10-8-13
WHTC in Holland Michigan is owned by Midwest Communications where MLive is reporting that Kingman was fired after a Miller Light commercial parody that included the profanity. Kingman had been working in radio for 20 years. The paper also indicates the FCC may be investigating. Kingman told MLive the unintentional airing of the F-word was due to technical changes that deleted some of his preset files. Read the full story at Mlive HERE
1-28-2013
The New York Times is reporting that much like the CD when it first came out, Streaming music to consumers, is not very lucrative for artists. For example, on a 99-cent download, a typical artist earn about 7 to 10 cents after cuts are doled out to retailers, the record company and the songwriter. "One industry joke calls the flow of these royalties a ?river of nickels.? In the CRS issue of Radio Ink, Big Machine Label CEO Scott Borchetta says it's also time for radio to give a little more back to artists. And, he has very little sympathy for Pandora's complaints about paying too much to operate its business.
Borchetta says over the last couple of years radio received a price break from BMI and ASCAP. "They gave radio a couple of points back. It's time to give those points to the artists, to the labels. They are no more important partners than we are. We are not even asking for more. We are saying, "What you have got on the table, share it. Bring it back." As far as Pandora, I didn't ask them to take my content and build a new business model with it. They chose that route, not me. If Pandora went away tomorrow, if they went out of business, it's not my fault. They chose that route." Borchetta's label is home to Taylor Swift, Tim McGraw and The Band Perry and other big name Country stars.
The Times piece highlights Spotify, Pandora and other Internet music companies that "pay fractions of a cent to record companies and publishers each time a song is played, some portion of which goes to performers and songwriters as royalties. Unlike the royalties from a sale, these payments accrue every time a listener clicks on a song, year after year. Complicating the issue, each type of service pays different rates. Pandora?s are set by law. According to a number of music executives who have negotiated with Spotify, it generally pays 0.5 to 0.7 cent a stream (or $5,000 to $8,000 per million plays) for its paid tier, and as much as 90 percent less for its free tier."
The companies behind streaming are ballooning quickly, The Times writes. "Pandora, with 67 million regular users, is publicly traded, with a market capitalization of nearly $2 billion, and Spotify?s investors have reportedly valued the company at $3 billion. Yet so far they have contributed relatively little to the American recording industry?s $7 billion bottom line. In its last four reported quarters, Pandora paid $202 million in ?content acquisition costs,? including licensing fees, and Spotify recently announced that it has paid $500 million in royalties since its inception. Downloads, by comparison, had $2.6 billion in sales in 2011, according to the Recording Industry Association of America."
Read the entire Times piece HERE
Subscribe to Radio Ink in time to receive our Country Radio Seminar issue highlighting the 25 Best Country PD's in America and our interview with Scott Borchetta.
(1/29/2013 7:39:50 PM)
Having read some of the comments, it seems some readers do not understand the difference between market capitalization and profit and loss. What is Pandora's market cap - somewhere around $2 billion. On the other hand annual revenues of around $300 million carry a performance fee of close to 60%. Add to that administrative fees, engineering expenses, etc. and there is no manner in which the company can make a profit. And some of readers think that Pandora should pay higher fees. Study accounting
(1/29/2013 10:16:12 AM)
@Robbie is correct i can tell you for a fact small market radio jobs WILL be lost. people like lanny simply don't care. just how much more money do artists need at the expense of working folks while they fly around on private airplanes doing cocaine lanny?
(1/29/2013 10:02:21 AM)
It's time for a tough negotiator to step up for radio. It's the radio stations that should be receiving money for the advertising and promotion of the music. Yes, it's radio that made those artists and songwriters. Believe in radio or get another career.
(1/29/2013 9:21:29 AM)
I laugh that this article says ZERO about Google/YouTube's catastrophic copyright infringement with the use of Mozilla Firefox'x VideoDownloadHelper to download every YouTube, Veoh, Vimeo, DailyMotion, ETC. files of both video and audio (with a background of a picture) from these sites behind all artists' and record company's backs (along with a Terms of Use that state it can be done), and then Google/YouTube lie in the Viacom case asserting no downloads take place.
Any complaints now artists?
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While Clear Channel does not comment on internal staffing decisions, the company is speaking out about the changes. The programming alterations are being centered around what the company calls "Premium Choice." To everyone who's been around for awhile that may sound like voicetracking with a little lipstick added. A company spokesman told Radio Ink, "we?re launching a new strategy for our regional market radio stations that will improve local programming in smaller markets by using assets and resources in those markets that their competitors don?t have." More Ryan Seacrest, perhaps?
Here is more of the new Clear Channel plan for programming: "It reflects new approaches to programming, talent, technology, and other valuable resources ? based on Clear Channel?s most effective and efficient stations. We looked at all our regional market stations with a fresh eye to determine how we could respond to the challenges of the marketplace and deliver a much better product to listeners than we have in the past, and this strategy will help us operate our regional markets more efficiently and effectively as well as serve our audiences, communities, advertisers, and marketing partners even better. You wrote a couple of weeks ago about the 45 new promotions to Regional Market Manager ? those were part of that strategy as well."
"The new strategy is about doing things differently to help our company grow faster. We'll draw on all the resources of Clear Channel to give our listeners, advertisers and communities the best possible product ? the kind of content and talent that we might otherwise never be able to afford in some of our markets. It leverages Clear Channel Radio?s resources to serve our local listeners, advertisers and communities better ?the content our listeners hear from our company?s best programmers and top on-air talent will be more localized -- including traffic, weather, community events and local news ? and the overall quality will increase. We believe it will better engage our listeners and provide a more powerful and effective platform for our advertising partners. At the same time, it offers new opportunities for our best on-air and programming talent to be heard in more places and grow their careers."
"This is not about cutting costs or the previous strategy not working. As a company we've completely rethought our regional market strategy in a way that will let us compete on a new level ? and succeed -- using our company?s unparalleled scale, resources and talent to make everything we do better."
(10/27/2011 6:39:44 AM)
I wonder how many man hours it took for them to concoct that jem.
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