radio, radio

Marc Fisher's Washington Post column on radio is consistently interesting. This week, he writes about the battle between some recording artists and radio stations over whether the stations should pay royalties directly to artists for airing their songs - the way they do, in the form of 2% of their revenues, to song writers and composers.

I've got to come down on the side of the radio people here. Although somewhat diminished nowadays, no question radio play for songs is also a form of advertising. I still buy albums* by groups I had never heard of off of the strength of hearing a tune on the radio.

And as much as I am sympathetic to musicians trying to make up for declining revenues from CD sales, the fact is radio isn't in such great shape either. Add another $450 million in payments - that's what the 2% of revenues equals - and how many stations will quit playing music altogether to join in the cheaper and tremendously profitable talk-radio format?

*Yeah, yeah, I'm oldfashioned and don't just download stuff onto an iPod. So sue me.