Music legends Boyz II Men last month delivered a letter signed by more than 300 major recording artists to congressional leaders asking that they pass the American Music Fairness Act, legislation requiring big radio corporations to pay artists for the music played on the air.
For more than 100 years, radio has brought immediacy to information and spread the joy of music to the masses. At its beginnings, commercial radio was feared as a threat to the entrenched newspaper industry and for its potential power to influence society. However, it was beloved by the public. Over time, it has weathered its share of threatening technological advances, from the advent of television and later cable television to home taping and portable music platforms to legal and illegal music downloads at the dawn of the digital era.
Despite those challenges, music radio has prospered. Even though streaming now claims a large share of listening, radio continues to reach substantial audiences, with about eight in 10 Americans tuning in weekly, according to Nielsen Media Research data.
Radio has always had an unfair advantage over any competing music platform. It sells advertising to the tune of $12 billion a year but doesn’t pay artists for the music that makes up the programming on AM/FM stations. Every other music platform — from streaming services such as Spotify to satellite radio like SiriusXM — all pay a market rate for the music that is at the heart of their businesses.
Our system is so broken that compensation is determined by the touch of a button on the dashboard. If you listen to music on satellite radio or a digital streaming service, the artist gets compensated. If you listen to the same song on an FM station, they don’t. In fact, even FM programming pays the artist when it’s simulcast on the internet or an app such as iHeart’s, but not when it’s delivered via a regular FM antenna. Same music, same product, same consumer experience, but a vast disparity in how U.S. law treats these platforms.
Who feels the effect the most? The thousands of smaller artists, backup singers, session musicians, studio producers, mixers and others who have helped make music timeless but who never made a penny from it being played on the radio.
The good news is that bipartisan legislation has been introduced in Congress to fix this absurdity. The AMFA will finally close the radio loophole and ensure that music artists are paid when their songs play on the air. This would bring America into line with how every other democratic nation treats its musicians.
Since President Jimmy Carter’s time, every administration has supported the concepts embodied in the bill. Last year, the U.S. Conference of Mayors passed a resolution in support. The AFL-CIO, American Federation of Musicians, SAG-AFTRA, Future of Music Coalition, the Recording Academy, Recording Industry Association of America, Alliance for Community Media, Common Frequency, Media Alliance, the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, Prometheus Radio Project, REC Networks, and more all support this legislation.
Who doesn’t support AMFA? Radio conglomerates operating thousands of AM/FM stations, making billions in profits, employing legions of lobbyists and spending millions each year to influence lawmakers.
Fearmongering by the National Association of Broadcasters, the powerful and well-funded lobby funded by corporate broadcasting giants, has stood in the way of the bill. The NAB instead pushes the Local Radio Freedom Act, a recurring nonbinding resolution asserting that Congress should protect commercial radio from having to pay for content. It does so under the guise that local radio will suffer by being forced to pay for the main ingredient of its output. That couldn’t be further from the truth — AMFA provides accommodations for small, college and community radio stations to pay annual fees as low as $10 each year.
Ironically, while it is opposing this bill, the NAB is also working hard to pass the AM for Every Vehicle Act, which would impose a mandate that manufacturers include AM radios in every U.S. passenger vehicle. That’s right, they are trying to enshrine radio’s place in the car while continuing to deny payment to artists.
In December, the AM radio legislation came close to being passed into law. It was attached to the year-end budget bill, but congressional leaders blocked its inclusion. Why? Because they saw the unfairness of saving a lucrative platform for broadcasters while not protecting the rights of artists exploited by that medium.
If the AM for Every Vehicle Act is passed, then AMFA must go with it. Passing AMFA will set a standard that ensures creators are compensated wherever and whenever their music is played — especially when their creations form the backbone of the business model as they do for AM/FM radio. It would be much easier for us all to support Big Radio if Big Radio supported the artists.
We invite you to join the Music Fairness Action movement and demand your representatives do what’s right and protect the artists who make the music.
Michael Huppe is the president and CEO of the nonprofit collective management organization SoundExchange. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.