December 12, 2025 • 47 mins
Lick It Up (Or Pay Up) as KISS frontman Gene Simmons Delivers a Fiery, Unfiltered Testimony Supporting the American Music Fairness Act.
KISS co-founder Gene Simmons and SoundExchange President and CEO Michael Huppe testified before Congress in support of the American Music Fairness Act (AMFA), aiming to end the century-old loophole that allows AM/FM radio stations to play music without paying performers and sound recording owners. Simmons delivered a passionate plea, stating that American artists receive "not one cent" from terrestrial radio airplay despite the industry earning billions, labeling the practice "robbery."
Huppe reinforced this argument, noting that the United States is uniquely grouped with countries like North Korea and Iran for failing to pay performance royalties, a policy failure that causes American artists to lose millions in reciprocal royalties overseas. The AMFA proposes to close this gap by requiring terrestrial broadcasters to pay for music, a move strongly opposed by broadcasters who argue the new fees would create undue financial burdens, especially on small local stations, as the Senate revives the radio royalty fight.
Gene Simmons' high-profile testimony before Congress on the American Music Fairness Act (AMFA) echoes Frank Zappa's famous 1985 appearance by bringing a distinctly outspoken rock star persona directly into the halls of power to tackle a core issue of artist rights and economic freedom.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-broadcasters-podcast--3684131/support.
Contact KOP for professional podcast production, imaging, and web design services at http://www.kingofpodcasts.com
Support KOP by subscribing to his YouTube channel and search for King Of Podcasts
Follow KOP on X and TikTok @kingofpodcasts (F Meta!)
Listen to KOP’s other programs, Podcasters Row… and the Wrestling is Real Wrestling Podcast and The Broadcasters Podcast.
Buy KOP a Coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/kingofpodcasts
Drop KOP a PayPal https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=3TAB983ZQPNVL
Drop KOP a Venmo https://account.venmo.com/u/kingofpodcasts
Drop KOP a CashApp https://cash.app/$kingofallpodcasts
KISS co-founder Gene Simmons and SoundExchange President and CEO Michael Huppe testified before Congress in support of the American Music Fairness Act (AMFA), aiming to end the century-old loophole that allows AM/FM radio stations to play music without paying performers and sound recording owners. Simmons delivered a passionate plea, stating that American artists receive "not one cent" from terrestrial radio airplay despite the industry earning billions, labeling the practice "robbery."
Huppe reinforced this argument, noting that the United States is uniquely grouped with countries like North Korea and Iran for failing to pay performance royalties, a policy failure that causes American artists to lose millions in reciprocal royalties overseas. The AMFA proposes to close this gap by requiring terrestrial broadcasters to pay for music, a move strongly opposed by broadcasters who argue the new fees would create undue financial burdens, especially on small local stations, as the Senate revives the radio royalty fight.
Gene Simmons' high-profile testimony before Congress on the American Music Fairness Act (AMFA) echoes Frank Zappa's famous 1985 appearance by bringing a distinctly outspoken rock star persona directly into the halls of power to tackle a core issue of artist rights and economic freedom.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-broadcasters-podcast--3684131/support.
Contact KOP for professional podcast production, imaging, and web design services at http://www.kingofpodcasts.com
Support KOP by subscribing to his YouTube channel and search for King Of Podcasts
Follow KOP on X and TikTok @kingofpodcasts (F Meta!)
Listen to KOP’s other programs, Podcasters Row… and the Wrestling is Real Wrestling Podcast and The Broadcasters Podcast.
Buy KOP a Coffee https://buymeacoffee.com/kingofpodcasts
Drop KOP a PayPal https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=3TAB983ZQPNVL
Drop KOP a Venmo https://account.venmo.com/u/kingofpodcasts
Drop KOP a CashApp https://cash.app/$kingofallpodcasts
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Podcasting since two thousand and five. This is the King
of Podcasts Radio Network, kingo Podcasts dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Kiss says music on the Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
The King of Podcasts Radio Network proudly presents for the
Broadcasters Podcast. Here is the King of Podcasts.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Rolling into episode four hundred and sixteen of The Broadcasters
Podcast and in a couple of weeks celebrating the seventh anniversary,
only the eighth anniversary of Broadcasters Podcast because they did
started in twenty eighteen, and a very important episode to
go and talk about the night as this week, the
frontman of Kiss took his stage presence and took it
(00:46):
in front of Congress in support of the American Music
Fairness Act. And of course you know on this program,
I am a staunch supporter of this American Music Fairness Act.
And it's interesting that maybe this kind of moment from
Gene Simmons, of all people channeling is inner Frank Zappa
(01:06):
to go ahead and go in front of Congress to
testify about fairness and music. And when Frank Zappa it
was a different story but also a different case that
was trendsitting was important for the case of music at
that time. You might remember that before in nineteen eighty five,
(01:27):
Frank Zappa was advocating for free speech against the Parental
Music Resource Center the PMRC and their proposed music rating
system or risk for censorship. And so what happened was
with Gene Simmons, there are similarities in some ways of
what they're both doing with this here, and I did
do a comparison when I looked at both, and when
(01:52):
I look at what we had at that time, there
was quite a bit there. So in the stance that
we have here. In particular, Frank Zappa was saying that
the government should not control artistic expression and the bands
were equivalent of treating data by decapitation and fringing on
the First Amendment. But Frank Zappa, for someone that was
(02:12):
pretty controversial for himself, very smart, articulate, intellectual, fiercely anti establishment,
and was framing the fight as one for the civil liberties.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Now for Gene Simmons, he's.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Advocating for property rights against the radio industry's loophole that
unpaid royalties, and the argument was radios use the music
without payment as a gross violation of property rights. The
loophole allows for robbery and violates the fundamental principle of capitalism. Now,
he was a different tone, passionate, blunt, highly commercial, but
citing for economic fairness for all artists because they was
(02:48):
also looking after his kids and for himself and the
legacy they could have from the mute they can make
and what they can make from radio, because the radio
industry been a if it's to the tune of fourteen
billion dollars from music now, as we know with the
radio companies out there, if we go into the major
(03:11):
radio companies and the fact that they're getting these fourteen
billion dollars a year from music, are they doing anything
with that money. Let's just make the point here. The
debt holdings right now currently of iHeartMedia is five point
eight seven billion dollars as of September twenty twenty five.
(03:31):
And remember what they've done so far is reduce their
debt from their initial Chapter eleven bankruptcy by four hundred
and forty million dollars. That's all they take it. So
it's not like they're paying their debt. It's not like
they're doing too much with that money. They're just kind
of holding onto it. I mean, and I guess if
(03:52):
they need that much to go and operate their stations.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
I don't know. Odyssey.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
We talked about their bankruptcy last year. They filed for
Chapter eleven January of last year, came out of it
in September of last year. And their death figure three
hundred and fifty million dollars, Cueless, Meetup, Cimulus Media, excuse me,
seven hundred and twenty two million dollars. Those top three
(04:17):
companies they own music radio stations and a good bulk
of the music radio stations out there. And as we know,
this is all because which and I continue to go
ahead and try to give Ben the doubt to the
Ben to the radio industry, because I've talked to people,
and you know, I hear some of those major radio
players and what they had they're going to do to
(04:38):
try to keep things moving and to do what they
had to do with the hand they were given with
the amount of debt that they have.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
So the high debt levels.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Were accrued because of the leverage biots and mergers conducted
years ago, a secutor decline in traditional broadcast advertising revenue
and ads spending shifts the digital platform.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
So keep this in mind.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
They might be losing money on advertising, but where are
they benefiting on the other side music. So if this
American Music Fairness Act were to pass, we know that
the smaller market radio stations that might make not even
more than a million dollars a year, they would be
(05:19):
able to go ahead and pay maybe five hundred dollars
a year for the rights to have all the music
they want to play on their station, which is a
bargain I see along with the support of Sound Exchange
Michael Helpy. I heard his interview with Christian Robbinson on
the Billboard on the Record podcast.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
I'd suggest you listen to it.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
We know that for iHeartRadio, that's the part they've had
about the buyouts and mergers. Odysty also going through a
massive deleveraging design to give the committee the strongest balance
sheet in the industry going forward. But remember before their
bankruptcy in twenty eighteen, they were as high as twenty
billion dollars in debt.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
For all that they have.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Now into the story about what Gene Simmons did and
how he spoke on behalf of music, and for me,
I have to say that this is very important that music
can make the difference right now for the radio industry
to shape up and I'll give it like this. I
would be okay with the trade off if the SCC
(06:20):
is going to drop the ownership caps on whatever media
traditionally linear that any media company wants to get newspaper, television, radio.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
You want to go ahead and.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Say that the Internet is your competition, and that your
competition is not based on the other competiting competing companies
that you have that are also operating their own media properties.
