Selling Hits? Or Self-Interest?

“This is an unjust system that must be changed.” -- Lee Thomas Miller, songwriter/president of Nashville Songwriters Association International

“Every one of you has a vested interest in some part of the status quo, and every one of you is railing against some aspect of the status quo.” -- Representative Darrell Issa, a Republican of California.

I read the Peter Schweizer book "Extortion," so don't blame me for thinking that perhaps "here we go around again."  Last week’s House Judiciary Committee hearing was probably just another turning of the usual wheels.  Sound Exchange lobbies its friends and one-sided meetings are held in the chambers of Congress.  So, the NAB lobbies radio’s friends in Washington.  And, for yet another year, hopefully from radio's perspective a bill gets sidelined after more hearings are dutifully held. 

A second music licensing hearing is scheduled for June 25, with witnesses from ASCAP, the radio broadcasters, record labels and others, as well as Rosanne Cash. 

I think I know where she stands and I'll bet you know where I do.  It’s happened so many times over the years that it’s easy for both sides to get complacent.  If that happens and one year "opposition" (lobbying) doesn’t step up, legislation could actually pass.  Which is why it's more than a little comforting to see Cox now join several major radio groups in a direct deal with a major Nashville label.  A change in the political routine will be welcome and hopefully more reasonable heads are starting to prevail. 

Both sides could recognize that there’s a reasonable, fair middle ground that may settle the matter for once and for all. 

At least I did, until Michael Huppe at the New Music Seminar dropped a bomb, rhetorically asking "if FM radio went away tomorrow, would music sales go down or up?” displaying a chart that purported to show FM radio hurts music sales.

If he had admitted labels were asleep at the switch back when RCA owned Napster, peer to peer file sharing hurt music sales and then they gave a third of each sale to iTunes, he could have built some credibility with me, but FM radio?  Huh?  Trying to rewrite history by distorting facts makes it seem like he's not serious and not a win-win! 

The CMA has plenty of genuine research on all sorts of country music consumer bahavior including this from several years ago, directly contradicting that assertion with country radio fans, for example:

For my entire career, I worked as though radio, artists, labels, publishers and anyone who makes a living from music were all in the same business, promoting one another's best work. 

Creating new music hits is good for all of us.  Radio listeners hear them and buy 'em.  It's been that way for what seems like forever.

I know it, and so does anyone who follows the money in the music industry does too (I hope).

NAB probably has even more recent and relevant charts. 

In the upcoming hearing, someone will doubtless ask the music industry what percentage of their marketing budgets are spent on pursuing radio airplay.  Maybe they will even have some fancy graphs to show those millions that could be saved by promotion and marketing departments if it ever failed to drive sales.

After it's revealed what a large and still-productive number that is, someone should explain to Huppe that radio and the music business work best as a team.  Tearing that long-standing partnership apart with patently self-serving exaggerations won't be good for either music professionals or radio.

Artists and labels can make much more money from selling their hits, merch and concert tickets by use of radio as partners in promotion than they can distorting facts in order to sell music licenses.

Sales Per Spin?

Hats off to HitShop Records honcho Skip Bishop for getting us all to think outside the box and buying this ad today which makes, as I read it, a powerful statement backing the NAB against Music First Coalition and Congressman Mel Watt's “Free Market Royalty Act."

Judging from these figures, it doesn't take very many spins on the monitored panels to generate impressive sales, the state which makes label success!

In fact it actually takes more spins to get the average song to "hook" and "test" with heavy radio users - which of course is the measurement driving radio's success.

It's nice to see that labels start getting returns on their investment in radio airplay pretty quickly.

Steve Knopper Thinks The Recording Industry Is Dying

The Rolling Stone contributing editor and author of four previous books latest, "Appetite for Self-Destruction: The Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age" came out in hardback a year ago and he did a lot of media interviews at that time.

Now, it's in paperback and his last CSPAN repeat of a talk originally made in his hometown of Denver airs today.

