New Fees Killing Off College Radio Webcasts

from the too-bad dept

Mon, Aug 26th 2002 2:44am — Mike Masnick

More evidence that the ridiculous CARP fees are bad for online radio. A number of college radio stations say they're pulling their online streaming audio versions off the air because there's no way they can pay the insane fees that the RIAA expects them to pay. Considering that most college radio stations aren't in this for the money, it seems silly for the music industry to push them for extra money - but the music industry only seems to speak the language of greed. The fact that most of those radio stations are likely to go off the air, meaning no fees while also leading to less promotion for their artists - doesn't seem to occur to the folks in charge.

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Jim Bresee, 26 Aug 2002 @ 2:01pm

It's the Marketing...
I read an interesting analysis that makes sense to me. It said, basically, that the key music distributors want to focus their marketing $$ on their target top acts. That is, they want to push Brittany, BackStreet Boys, and say four or five others. With the on-air radio business consolidating to a few companies that own most radio stations, they can do this. They can dictate to clear channel communications (the dominant radio station owner in the country) exactly what to push. But with Internet radio offering thousands of niche stations, the value of this focused marketing money was at risk.
So the solution is to put the internet radio out of business.
Obviously, the goal was not to generate revenue from internet radio, but rather to crush the medium. If the goal was revenue, they would have priced their royalties in a way that would encourage and support internet radio, when they clearly have priced to kill.
Jim
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Mike (profile), 26 Aug 2002 @ 2:35pm

Re: It's the Marketing...
Yeah, I've heard a similar argument, and I believe you're absolutely correct in their thinking.

I believe that strategy also has a lot to do with why the music industry is struggling today. Consumers aren't as stupid as the music industry believes them to be, and they're sick of hearing the same old crap every day - and they're not buying it any more.

However, the music industry is all about control, and they know that they made big bucks by having a few successful artists, and they seem to be extrapolating that thought into meaning "if we have even *fewer* successful artists, we'll make even more money".

Oh well. It is a valid point, though, and thanks for posting it!
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