Non you're gonna say it's the Internet that's hurting us. Fine,
so then let the music, the American Music Various Act
(06:57):
pass in return for the ownership caps eliminated. That's a
fair trade off to me, because then what would happen
is that fourteen billion dollar lifeline that radio has relied
on for years. And keep this in mind to Michael
(07:18):
Huppy actually says, I'm the on a record podcast about
the fact of how other countries are able to go
ahead and give fair music payments and royalties to their outlets.
They do that now, and that's wonderful for them. So
I want to actually play a little bit of what
Michael Herby actually said on that interview with Christian Romison,
(07:42):
because I think it was very important what he said
and what came from it. Now, Kristen poses a question
based on an example of a radio campaign done by
a music label to promote an artist after they went
viral on social media and wherever else in streaming, and
I think what she brings up here and what Michael
(08:02):
Heppy actually says is very important. So this is from
Billboard on the Record. Here's Chris Dromison with Michael Huppy.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
Ahead of this interview, I was talking to some friends
of mine who work at record labels, a couple of
people who run indie labels specifically, and asking them about
have you done a radio campaign before, what is it like?
And there's this one indie label guy who was telling
me about how he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars
taking one of his songs to radio. It was really
starting to go viral on TikTok, then it went really
(08:30):
well on streaming services, and they decided to take it
to radio, thinking that it was going to be viable
there as well, and it did end up being a
huge radio hit. But they spent hundreds of thousands of
dollars to try to promote that song at radio. And
then he said that he doesn't plan on ever doing
that again, even if a song raises its hand like
this one did, because he was saying, I haven't seen
(08:51):
a dollar in return for from radio stations for the
promotion that we put into it. And of course that
artist is or not, of course, but this artist in
this situation was also the songwriter, so she's been being
paid as a songwriter. But on the artist's side, on
the record label side, they haven't seen any money, although
they put up the marketing costs, I guess. And I
(09:14):
thought that was a really interesting way to look at it,
and to hear that he was thinking about never doing
a radio campaign again was fascinating to me.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Now keep this in mind too, music labels, as we've
seen over the last couple of years, have eliminated their
radio promotional divisions because who wants to go ahead and
put promotional dollars into a secondary market. And that's because
radio is accepting the fact that they're a secondary market
(09:46):
for music at this point. If you have a song
that's a single or trying to push out an album,
are you going to get that much in sales to
get the artists some help? I mean, the thing is
you got to think about what's the promotion going to
lead to. Is it going to help that artist if
(10:06):
they're in concert in that particular local market and it
really doesn't do anything, or is it going to gin
up sales and it looks like it doesn't. But wouldn't
that be amazing if when you get the royalties that
are coming in from the music, it's not going to
(10:28):
be the returnal investment based on what the artists get
for hopefully what they'll get ancillary from what the radio
stations are doing for them, but actually that the promotion
of the music on the radio the royaltists will make
for that will actually give them a reason to say, Okay,
we can't just put money into you thinking we're going
(10:50):
to get return some returnal investment if we know we're
already making money from you. The music labels, would you
would think want to play ball more with radio and
radio could be much more of a viable market. I
think it's a big deal. So here's what Michael help
you had responded to.
Speaker 5 (11:11):
It is interesting and you know, radio used to be
much more promotional, I would argue than it is today,
back in the sixties and seventies. You know, Wolfman Jack
and that P word that you mentioned earlier, you know, Paola,
radio is how you got out there. Connections with radio
and contacts at radio were important getting on playlists at
(11:32):
one point of just individual influential DJs. As radio consolidated,
it became more of a getting on corporate playlist as
they you know, feed it out to their affiliates. I
would argue today radio's you know, much more of a
follower than a leader if you look.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
And he's right, and I've said this for years. They
are the flea market. They are the secondary market. They
don't care about being first with music. They want to
be there when the music is absolutely positively going to
benefit them for listenership, to their ads, to their sponsors,
that's it. But without any physical units for a record
(12:13):
label to go ahead and rely on radio to sell,
then radio doesn't have any purpose because radio promotion doesn't
do anything for them. To just generate them to go to.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Streaming is.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Antithetical to what they're looking for. So radio doesn't serve
a purpose right now. Radio would serve a purpose if
the royalties were standing to get kicked in.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
The music industry would pay.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Attention to radio again for once, and because radio would
have to be obligated to pay the royalties out now
to the artists and the songwriters. Then they're gonna have
(13:05):
to play with each other again. You're going to force
the hand of radio companies to say, okay, for our
radio stations to term profit, we can't just give up
that money that we're making off of music. We have
to monetize now the music we're playing. We're still not
getting ad sales. But what we can do is we
(13:25):
can get these record labels to start buying ass from
us again and a return, put some money back in
from the royalties they're making for the artists, for the songwriters,
and whatever cut they're gonna.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Get off of that.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
I think that's a good win win situation. But with
the lobbying of the NAB, the National Association of Broadcasters,
so of course they don't want to do that.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
They don't want to have that at all.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
One other sections of this art this interview I wanted
to play as well, thought I thought was very important,
was about the idea that music now is multi generate,
multi genre, because we don't have a lot of streaming
music that's going viral that fits a predicular genre and
(14:12):
that's true.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
I agree with that part. So what do you do now.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
When you have artists that are getting very popular but
radio can't find a place for it. You're not going
to put a square peg in a round hole.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
So what are you going to do with that?
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Next?
Speaker 4 (14:30):
It could to end off our conversation. I wanted to
make sure that we touched on the American Music Fairness Act.
This is something that you've been working on for a
while now, So can you tell us about what the
American Music Fairness Act is?
Speaker 5 (14:41):
Sure the American coming full circle? Yes, As a good
storyteller that you are, I try. We started off talking about,
you know, trust Radio not paying AMPHA is a bill
supported by Sound Exchange and the Whole Music First Coalition
to basically try to get FM radio to pay for
the sound record the same way every other platform and
(15:03):
the same way every other country does. It's basically it's
a basic fairness issue. Radio makes fourteen billion dollars a
year off the recordings that drive their business and they
share none of it with the artists.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Now, there's some more that goes into the story here
that Michael Helpy actually rerings up. And that's where if
it was going to damage local radio as a result.
So now after he explains the royalty issue, that the
larger corporate radio stations are going to be the ones
that had to pay the bigger part of the bill
(15:36):
out of that cut of fourteen billion dollars that they're
not paying towards those artists and songwriters. That's where the
question is about if the local radio station is going
to be affected by it.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
And he explains that.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Now Senator Marshall Blackburn from Tennessee speaks with Genie Simmons
and starts talking about where things are with radio today.
And this is just a good example of just understanding
where things are in the realm of radio and how
far back this goes that artists had not gotten their
(16:08):
fair share from radio. So here's Marshall Blackburn here tossing
it to gene Simmons. Now who's also going to be
introjecting into this conversation. Here is Henry Hinton, president and
CEO of Interbanks Media, who's on the side for radio stations. Now,
before I get into this, Marshall Blackburn is important because
(16:32):
of the fact that what she was doing earlier this
year trying to get payola taken care of in Nashville
where we had talked about. I think it was back
in March or April that country artists were being forced
by radio stations to play live concerts which the radio
stations were actually paying, you know, and getting customers to
go and pay for tickets that the artist was not
(16:55):
going to make any money from. But they had to
go and do that on a Nashville radio station in
order for them music to get played on the radio
and in music grow, and in Nashville, country radio still
is very important for music. So I want to play
a long clip here. This is with Senator Marshall Blackburndon Tennessee,
Henry Hinton, and Kiss frontman Gene Simmons. So here's Gene
(17:18):
Simmons starting off first.
Speaker 6 (17:21):
I was happy to see many of you this Sunday
where Kiss, our little band, was honored at the Kennedy
Center with President Trump. I'm proud to say I first
met President Trump years before he got into politics, and
I'm happy to remind everyone here in this room that
(17:41):
our President Trump signed the Music Modernization Act in twenty eighteen.
This bill updated copyright protection for the digital era. The
world is changing. We've got to stay ahead of the curve,
and legislators need to be informed on all of these things, because,
(18:04):
let's face it, you do the work of the people.
We elect you, and we hope and we expect you
to do the will of the people. I'm grateful to
President Trump for his leadership on issues important to our artists, past, present,
and future. I'm here to kindly ask all of you,
(18:25):
both Republicans and Democrats, to help us remedy a situation
an injustice. Let's call it for what it is, an
injustice that's been ongoing for many, many decades. I'm going
to tell you what I mean. Bing Crosby recorded perhaps
one of the biggest songs of all time, White Christmas.
