you are reciting is a total myth. Every time somebody points out that unions are redundant, corrupt, and bad for everybody who is not a union boss (and they are), somebody drags out the old saw of "well, you would be working like a slave for change found in the couch if it wasn't for the union", which is total BS.
I'm not in a union, and I make great money. Everybody I know who is in a union is only in it because joining was a requirement of the job. Unions are nothing but a mob racket these days, and anybody who doesn't see that must be blinded by their hate of industry and capitalism, because it should be obvious to anybody who looks at it objectively.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
The whole Seattle music scene a decade ago happened because there were two good college stations, KAOS in Olympia and KCMU in Seattle, along with OP magazine out of Olympia and Bruce Pavitt's Sub Pop tape compilations - it was a very small circle of people, which also included Stephen Rabow who went from KAOS to being the only (and probably the last) free form DJ on a couple of commercial Seattle stations. Kim Thayil moved to the NW because he read in OP about what a cool station KAOS was - there was nothing like that in Chicago then. Soundgarden, Nirvana et al. happened only because this was enough to make a scene - that and that rent used to be cheap out that way.
So there's really only one Classic Rock, one Urban Contemporary, one Country, one Hip Hop station in the country anyhow - all the same centralized playlists, the DJs don't do shit, they aren't allowed to. Internet broadcast for them is redundant, and the DJs might as well be paid more for it. But for the free form college and community stations, well, those really can matter. So if this means that the commercial shit declines in this sector of the Net, good! And if this leaves the door open for noncommercial Net broadcasts, this could be very good indeed.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Seems to me that it's the stations that are killing the feeds because they don't want to pay up according to agreements they accepted. That's what happens when you sign a contract, you have to abide by it.
He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. - "Big Al" Einstein
1. Radio stations derive revenue based on the number of listeners that they can bring to advertisors.
2. Internet simulcasting and rebroadcasting allows a radio station to reach many more people, many of whom might live outside of their normal broadcasting radius, and who would not be reachable over the airwaves.
3. Therefore it's not totally unreasonable to ask for more money if you're a DJ. The radio station management is certainly going to ask for more money from the advertisors; why shouldn't DJs see some of that money?
It's an inconvenience for now for those of you in the listening audience, but it's a real issue and one that I think the on-air personalities have a strong case for.
This isn't a situation analogous to the RIAA/MPAA vs. the people; the public *isn't* being gouged for the cost of listening to radio.
It's more like the usual RIAA rips off artists so that the publisher and distributor can get fat off of the artist's vision and hard work.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
No. "Big Media" as you call it is not dictating what we can or cannot hear. They are simply refusing to speak to us over the internet because they have a contractual obligation to some union members which they don't feel is financially worthwhile. That is, the added expense is not equal to the marginal revenue from internet broadcasting. I have serious doubts that webcasts produce ANY revenues for regular broadcast stations. First they have to pay for some pretty good servers and bandwidth and software, then they have to find enough ears so that they can pitch this as a value to advertisers. Either they can make a revenues selling webcast-only ads targeted to the demographic of internet listeners (which I think would be a stretch, low quantity-- a problem exacerbated by the likely geographic displacement) or they can simply increase their usual ad rates saying that they are adding value by including webcast as part of the package (I'd say this is a hard sell and most advertisers would ask for some good analysis before they let this slide).
Now, as to what I can and cannot hear... "Big Media" has almost never given me something I wanted to hear, especially not over the radio. If this means I can't stream Britney Spears and Creedence Clearwater to my work-station at work, big deal. This is such a non-event. I mean, Clear Channel? I think we should be thankful they aren't polluting the net with their "music" anymore.
I do not have a signature
A local station (KOGO) is considering simply removing the ads from the streamed web audio as their solution to this. They don't get any additional money for the web listeners, so it's no skin off their nose to remove advertising. Long-term, I hope some more sensible people come up with a realistic system of compensation. 300% extra for web audio is completely beyond the pale with the sizes of the audiences they're getting.
"If I have seen further than other men, it is by stepping on their glasses." - Michael Swaine
WBER
But then, it's a student run alternative station. Nobody gets paid.
How odd, the alternative station is bypassing union wishes.
they are stripping the "air" commercials out of their streaming content and will sell the internet time separately.
