Category: Broadcaster's Lounge
I am aware of the amount of interest there is on this particular board about internet radio. Today, internet radio stations held a day of silence because they don't like the fact that royalty fees are going up. If owners of internet radio stations want there stations to be classified as radio stations, they should be treated like all other radio stations. They should pay the same amount of royalty fees. The fact that they've all kicked up a fuss just shows how pathetic they are. If I owned an internet radio station and wished to keep it online after the new rules if I was in the US, I would stop playing songs which I have to pay money to play. I may even stop playing music altogether. People can hear music elsewhere, they don't have to go to an online radio station. They can even create their own playlists using certain websites too. If internet radio owners are so tallented, why don't they do something different such as feture unsigned musicians in their locality, provide original speech content, etc? They are behaving as if the majority of internet radio listeners are listening to stations which are only available on the internet, but that's not the case. Radio stations which can only be heard on the internet have a small amount of listeners. If they were attracting millions of listeners every day, they'd be snapped up by bigger companies who wanted to make money from them. Some people may argue that radio stations which aren't only available on the internet, such as commercial and public radio stations are out of touch. If they were completely out of touch, they'd have no listeners, and they may even stop broadcasting altogether. The fact that the majority of people in the US listen to a radio station which isn't only available on the internet is an indication that it doesn't matter at all if stations which are only available online no longer exist. It only matters to obsessives and the people who own such radio stations. As I have already said, there are ways round any new legislation on music, but they will only be explored by the tallented broadcasters.