(18:48):
What's more American than that? Written by Irving Berlin. It's
been on radio AM and FM later FM, originally an
AM millions of times every Christmas. We and around the
world are listening to I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas.
(19:09):
That's America's song. Everyone received money, the radio station sold advertising,
The plumber who fixed the plumbing got paid, everybody the
disc jockey got paid. The only person that was never
played for the airplay was Bing Crosby, which is astonishing
(19:30):
and I want to talk about why this is called
the American.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Music.
Speaker 6 (19:38):
You got to stop their American Music Fairness Act. Yes,
it's an act that's fair because there isn't fairness ongoing
right now, but it's American music.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
So the thing is now going forward on this bing
crosby the fact that that song White Christmas is a
song that is one of those many songs that will
chart in the season constantly, but the fact he never
gets to get paid for that. Let's talk about the
songs too, Little Drimmer Boy when he did that song
with David Bowie, the radio is not paying for that.
(20:11):
The music modernization that just to go back into that
part twenty eighteen updating copyright and mechanical license for digital
age so that any songs pre nineteen seventy two, those
artists would finally get to earn royalties for those recordings.
So that was the first part that came into that,
and that was a good change for artists that we're
(20:32):
not making back on the royalties. They can go through
the performance Writes Royalty Associate organizations like csack ASAP ASK
KABAC or BMI. Excuse me, but now what we're at
this point is we have to continue to go ahead
and open the doors for more royalties that should be
(20:56):
fairly paid to the musicians, those artist songwriters, all that atogether,
and of course the music label should be happy to
go and get that cut of theirs too, because they
probably want to be entitled to as well. And the
thing is, the more those songs are being played, the
more royalties being paid. We should see more of that.
(21:17):
I think it's very important we go and see something
like that coming in from here's more Gene Simmons.
Speaker 6 (21:25):
Earld Ore, Elvis and Frank Sinatra, that is who. And
then when they find out we're not treating our stars right,
in other words, worse than slaves. Slaves get food and water,
Elvis and Bing Crosby and Sinatra got nothing for their performance.
It got to change this now for our children and
(21:46):
our children's children. And I know you will. The President
will sign this once all you guys respectfully get your
act together and put this across the board. Let's do
the right thing. God bless Americaister, thank you, mister Simmons,
Senator Blackburn, I'm going to let you take my first time.
Speaker 7 (22:05):
Absolutely. Thank you so much, mister chairman, Thank you each
for your testimony. Mister Hinton, I want to come to
you first. I guess you could probably imagine that I've
worked with the NAB for years trying to get them
to agree to a template like we have. I want
to clear up a couple of things. You mentioned in
(22:26):
your testimony that this would cause harm. Let me ask
you this. Not paying artists for their sound, their voice
being on radio. They're getting zero money. Do you think
that causes harm to the artist?
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Well, senator, thank you for that question.
Speaker 7 (22:44):
Don't say thank you for the question. Through this hit
each something my time, go ahead, all right, quickly.
Speaker 6 (22:51):
The reality is we American radio reaches seventy nine percent
of Americans every week.
Speaker 8 (22:58):
Two hundred and twenty six million people listen to radio
every week.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
But the problem that we have I.
Speaker 7 (23:03):
Ask you about causing harm, not about your audience. So
let me move on, because you are causing harm. You're
causing You've got an oldies station, you've never paid Sam
Moore's a state a dime for soul Man, and I
bet you you use that is bumper music a good bet.
And you talk about being a free service, your free service,
(23:26):
do your advertisers look at you and say free service.
The answer to that is no, they don't because they're
paying what you say is the rate. And the more
listeners you have, the more they're going to pay you
for that advertising. And the better music that you play
(23:47):
that people actually want to hear, then the more you're
going to be able to charge them. If we shut
down all the music, you wouldn't have anything but a
talk station. So I think we need to realize that. Also,
you talked about being on the air for emergencies. The
FCC requires you, they have that override when there is
(24:11):
an emergency. You did not do that out of the
goodness of your heart. You do that because you are
mandated to do that, and thereby you provide that public service,
and we appreciate that our radio stations do that. I
would also remind you that when you talk about being
(24:33):
a partnership between the artists and the radio stations, there
is a new form of payola that is out there,
and it's called having these artists do private shows for
your advertisers, again, so that your worth is more to
your advertisers. So indeed, it's kind of lopsided because there
(24:59):
making nothing and you're making millions of dollars you and
your son started this business not to be charity, but
to make a profit and to serve your communities and
to allow local radio and for football games you have advertisers. Again,
(25:20):
you're providing a service, but you're being paid. The people
that do not get paid are the performers.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Perfectly said, she knows what she's talking about. She's investigated
the issues in Nashville on music grow of radio stations
like mister Hintons where they even benefiting all the musicians
not only not paying for the royalties, but also using
them to leverage for their own worth to advertisers and
to make money off of them, holding them over the calls,
(25:53):
bribing them that they have to go ahead and comply
or else serve means doesn't get played, especially when new
country for stations out there.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Very important.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Now when you look at the sponsorship of this American
Music Fairness Act, this is the one thing you're also
going to think about too. For anybody with a political sense,
I'm gonna take the political aspect here and talk about
it right now. So the original sponsor of the bill
hr A sixty one is darryl Isa, Republican in California.
(26:22):
Now with the co sponsors. There are eleven, nine Democrats,
two Republicans. Now, listen, if there's one thing I can
say that I can agree with, and any of these
politicians right now is co sponsoring this bill. And look
at the bill sponsors right now on this The co
sponsors are Gerald Nadler, Democrat, New York, Mark Green Republican Tennessee,
(26:48):
Toma Clintock, Republican California. The rest are Democrats, Ted Lieu
of California, Lloyd Doggett, Texas, Jimmy Raskin Maryland, Julia Browne California,
jd qu California, Primeilejaiah Paul Washington, State Lower Freeman California,
Dwight Evans Pennsylvania. All within that time they are all
co sponsors as bill by partisan, as crazy. This is
(27:12):
something that I would love out of anything that can
be passed this year. I mean, yeah, we could have
other things. You know, we're going into the new year.
This week's something I think would be very important. It
embodies so many different things. You want the free market
to work. Then you cannot let radio stations of a
(27:33):
large size. And this is also you know, mister Hinton
here he owns you know, it's a local radio station
he owns, but he is also using it for his
own just to get his advertisers that he wants and
leverage off of that. I mean, just like any good
radio station owner. Sure the advertisers are there, but the
responsible stations that are out there, they're doing well. They
know more than anything that they rely on the music
(27:56):
being played. If you're playing popular music twenty percent of
what your station is operating on.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
If you don't have that, what do you got.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
Remember these stations also not relying too much on talent.
They don't want to have people that are introducing the
songs or saying anything in between the records. They don't
want to do it either, So they just wanted the
music play out like a jukebox. Well, if that's the case,
then you're relying on the music itself, and all that
music that you play, you're not paying for it. It's time
(28:27):
to start paying. It's time to start paying. So I
like where that's all going right there, Martia bikers on
top of it, and it's time for this to go
in and finally get to a certain point.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Among other people, I mean.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
The people in this subcommittee, by the way, some of
the names in here that are also on the subcommittee,
they are really you know, they're polarizing figures in politics
that we see. If you're watching ms NOW, Fox News, CNN, whatever,
you know these names. What's very important to me is
(29:06):
they're all in lockstep with an interest in this subject.
I don't see any of them in support of these
big corporate radio stations.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
It's not.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Adam schiffrom California. He jumps in on this with his time.
Let's put a little bit of that with Geene Simmons
and the folks here in this subcommittee.
Speaker 6 (29:27):
Really need this. These pennies when they get heard as
their career starts on radio, but there's no income, how
do they get there? How do they get claw their
way up to the top with the help of radio.
And again I'm not here to demonize mister Hinton or
the radio stations. We need each other. Performers need radio,
(29:49):
radio needs performers. But for God's sakes, equitable doesn't mean
you get zero. And radio makes fourteen billion dollars just
this last year. That's not equitable. I know it's a
big word like gymnasium, but come on, Hinton, let's get
with it. Let's let's become America.
Speaker 7 (30:09):
Thank you, mister Chairman, Senner.
Speaker 8 (30:11):
Chef, thank you, miss Chairman, and thank you to my
colleague Alex Padia for this legislation. Appreciate all of you
testifying today. Mister Simmons. I want to ask you about
the song Beth, but you're not here for that, so
I'm not going to And I love that song. I
(30:31):
love all your songs, and thank you for bringing my
Kuzumano constituents with you. What I like to ask you.