If you haven't yet read the book or heard him interviewed, here's a strong recommendation to watch as he discusses what he believes is the rapidly approaching death of the recording industry.

It's fascinating to hear him say that the radio business does a very good job of staying close to the tastes of music fans, while that's something that record labels have not done until very recently.

Thanks for noticing, Steve!

He chronicles the recording industry's mistakes, as the digital age advanced and the role federal courts have played in providing a lifeline to the industry through the steady stream of infringement lawsuits that are upheld.

The Best April Fools Joke EVER

Performance Bill Passes: The Washington Post is reporting that in an unexpected late-night session, Congress passed HR848, commonly known as the Performance Rights Act, by a 219-216 margin in the House and 64-33 in the Senate. The measure grants performers and sound recording copyright owners an initial 5% of terrestrial radio station gross revenue, escalating to 8% by 2013. Effective immediately, the new law has sent radio groups scrambling, with many top market stations pulling music or going dark. A quick check reveals talk-only programming at Country stations including WUSN/Chicago, KKGO/Los Angeles and KPLX/Dallas.

Representatives of the RIAA were reportedly displeased with the passage as eleventh-hour changes saw a shift in distribution percentages, with artists and performers taking fully 90% of collections over record labels' 10%. For their part, artists and performers are equally unhappy that the bill included an addendum that will allow engineers, assistants, techs and in some cases recording session caterers to participate in the revenue stream. The so-called "Cheese Tray" provision, according to some accounts, even has the potential to reward studio janitorial staff and valets who work on rainy days. Read a full report here.

Hats, off to the Country Aircheck team! You got us!

Memo to Barack Obama, and this is no prank: that bit about the majority of the money going to artists is a JOKE too. That's why radio (and me!) stand in unity against it.

Killing The Goose

As news-talk consultant Holland Cooke keeps predicting a tsunami of talk FM stations should Congress ever grant the record industry's wish to get a royalty for radio airplay of their music, it's easy to shrug and say that it's surely never going to really happen because at the end of the day the RIAA will realize that they'll lose a lot more than they gain should they win this fight.

If that's how you feel, please take an hour and listen to NPR's On The Media this week.

History demonstrates that labels have a long track record of shooting themselves in the foot by putting the people who are in position to grow their business .. out of business.

I Was All Set To Completely Ignore The Grammy Awards, But Then..

I just heard that KSON, San Diego, morning cohost Cliff Dumas has been chosen to voice the 2009 radio pre-Grammy special. Cliff will work to make something radio-friendly, I am confident.

.. Which is much-needed in the wake of Mike Henry, Bill Stakelin, Randy Kabrich and Bob Neil calls to pay no attention to the RIAA-sponsored record sales promotion event. As a former Radio And Music Awards (1999-2005) winner back when that was on air, I still lean their way in spite of the entreaties of Jerry Delcolliano.

Just ignore the upcoming Grammy Awards. Then, let’s check back with the Grammy broadcast in February to see if there is a different message about radio. If there is not, then radio should ignore the Grammy Awards for the following year. Radio should not acknowledge the Grammy Awards ever again, until the Grammy Awards broadcast acknowledges radio as the primary source for the discovery of music, which is universally understood as fact except to the over-eager Grammy copywriter. Here are the facts as they are known today: The plurality of people discover music on radio. Once they’ve discovered that music via radio, many of those same people download the music from the Internet…often without paying for it. - Mike Henry, Paragon Media Research

The R-M-W's were an attempt to get radio airplay the credit we deserve, spear-headed when Von Freeman was marketing director at KIIS, Los Angeles after an experience backstage at the Grammy Awards in 1998 when the #1 CHR station in the USA felt ignored (the KIIS website contains CMA Awards links but no news of any R-M-A plans for '09).

It is ironic that Canadian Dumas would be named to do the radio pre-Grammy special, since the Radio Music Awards concept continues in Canada to this day.