I think that is actually the best route to follow. Screw this money grubbing union, which is pretty damn sure not to forward all those "stolen" dollars to their members, after all their are costs involved in collecting it, and heck there are so many they would probably charge their members for the "service"
I would expect many of the streamers to come back after installing the software needed to "swap" the commercials for approved ones
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
In general, you have to imagine that AFTRA knew what the consequences of their action would be. I wonder if there hadn't been the precedent by the RIAA requiring royalties for web broadcasts, that AFTRA wouldn't have gotten the idea of supplemental payments.
If you can't beat them, embrace and extend them.
First, they're probably paying to use Mp3 or Real audio's format, second, they're paying for the bandwidth, and third, they have to pay AFTRA's fee demands. You know... I can't emagine why napster got popluar ;-)
For anyone with faster-than-a-modem-connection; visit http://gnutelliums.com and join the Gnutella network, which always has and always will be free (beer & speech).
uncompetitive.
Dang unions see dollar signs on the internet, and now they're killing streaming radio because of their greed.
Maybe Reagan was right about that union thing.
First, this is bullshit. The web is not repurposed content -- it's the same as radio, just coming out of different speakers. You don't consider my Sherwood receiver at home to be a different medium than the Blau in my Passat. And, in a lot of areas, you can't have an honest FM station that will reach all your prospective listeners. A good example is Vermont's WEQX (I am listening online as we speak). It's one of the last great independent commercial stations in the world, and it's one of the few stations I've ever heard that will play what the DJs want to hear. But their transmitter is not powerful...it gets drowned out by powerlines and is nearly impossible to get indoors. Hence, I listen online at weqx.com. It's terrible quality, it get congested and the ads are stupid. But it satisfies my need for independent radio.
This is the type of station that should be online -- a station whos playlist is totally different from every other station in the world, both statistically and stylistically. And, for that matter, EQX has listeners all over the country. Do the ads for Stratton Mountain and the Vermont Lottery appeal to these listeners? Hell no! That's why they supplement the cost of their online radio with print ads. The advertising is being broadcast online, sure, but it's hardly repurposed. It's not even properly targetted. Arguing that EQX's advertisers get money from all of their online listeners to Alan Yando's snappy Lotto patter is futile, they don't.
I think this is a sensible law for some radio stations -- ones with nationally appealling ads, for coca-cola or ford motors or even Fox TV. But then again, those stations don't need to be online! The big advertisers don't deal with independent stations, because they can't offer the kind of run that would be cost effective. They deal with huge faceless corporations like ClearChannel, whose content from station to station does not vary anyway. In fact, ClearChannel's DJs are all nothing more than talking heads, with no humans manning the local station mics. They won't answer your requests, they don't understand local politics or personalities and they don't visit local businesses. In essence, ClearChannel stations over the radio are already netcasts...they're nationally broadcast playlists without regional content or any real insight into the listening audience.
I suppose the only consolation I have is that, so far, EQX is still online...and I can still hear the Live Lunch at work.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Because asshole, Artist Corner is a TV Show, Learn to read the Bio's before opening your mouth.
spambait e-mail
my web site artistcorner.tv hip-hop news
please help me make it better
if you see me, smile and say hello.
Cnet has a similar article about this here. Basically The Web radio standoff that silenced hundreds of Internet audio feeds this week could be good news for companies that help stitch ads into streaming media broadcasts. So the reason all these web radios halted was because of $$ issues. As the article say Major radio corporations Tuesday, including Clear Channel Communications and Emmis Communications, temporarily halted their Web streams because of unresolved online advertising issues. Although that decision was a temporary setback for nascent Web radio stations, analysts said it could help ignite demand for so-called ad insertion technology, which can be used to get around disputed Internet advertising rules. The way I see it Tuesday's dispute among actors, advertisers and broadcasters over royalty payments could make streaming ads more attractive. Since advertising agencies have agreed to pay radio voice actors a higher fee if their commercials are used online as well as on air, they will likely seek alternatives such as ad insertion to control their costs.
Diplomacy is the art of letting people have your way
Does this signal the end of mainstream radio? That would be awful, because now my kids can just hop on the internet and listen to any one of the unregulated DJs spewing their filthy language and disgusting ideas. At least when they listened to Rush Limbaugh via internet streaming, I could still trust the FCC to fine him should he slip and let an occasional swear word through.
"If the Lord had meant for us to fly, He'd have given us wings with which to soar...." William, 14:35