You've been obviously performing for quite a while. When you
began your career, there was a kind of understanding that
I think was the rationale for this injustice, that well,
if radio stations are playing your music, you're getting advertising
(30:53):
where people are buying your albums. Obviously, the industry has
completely changed and the way people access music has completely changed.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
But if you could talk a.
Speaker 8 (31:02):
Little bit about how the industry has evolved and what
it means today not to be compensated, that is, I
would imagine whatever promotional value you get of your songs
played in the radio doesn't somehow create enough recompense to
make up for the lack of being paid for those
songs being played on the radio.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Question.
Speaker 6 (31:21):
Well, first and foremost, what you say is so. But
I want to cut to the chase, which is when
we first began. We were four knuckleheads off the streets
of New York who could barely spell, read or write.
We just happened by ourselves. We never knew no one.
Artists are not qualified to understand the business model. We
(31:43):
didn't have a business manager. I didn't know that once
you get a song that goes on radio, radio is
not going to pay you to play the song. But
they will have the right. I will say this again.
They have the right to use our name and likeness.
And you're talking about trademarks, use my trademark without my permission.
Otherwise I'm going to take your house and you're first born,
(32:05):
Are you kidding me? So? Radio uses billboards across the
country's highways of America to promote the radio stations so
that people will tune into their station because they are
hearing our voice on their stations, so they can sell
advertising and more power to you. You should be making
more money, become more successful. But the new artists are
(32:27):
not going to get their fair shake. They're barely Record
companies left the entire music industries in disarray, and all
these pennies are so important, especially for tomorrow's stars who
are being born today.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
He makes a great point because I can't say how
many times I would see that there are still radio
stations that will advertise on billboards on buses, on you
know bus stations, you know, the benches and all that
kind of stuff. And when I do, when they're promoting themselves,
you might see the slogan or the tagline of the station,
(33:03):
but they always have the artists that they play constantly
in their advertising. And you know, when I look at
any pop station, I mean always thinking about Wild I
ninety five five here on a Westbalm Beach o market,
and I remember seeing for years, every like every February,
I would see, for at least a month at a time,
(33:25):
maybe like twice a year, you would see the billboards out.
Sometimes you would just see the logo Today's hit music.
But then if you got to see a longer rap
on a bus or you know, taxi or.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Whatever it was, you'd see, oh here on.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
A Grande and Ed Sheeran and you know Taylor Swift,
and yeah, they're not getting paid to get their likenesses
putting put on those vehicles for advertising.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
They're not making the money off of it.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
There's probably not even any judgment or any input from
the record label as to what they're allowed to go
and use the likeness of those artists, because they can
basically just pick what do they want. They can find
that the graphics artists and that graphics artist for that
radio station or the marketing company, they just go ahead
and put whatever they want up.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
There to promote it.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
But if you don't have Orana Grande, Taylor Swift, Ed
Sheeron or whohere else on there, they might not Those
artists are gonna sell the music for that radio station
to people to go listen to it, and here the
advertisers in between those songs. I never even really put
that together, thinking about like how much radio is benefiting
(34:34):
not just from the music but also from the marketing it.
It's not like I didn't notice it, but I never
had it where I finally got the gun. Hear that
out loud, and so what Adam Schift here is asking
and what Gene Simmons is coming out with is extremely important,
which is where I think more and more when I
(34:54):
heard this subcommittee and I didn't get to hear the
whole thing, but I will when I get time. I
want to go in, go back and just hear the
whole thing, because I caught some of it when was live,
but I wanted to hear the whole thing once again
because I think there when I hear what Gene Simmons
is saying to this whole panel of a bipartisan committee
of senators, it's obvious the SENEC can go ahead and
(35:18):
go forward and get the votes needed to get this
AMFA put to vote, and President Trump will sign it.
For the music industry, I don't see how there could
be a lot of opposition from people in the regular public.
I think everyone out there that's a music fan, they
want to see the artists get paid. Radio is a
(35:40):
place that needs to have that happen. It's extremely important.
So we're now with Gen Simmonson. We're gonna go and
move along and we'll get some discussion of what the
NAB is saying back after this happened. But here's more
of Gene Simmons.
Speaker 6 (35:55):
This is for our children and for our children's children.
We can't just let them out in the cold and
not have a way to get paid for their hard work.
Speaker 8 (36:05):
Thank you, mister Huppy. I know when your son was
very young young he ran for school office with the
theme song Don't Worry be Huppy. This was brilliant, by
the way, that is correct. But when that song is
played on a streaming service, you're able to identify where
the royalty should go, and as the chair was saying,
(36:26):
do so very rapidly, very quick order. Let's say that
song is played on terrestrial radio. Are there any challenges
to be being able to determine when that's being played
providing the same kind of mechanism for compensation that you
do with the streaming services.
Speaker 5 (36:42):
The mechanics behind doing that, Senator would not be that
difficult at all, as as you well know, we already
receive much of the data about plays and artists and
songs when almost all of these FM stations rebroadcast online.
So in a way we're already paying for the digital
(37:02):
part of their business, and the the FM part of
their business is the much larger part fourteen billion dollars
a year, and the mechanics of getting the payments out
would be quite doable.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
Thick, So the structure to do this is easy Sound
Exchange already does this because they are monetizing and getting
royalties back for all the streaming music from the streaming
radio stations, and we don't even talk about those. Serious
exam also pays their share because of Sound Exchange, Like
there's a thing where the data is already available because
(37:35):
all these stations stream online, and if they don't, they
have to still find a way to go and do it.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
But still the bigger radio.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
Stations that we're trying to make the money off of,
they're already out there online streaming. So to find out
what songs are being played, it can be determined, and
so there's not any kind of infrastructure that needs to
be built to make this work. All they have to
do is just say, okay, the rules of change radio.
You have to start taking a percentage of that fourteen
(38:04):
billion dollars and giving it back the artists. And if
I remember reading or listening to Michael Hubbies interview with
Christian Robinson on Billboard on the Record, he mentioned that
I believe they already give out about a billion dollars
a year. Imagine if you increase that to what Spotify
does or what Apple Music gives out. I think Spotify
(38:25):
gives up four billion dollars every year. That's worldwide.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
But imagine if you're.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Getting that kind of amount that could peaceably come from this.
Let's say we get three four million dollars two artists
in America on top of everything else, imagine that kind
of money that could be brought in. That's a livelihood
for a lot of these artists out there especially, And
then you want to encourage younger artists to go and
(38:52):
continue to thrive if they knew they had that extra
monetary pipeline. That's not just oh you know when I
heard what Ralph Sutton, we had the interview I played
a few weeks back, and he describes about the fact that, oh, well,
you know, if you're an artist, if you go ahead
and find a group of people, like a thousand people
to go and watch you at a concert, you put
(39:13):
your band together, and you can make money off of that,
off the CDs, you sell whatever, this and that. Imagine
if they had that extra value of getting their songs
on radio and knowing the worlds who's gonna be coming
in for that? Because then the other thing is to
when you change this law, the artists are gonna want
(39:36):
us try to play more to radio because they know
they're gonna make money off of it. Then radio becomes
important because it's not just for the singles that get
pushed out on streaming that'll make some money off of that.
I think the quality of the music is better, and
the amount of music that people are making out there
because more important. Because right now in the age of streaming,
(39:57):
have we noticed how inconsistent artists are now to go
ahead and put out music. I mean, look at twenty
twenty five alone. We talked about the year in music
last week of the program, and think about how many
songs or how many artists came out with music all
the same time. They all, okay, let's just just drop
all the music now. In October Doja Cat, Sabrina Carver
(40:17):
to Tayl Swift, they all dropped Cardi B and you know,
whatever happens. If they could have played at different times,
they all did it because it was that end of
the year time and like that was I guess they
thought would be the right time to go ahead and
drop music to hopefully ben to themselves. I don't know
(40:38):
if it's for tours, I don't know if it's for
whatever else. But if they knew that radio was a
constant place for their music to always pay them back,
because that's the other part too, it's year round income.
Now we'll finally go back to these artists. That's a
big deal too. What about if there's an artist that
(41:02):
gets a song that goes viral and you know, they
haven't heard anything for them in years, and then radio
decides to start paying it, and then those world two
start going to those artists. Now that I am endormant
for a while, they'll go back and start performing. Able'll
start recording some new music. Maybe the record labels will
actually start putting a little more interest into this. And
(41:25):
I think if this act were to come in, artist
repertoire would come back, and radio promotion departments would probably
get funded again. Maybe all that can actually happen. That
would be a wonderful thing. There's more to it, but
you know, if you get a chance, I would definitely
recommend it. Go and listen to the entire testimony. I
(41:46):
will do that myself, because I only got so much
that I could get done for the program tonight, I
had go and you know, watch the Buccaneers Timba play
on THURSDA night football and lose. They're a disappointing, which
is kind of shaking me up where I had to
go and do this thing.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Either which way.
Speaker 3 (42:02):
The NAB coming back to response on this and ITSI
Radio reports on this subcommittee cheer. Tom Tillis, Republican of
North Carolina, thinks there's interested that the poor turnout is
stronger because there might not have been a lot of
people that were in the chamber to listen to its
(42:22):
seventy five minute herey, but still lawmakers are interested in this.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
And that.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
Senator Tillo says there's a growing sense in Congress that
the issue needs to be resolved out of seventeen years.
So now what we have so far is a quarter
of the Senate and two hundred and sixteen House members
a near majority, have gone on the record opposing any
copyright law revisions impacting AMFM airplay backers of a new
(42:54):
field of stations point to the don by any nature
of the resolution, but it's effectively stopped legislation from advanced
for years, and ge Simmons would say that it's an
archaic injustice been around for a long time. If you
work hard, you should get paid. I'm out here to
demonize radio stations. We need each other, but one of
those two is making a fortune and the other one
doing all the hard.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
Work is getting zipped. And a good distinction to here.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
From my copy in that hearing saying that whose organization
would likely collect the royalties dismissed the promotional angle that
Henry Hinton would put out there, saying that promotion that
radio stations provide us phenomenal and it continues to be
phenomenal because he said that lawmakers telling him that sports
leagues presumably get the same promotion when stations their games,
(43:41):
but no one is suggesting broadcasters not pay for sports rights.
I don't know why music should be any different.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
End quote.
Speaker 3 (43:49):
And when they talk about the countries that will continue
to pay as well for the music, Michael Hubby actually
explains that Russia and China they pay their pay artists
for the royalties, but the countries that do not are
North Carolina, North Korea, around and Cuba. And because we
don't pay for artists for radio in the US, other
(44:11):
countries use that as an excuse to avoid paying Americans.
It's gotten so bad that countries like France will actually
collect American royalties. You give those royal piats to French artists.
So Americans are losing out one hundreds of million dollars
millions of dollars over seriars of a year on top
of the losing here at home. So actually Senator Jose
(44:32):
Padia and Blackburne officially introduced the bill and there have
been sponsors as a result, as we talked about, as well,
multiple hearings, bill and reintroductions. But this was the biggest
public moment would be seen so far, with Gene Simmons
testifying in front of Congress in this subcommittee. I think
(44:53):
it goes a long way, just like Frank Zeba did
against the PMRC for censorship. I think it's very important
we see that. We want to go into a couple
of different things, a little bit of rapid fire. I
want to call this now on the program because there's
so much that goes on that we never really get
into as much. But I think it's very important to
(45:14):
go and just run through the stories. When I got
the time real quick, so I'm going to start calling
this rapid fire. So Spotify expands music videos in beta
to premium. Users in the US and Canada have not
seen that yet, but Maybe it'll happen with new Music Friday,
but they are now. I've already introduced music videos in
beta in the nearly one hundred markets, and a recent survey
(45:36):
has said that more than seventy percent of users saving
more video content would enhance their experience on Spotify. Now
premium users will get the gun here and visualize the
music videos, and there will be an initially limited catalog
of music videos from artists Ariana Grande, Olivia, Dean Baby, Monster,
Addis Ray, Taller, Childers Na tell You, natangil Gano, and
(45:57):
gari Leone. So they'll build more of that music video
library coming up very soon. Some new stats about podcast
advertising ads spending has tripled to six billion dollars at
the first half of twenty twenty five versus the earlier period.
AMFM radio still accounts for two thirds of ad support
of radio audio time among adults twenty five to fifty four.
(46:17):
Podcasts come behind at eighteen percent, streaming audio twelve percent,
satellite radio three percent. Another quick story coming in from
Hollywood Reporter about how movie theaters could fill more seats again. Well,
first of all, do not let Netflix take over Warner Brothers.
Let's start with that, But then there are some of
(46:38):
the things they put into the story.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
They say that.
Speaker 3 (46:42):
They say the key benefits for the movie theaters. In
this realm of a deluge of good enough content out there,
anyone can compete, but not everyone can compete profitably. They're
saying that it's immersion, spectacle and shared experiences. So the
recommendations are focusing on premium experience. Is this community personalization
and partnerships. And then finally on the program, thought this
(47:07):
was kind of interesting. So you know, how do you
have the Robin Hood stocks, the meme stalks and all
that kind of stuff. Well that's happening right now. I
don't know why, but apparently Beasley Media Group is falling
into that room right now because their stocks are three
hundred and twelve percent as a meme buy from four
(47:27):
dollars thirty two cents earlier this week to up to
sixteen dollars sixty nine cents. I mean, I don't think
it's gonna make much of a difference then, but hey,
good for them anyway. I wish they could use that
money towards the royalties you're gonna have to pay the
radio stations anyway.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
Come back next week for the Broadcasters Podcast.
Speaker 3 (47:45):
Because content is king, and the control of your content
is in your hands.
Podcasting since two thousand and five. This is the King
of Podcasts Radio Network, kingo Podcasts dot com.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Kiss says music on the Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
The King of Podcasts Radio Network proudly presents for the
Broadcasters Podcast. Here is the King of Podcasts.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Rolling into episode four hundred and sixteen of The Broadcasters
Podcast and in a couple of weeks celebrating the seventh anniversary,
only the eighth anniversary of Broadcasters Podcast because they did
started in twenty eighteen, and a very important episode to
go and talk about the night as this week, the
frontman of Kiss took his stage presence and took it
(00:46):
in front of Congress in support of the American Music
Fairness Act. And of course you know on this program,
I am a staunch supporter of this American Music Fairness Act.
And it's interesting that maybe this kind of moment from
Gene Simmons, of all people channeling is inner Frank Zappa
(01:06):
to go ahead and go in front of Congress to
testify about fairness and music. And when Frank Zappa it
was a different story but also a different case that
was trendsitting was important for the case of music at
that time. You might remember that before in nineteen eighty five,
(01:27):
Frank Zappa was advocating for free speech against the Parental
Music Resource Center the PMRC and their proposed music rating
system or risk for censorship. And so what happened was
with Gene Simmons, there are similarities in some ways of
what they're both doing with this here, and I did
do a comparison when I looked at both, and when
(01:52):
I look at what we had at that time, there
was quite a bit there. So in the stance that
we have here. In particular, Frank Zappa was saying that
the government should not control artistic expression and the bands
were equivalent of treating data by decapitation and fringing on
the First Amendment. But Frank Zappa, for someone that was
(02:12):
pretty controversial for himself, very smart, articulate, intellectual, fiercely anti establishment,
and was framing the fight as one for the civil liberties.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Now for Gene Simmons, he's.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Advocating for property rights against the radio industry's loophole that
unpaid royalties, and the argument was radios use the music
without payment as a gross violation of property rights. The
loophole allows for robbery and violates the fundamental principle of capitalism. Now,
he was a different tone, passionate, blunt, highly commercial, but
citing for economic fairness for all artists because they was
(02:48):
also looking after his kids and for himself and the
legacy they could have from the mute they can make
and what they can make from radio, because the radio
industry been a if it's to the tune of fourteen
billion dollars from music now, as we know with the
radio companies out there, if we go into the major
(03:11):
radio companies and the fact that they're getting these fourteen
billion dollars a year from music, are they doing anything
with that money. Let's just make the point here. The
debt holdings right now currently of iHeartMedia is five point
eight seven billion dollars as of September twenty twenty five.
(03:31):
And remember what they've done so far is reduce their
debt from their initial Chapter eleven bankruptcy by four hundred
and forty million dollars. That's all they take it. So
it's not like they're paying their debt. It's not like
they're doing too much with that money. They're just kind
of holding onto it. I mean, and I guess if
(03:52):
they need that much to go and operate their stations.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
I don't know. Odyssey.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
We talked about their bankruptcy last year. They filed for
Chapter eleven January of last year, came out of it
in September of last year. And their death figure three
hundred and fifty million dollars, Cueless, Meetup, Cimulus Media, excuse me,
seven hundred and twenty two million dollars. Those top three
(04:17):
companies they own music radio stations and a good bulk
of the music radio stations out there. And as we know,
this is all because which and I continue to go
ahead and try to give Ben the doubt to the
Ben to the radio industry, because I've talked to people,
and you know, I hear some of those major radio
players and what they had they're going to do to
(04:38):
try to keep things moving and to do what they
had to do with the hand they were given with
the amount of debt that they have.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
So the high debt levels.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Were accrued because of the leverage biots and mergers conducted
years ago, a secutor decline in traditional broadcast advertising revenue
and ads spending shifts the digital platform.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
So keep this in mind.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
They might be losing money on advertising, but where are
they benefiting on the other side music. So if this
American Music Fairness Act were to pass, we know that
the smaller market radio stations that might make not even
more than a million dollars a year, they would be
(05:19):
able to go ahead and pay maybe five hundred dollars
a year for the rights to have all the music
they want to play on their station, which is a
bargain I see along with the support of Sound Exchange
Michael Helpy. I heard his interview with Christian Robbinson on
the Billboard on the Record podcast.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
I'd suggest you listen to it.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
We know that for iHeartRadio, that's the part they've had
about the buyouts and mergers. Odysty also going through a
massive deleveraging design to give the committee the strongest balance
sheet in the industry going forward. But remember before their
bankruptcy in twenty eighteen, they were as high as twenty
billion dollars in debt.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
For all that they have.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Now into the story about what Gene Simmons did and
how he spoke on behalf of music, and for me,
I have to say that this is very important that music
can make the difference right now for the radio industry
to shape up and I'll give it like this. I
would be okay with the trade off if the SCC
(06:20):
is going to drop the ownership caps on whatever media
traditionally linear that any media company wants to get newspaper, television, radio.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
You want to go ahead and.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Say that the Internet is your competition, and that your
competition is not based on the other competiting competing companies
that you have that are also operating their own media properties.
Non you're gonna say it's the Internet that's hurting us. Fine,
so then let the music, the American Music Various Act
(06:57):
pass in return for the ownership caps eliminated. That's a
fair trade off to me, because then what would happen
is that fourteen billion dollar lifeline that radio has relied
on for years. And keep this in mind to Michael
(07:18):
Huppy actually says, I'm the on a record podcast about
the fact of how other countries are able to go
ahead and give fair music payments and royalties to their outlets.
They do that now, and that's wonderful for them. So
I want to actually play a little bit of what
Michael Herby actually said on that interview with Christian Romison,
(07:42):
because I think it was very important what he said
and what came from it. Now, Kristen poses a question
based on an example of a radio campaign done by
a music label to promote an artist after they went
viral on social media and wherever else in streaming, and
I think what she brings up here and what Michael
(08:02):
Heppy actually says is very important. So this is from
Billboard on the Record. Here's Chris Dromison with Michael Huppy.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
Ahead of this interview, I was talking to some friends
of mine who work at record labels, a couple of
people who run indie labels specifically, and asking them about
have you done a radio campaign before, what is it like?
And there's this one indie label guy who was telling
me about how he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars
taking one of his songs to radio. It was really
starting to go viral on TikTok, then it went really
(08:30):
well on streaming services, and they decided to take it
to radio, thinking that it was going to be viable
there as well, and it did end up being a
huge radio hit. But they spent hundreds of thousands of
dollars to try to promote that song at radio. And
then he said that he doesn't plan on ever doing
that again, even if a song raises its hand like
this one did, because he was saying, I haven't seen
(08:51):
a dollar in return for from radio stations for the
promotion that we put into it. And of course that
artist is or not, of course, but this artist in
this situation was also the songwriter, so she's been being
paid as a songwriter. But on the artist's side, on
the record label side, they haven't seen any money, although
they put up the marketing costs, I guess. And I
(09:14):
thought that was a really interesting way to look at it,
and to hear that he was thinking about never doing
a radio campaign again was fascinating to me.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Now keep this in mind too, music labels, as we've
seen over the last couple of years, have eliminated their
radio promotional divisions because who wants to go ahead and
put promotional dollars into a secondary market. And that's because
radio is accepting the fact that they're a secondary market
(09:46):
for music at this point. If you have a song
that's a single or trying to push out an album,
are you going to get that much in sales to
get the artists some help? I mean, the thing is
you got to think about what's the promotion going to
lead to. Is it going to help that artist if
(10:06):
they're in concert in that particular local market and it
really doesn't do anything, or is it going to gin
up sales and it looks like it doesn't. But wouldn't
that be amazing if when you get the royalties that
are coming in from the music, it's not going to
(10:28):
be the returnal investment based on what the artists get
for hopefully what they'll get ancillary from what the radio
stations are doing for them, but actually that the promotion
of the music on the radio the royaltists will make
for that will actually give them a reason to say, Okay,
we can't just put money into you thinking we're going
(10:50):
to get return some returnal investment if we know we're
already making money from you. The music labels, would you
would think want to play ball more with radio and
radio could be much more of a viable market. I
think it's a big deal. So here's what Michael help
you had responded to.
Speaker 5 (11:11):
It is interesting and you know, radio used to be
much more promotional, I would argue than it is today,
back in the sixties and seventies. You know, Wolfman Jack
and that P word that you mentioned earlier, you know, Paola,
radio is how you got out there. Connections with radio
and contacts at radio were important getting on playlists at
(11:32):
one point of just individual influential DJs. As radio consolidated,
it became more of a getting on corporate playlist as
they you know, feed it out to their affiliates. I
would argue today radio's you know, much more of a
follower than a leader if you look.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
And he's right, and I've said this for years. They
are the flea market. They are the secondary market. They
don't care about being first with music. They want to
be there when the music is absolutely positively going to
benefit them for listenership, to their ads, to their sponsors,
that's it. But without any physical units for a record
(12:13):
label to go ahead and rely on radio to sell,
then radio doesn't have any purpose because radio promotion doesn't
do anything for them. To just generate them to go to.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Streaming is.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Antithetical to what they're looking for. So radio doesn't serve
a purpose right now. Radio would serve a purpose if
the royalties were standing to get kicked in.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
The music industry would pay.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
Attention to radio again for once, and because radio would
have to be obligated to pay the royalties out now
to the artists and the songwriters. Then they're gonna have
(13:05):
to play with each other again. You're going to force
the hand of radio companies to say, okay, for our
radio stations to term profit, we can't just give up
that money that we're making off of music. We have
to monetize now the music we're playing. We're still not
getting ad sales. But what we can do is we
(13:25):
can get these record labels to start buying ass from
us again and a return, put some money back in
from the royalties they're making for the artists, for the songwriters,
and whatever cut they're gonna.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
Get off of that.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
I think that's a good win win situation. But with
the lobbying of the NAB, the National Association of Broadcasters,
so of course they don't want to do that.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
They don't want to have that at all.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
One other sections of this art this interview I wanted
to play as well, thought I thought was very important,
was about the idea that music now is multi generate,
multi genre, because we don't have a lot of streaming
music that's going viral that fits a predicular genre and
(14:12):
that's true.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
I agree with that part. So what do you do now.
Speaker 3 (14:18):
When you have artists that are getting very popular but
radio can't find a place for it. You're not going
to put a square peg in a round hole.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
So what are you going to do with that?
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Next?
Speaker 4 (14:30):
It could to end off our conversation. I wanted to
make sure that we touched on the American Music Fairness Act.
This is something that you've been working on for a
while now, So can you tell us about what the
American Music Fairness Act is?
Speaker 5 (14:41):
Sure the American coming full circle? Yes, As a good
storyteller that you are, I try. We started off talking about,
you know, trust Radio not paying AMPHA is a bill
supported by Sound Exchange and the Whole Music First Coalition
to basically try to get FM radio to pay for
the sound record the same way every other platform and
(15:03):
the same way every other country does. It's basically it's
a basic fairness issue. Radio makes fourteen billion dollars a
year off the recordings that drive their business and they
share none of it with the artists.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Now, there's some more that goes into the story here
that Michael Helpy actually rerings up. And that's where if
it was going to damage local radio as a result.
So now after he explains the royalty issue, that the
larger corporate radio stations are going to be the ones
that had to pay the bigger part of the bill
(15:36):
out of that cut of fourteen billion dollars that they're
not paying towards those artists and songwriters. That's where the
question is about if the local radio station is going
to be affected by it.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
And he explains that.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Now Senator Marshall Blackburn from Tennessee speaks with Genie Simmons
and starts talking about where things are with radio today.
And this is just a good example of just understanding
where things are in the realm of radio and how
far back this goes that artists had not gotten their
(16:08):
fair share from radio. So here's Marshall Blackburn here tossing
it to gene Simmons. Now who's also going to be
introjecting into this conversation. Here is Henry Hinton, president and
CEO of Interbanks Media, who's on the side for radio stations. Now,
before I get into this, Marshall Blackburn is important because
(16:32):
of the fact that what she was doing earlier this
year trying to get payola taken care of in Nashville
where we had talked about. I think it was back
in March or April that country artists were being forced
by radio stations to play live concerts which the radio
stations were actually paying, you know, and getting customers to
go and pay for tickets that the artist was not
(16:55):
going to make any money from. But they had to
go and do that on a Nashville radio station in
order for them music to get played on the radio
and in music grow, and in Nashville, country radio still
is very important for music. So I want to play
a long clip here. This is with Senator Marshall Blackburndon Tennessee,
Henry Hinton, and Kiss frontman Gene Simmons. So here's Gene
(17:18):
Simmons starting off first.
Speaker 6 (17:21):
I was happy to see many of you this Sunday
where Kiss, our little band, was honored at the Kennedy
Center with President Trump. I'm proud to say I first
met President Trump years before he got into politics, and
I'm happy to remind everyone here in this room that
(17:41):
our President Trump signed the Music Modernization Act in twenty eighteen.
This bill updated copyright protection for the digital era. The
world is changing. We've got to stay ahead of the curve,
and legislators need to be informed on all of these things, because,
(18:04):
let's face it, you do the work of the people.
We elect you, and we hope and we expect you
to do the will of the people. I'm grateful to
President Trump for his leadership on issues important to our artists, past, present,
and future. I'm here to kindly ask all of you,
(18:25):
both Republicans and Democrats, to help us remedy a situation
an injustice. Let's call it for what it is, an
injustice that's been ongoing for many, many decades. I'm going
to tell you what I mean. Bing Crosby recorded perhaps
one of the biggest songs of all time, White Christmas.
(18:48):
What's more American than that? Written by Irving Berlin. It's
been on radio AM and FM later FM, originally an
AM millions of times every Christmas. We and around the
world are listening to I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas.
(19:09):
That's America's song. Everyone received money, the radio station sold advertising,
The plumber who fixed the plumbing got paid, everybody the
disc jockey got paid. The only person that was never
played for the airplay was Bing Crosby, which is astonishing
(19:30):
and I want to talk about why this is called
the American.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Music.
Speaker 6 (19:38):
You got to stop their American Music Fairness Act. Yes,
it's an act that's fair because there isn't fairness ongoing
right now, but it's American music.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
So the thing is now going forward on this bing
crosby the fact that that song White Christmas is a
song that is one of those many songs that will
chart in the season constantly, but the fact he never
gets to get paid for that. Let's talk about the
songs too, Little Drimmer Boy when he did that song
with David Bowie, the radio is not paying for that.
(20:11):
The music modernization that just to go back into that
part twenty eighteen updating copyright and mechanical license for digital
age so that any songs pre nineteen seventy two, those
artists would finally get to earn royalties for those recordings.
So that was the first part that came into that,
and that was a good change for artists that we're
(20:32):
not making back on the royalties. They can go through
the performance Writes Royalty Associate organizations like csack ASAP ASK
KABAC or BMI. Excuse me, but now what we're at
this point is we have to continue to go ahead
and open the doors for more royalties that should be
(20:56):
fairly paid to the musicians, those artist songwriters, all that atogether,
and of course the music label should be happy to
go and get that cut of theirs too, because they
probably want to be entitled to as well. And the
thing is, the more those songs are being played, the
more royalties being paid. We should see more of that.
(21:17):
I think it's very important we go and see something
like that coming in from here's more Gene Simmons.
Speaker 6 (21:25):
Earld Ore, Elvis and Frank Sinatra, that is who. And
then when they find out we're not treating our stars right,
in other words, worse than slaves. Slaves get food and water,
Elvis and Bing Crosby and Sinatra got nothing for their performance.
It got to change this now for our children and
(21:46):
our children's children. And I know you will. The President
will sign this once all you guys respectfully get your
act together and put this across the board. Let's do
the right thing. God bless Americaister, thank you, mister Simmons,
Senator Blackburn, I'm going to let you take my first time.
Speaker 7 (22:05):
Absolutely. Thank you so much, mister chairman, Thank you each
for your testimony. Mister Hinton, I want to come to
you first. I guess you could probably imagine that I've
worked with the NAB for years trying to get them
to agree to a template like we have. I want
to clear up a couple of things. You mentioned in
(22:26):
your testimony that this would cause harm. Let me ask
you this. Not paying artists for their sound, their voice
being on radio. They're getting zero money. Do you think
that causes harm to the artist?
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Well, senator, thank you for that question.
Speaker 7 (22:44):
Don't say thank you for the question. Through this hit
each something my time, go ahead, all right, quickly.
Speaker 6 (22:51):
The reality is we American radio reaches seventy nine percent
of Americans every week.
Speaker 8 (22:58):
Two hundred and twenty six million people listen to radio
every week.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
But the problem that we have I.
Speaker 7 (23:03):
Ask you about causing harm, not about your audience. So
let me move on, because you are causing harm. You're
causing You've got an oldies station, you've never paid Sam
Moore's a state a dime for soul Man, and I
bet you you use that is bumper music a good bet.
And you talk about being a free service, your free service,
(23:26):
do your advertisers look at you and say free service.
The answer to that is no, they don't because they're
paying what you say is the rate. And the more
listeners you have, the more they're going to pay you
for that advertising. And the better music that you play
(23:47):
that people actually want to hear, then the more you're
going to be able to charge them. If we shut
down all the music, you wouldn't have anything but a
talk station. So I think we need to realize that. Also,
you talked about being on the air for emergencies. The
FCC requires you, they have that override when there is
(24:11):
an emergency. You did not do that out of the
goodness of your heart. You do that because you are
mandated to do that, and thereby you provide that public service,
and we appreciate that our radio stations do that. I
would also remind you that when you talk about being
(24:33):
a partnership between the artists and the radio stations, there
is a new form of payola that is out there,
and it's called having these artists do private shows for
your advertisers, again, so that your worth is more to
your advertisers. So indeed, it's kind of lopsided because there
(24:59):
making nothing and you're making millions of dollars you and
your son started this business not to be charity, but
to make a profit and to serve your communities and
to allow local radio and for football games you have advertisers. Again,
(25:20):
you're providing a service, but you're being paid. The people
that do not get paid are the performers.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Perfectly said, she knows what she's talking about. She's investigated
the issues in Nashville on music grow of radio stations
like mister Hintons where they even benefiting all the musicians
not only not paying for the royalties, but also using
them to leverage for their own worth to advertisers and
to make money off of them, holding them over the calls,
(25:53):
bribing them that they have to go ahead and comply
or else serve means doesn't get played, especially when new
country for stations out there.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Very important.
Speaker 3 (26:01):
Now when you look at the sponsorship of this American
Music Fairness Act, this is the one thing you're also
going to think about too. For anybody with a political sense,
I'm gonna take the political aspect here and talk about
it right now. So the original sponsor of the bill
hr A sixty one is darryl Isa, Republican in California.
(26:22):
Now with the co sponsors. There are eleven, nine Democrats,
two Republicans. Now, listen, if there's one thing I can
say that I can agree with, and any of these
politicians right now is co sponsoring this bill. And look
at the bill sponsors right now on this The co
sponsors are Gerald Nadler, Democrat, New York, Mark Green Republican Tennessee,
(26:48):
Toma Clintock, Republican California. The rest are Democrats, Ted Lieu
of California, Lloyd Doggett, Texas, Jimmy Raskin Maryland, Julia Browne California,
jd qu California, Primeilejaiah Paul Washington, State Lower Freeman California,
Dwight Evans Pennsylvania. All within that time they are all
co sponsors as bill by partisan, as crazy. This is
(27:12):
something that I would love out of anything that can
be passed this year. I mean, yeah, we could have
other things. You know, we're going into the new year.
This week's something I think would be very important. It
embodies so many different things. You want the free market
to work. Then you cannot let radio stations of a
(27:33):
large size. And this is also you know, mister Hinton
here he owns you know, it's a local radio station
he owns, but he is also using it for his
own just to get his advertisers that he wants and
leverage off of that. I mean, just like any good
radio station owner. Sure the advertisers are there, but the
responsible stations that are out there, they're doing well. They
know more than anything that they rely on the music
(27:56):
being played. If you're playing popular music twenty percent of
what your station is operating on.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
If you don't have that, what do you got.
Speaker 3 (28:05):
Remember these stations also not relying too much on talent.
They don't want to have people that are introducing the
songs or saying anything in between the records. They don't
want to do it either, So they just wanted the
music play out like a jukebox. Well, if that's the case,
then you're relying on the music itself, and all that
music that you play, you're not paying for it. It's time
(28:27):
to start paying. It's time to start paying. So I
like where that's all going right there, Martia bikers on
top of it, and it's time for this to go
in and finally get to a certain point.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Among other people, I mean.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
The people in this subcommittee, by the way, some of
the names in here that are also on the subcommittee,
they are really you know, they're polarizing figures in politics
that we see. If you're watching ms NOW, Fox News, CNN, whatever,
you know these names. What's very important to me is
(29:06):
they're all in lockstep with an interest in this subject.
I don't see any of them in support of these
big corporate radio stations.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
It's not.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Adam schiffrom California. He jumps in on this with his time.
Let's put a little bit of that with Geene Simmons
and the folks here in this subcommittee.
Speaker 6 (29:27):
Really need this. These pennies when they get heard as
their career starts on radio, but there's no income, how
do they get there? How do they get claw their
way up to the top with the help of radio.
And again I'm not here to demonize mister Hinton or
the radio stations. We need each other. Performers need radio,
(29:49):
radio needs performers. But for God's sakes, equitable doesn't mean
you get zero. And radio makes fourteen billion dollars just
this last year. That's not equitable. I know it's a
big word like gymnasium, but come on, Hinton, let's get
with it. Let's let's become America.
Speaker 7 (30:09):
Thank you, mister Chairman, Senner.
Speaker 8 (30:11):
Chef, thank you, miss Chairman, and thank you to my
colleague Alex Padia for this legislation. Appreciate all of you
testifying today. Mister Simmons. I want to ask you about
the song Beth, but you're not here for that, so
I'm not going to And I love that song. I
(30:31):
love all your songs, and thank you for bringing my
Kuzumano constituents with you. What I like to ask you.
You've been obviously performing for quite a while. When you
began your career, there was a kind of understanding that
I think was the rationale for this injustice, that well,
if radio stations are playing your music, you're getting advertising
(30:53):
where people are buying your albums. Obviously, the industry has
completely changed and the way people access music has completely changed.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
But if you could talk a.
Speaker 8 (31:02):
Little bit about how the industry has evolved and what
it means today not to be compensated, that is, I
would imagine whatever promotional value you get of your songs
played in the radio doesn't somehow create enough recompense to
make up for the lack of being paid for those
songs being played on the radio.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Question.
Speaker 6 (31:21):
Well, first and foremost, what you say is so. But
I want to cut to the chase, which is when
we first began. We were four knuckleheads off the streets
of New York who could barely spell, read or write.
We just happened by ourselves. We never knew no one.
Artists are not qualified to understand the business model. We
(31:43):
didn't have a business manager. I didn't know that once
you get a song that goes on radio, radio is
not going to pay you to play the song. But
they will have the right. I will say this again.
They have the right to use our name and likeness.
And you're talking about trademarks, use my trademark without my permission.
Otherwise I'm going to take your house and you're first born,
(32:05):
Are you kidding me? So? Radio uses billboards across the
country's highways of America to promote the radio stations so
that people will tune into their station because they are
hearing our voice on their stations, so they can sell
advertising and more power to you. You should be making
more money, become more successful. But the new artists are
(32:27):
not going to get their fair shake. They're barely Record
companies left the entire music industries in disarray, and all
these pennies are so important, especially for tomorrow's stars who
are being born today.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
He makes a great point because I can't say how
many times I would see that there are still radio
stations that will advertise on billboards on buses, on you
know bus stations, you know, the benches and all that
kind of stuff. And when I do, when they're promoting themselves,
you might see the slogan or the tagline of the station,
(33:03):
but they always have the artists that they play constantly
in their advertising. And you know, when I look at
any pop station, I mean always thinking about Wild I
ninety five five here on a Westbalm Beach o market,
and I remember seeing for years, every like every February,
I would see, for at least a month at a time,
(33:25):
maybe like twice a year, you would see the billboards out.
Sometimes you would just see the logo Today's hit music.
But then if you got to see a longer rap
on a bus or you know, taxi or.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Whatever it was, you'd see, oh here on.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
A Grande and Ed Sheeran and you know Taylor Swift,
and yeah, they're not getting paid to get their likenesses
putting put on those vehicles for advertising.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
They're not making the money off of it.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
There's probably not even any judgment or any input from
the record label as to what they're allowed to go
and use the likeness of those artists, because they can
basically just pick what do they want. They can find
that the graphics artists and that graphics artist for that
radio station or the marketing company, they just go ahead
and put whatever they want up.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
There to promote it.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
But if you don't have Orana Grande, Taylor Swift, Ed
Sheeron or whohere else on there, they might not Those
artists are gonna sell the music for that radio station
to people to go listen to it, and here the
advertisers in between those songs. I never even really put
that together, thinking about like how much radio is benefiting
(34:34):
not just from the music but also from the marketing it.
It's not like I didn't notice it, but I never
had it where I finally got the gun. Hear that
out loud, and so what Adam Schift here is asking
and what Gene Simmons is coming out with is extremely important,
which is where I think more and more when I
(34:54):
heard this subcommittee and I didn't get to hear the
whole thing, but I will when I get time. I
want to go in, go back and just hear the
whole thing, because I caught some of it when was live,
but I wanted to hear the whole thing once again
because I think there when I hear what Gene Simmons
is saying to this whole panel of a bipartisan committee
of senators, it's obvious the SENEC can go ahead and
(35:18):
go forward and get the votes needed to get this
AMFA put to vote, and President Trump will sign it.
For the music industry, I don't see how there could
be a lot of opposition from people in the regular public.
I think everyone out there that's a music fan, they
want to see the artists get paid. Radio is a
(35:40):
place that needs to have that happen. It's extremely important.
So we're now with Gen Simmonson. We're gonna go and
move along and we'll get some discussion of what the
NAB is saying back after this happened. But here's more
of Gene Simmons.
Speaker 6 (35:55):
This is for our children and for our children's children.
We can't just let them out in the cold and
not have a way to get paid for their hard work.
Speaker 8 (36:05):
Thank you, mister Huppy. I know when your son was
very young young he ran for school office with the
theme song Don't Worry be Huppy. This was brilliant, by
the way, that is correct. But when that song is
played on a streaming service, you're able to identify where
the royalty should go, and as the chair was saying,
(36:26):
do so very rapidly, very quick order. Let's say that
song is played on terrestrial radio. Are there any challenges
to be being able to determine when that's being played
providing the same kind of mechanism for compensation that you
do with the streaming services.
Speaker 5 (36:42):
The mechanics behind doing that, Senator would not be that
difficult at all, as as you well know, we already
receive much of the data about plays and artists and
songs when almost all of these FM stations rebroadcast online.
So in a way we're already paying for the digital
(37:02):
part of their business, and the the FM part of
their business is the much larger part fourteen billion dollars
a year, and the mechanics of getting the payments out
would be quite doable.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
Thick, So the structure to do this is easy Sound
Exchange already does this because they are monetizing and getting
royalties back for all the streaming music from the streaming
radio stations, and we don't even talk about those. Serious
exam also pays their share because of Sound Exchange, Like
there's a thing where the data is already available because
(37:35):
all these stations stream online, and if they don't, they
have to still find a way to go and do it.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
But still the bigger radio.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
Stations that we're trying to make the money off of,
they're already out there online streaming. So to find out
what songs are being played, it can be determined, and
so there's not any kind of infrastructure that needs to
be built to make this work. All they have to
do is just say, okay, the rules of change radio.
You have to start taking a percentage of that fourteen
(38:04):
billion dollars and giving it back the artists. And if
I remember reading or listening to Michael Hubbies interview with
Christian Robinson on Billboard on the Record, he mentioned that
I believe they already give out about a billion dollars
a year. Imagine if you increase that to what Spotify
does or what Apple Music gives out. I think Spotify
(38:25):
gives up four billion dollars every year. That's worldwide.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
But imagine if you're.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Getting that kind of amount that could peaceably come from this.
Let's say we get three four million dollars two artists
in America on top of everything else, imagine that kind
of money that could be brought in. That's a livelihood
for a lot of these artists out there especially, And
then you want to encourage younger artists to go and
(38:52):
continue to thrive if they knew they had that extra
monetary pipeline. That's not just oh you know when I
heard what Ralph Sutton, we had the interview I played
a few weeks back, and he describes about the fact that, oh, well,
you know, if you're an artist, if you go ahead
and find a group of people, like a thousand people
to go and watch you at a concert, you put
(39:13):
your band together, and you can make money off of that,
off the CDs, you sell whatever, this and that. Imagine
if they had that extra value of getting their songs
on radio and knowing the worlds who's gonna be coming
in for that? Because then the other thing is to
when you change this law, the artists are gonna want
(39:36):
us try to play more to radio because they know
they're gonna make money off of it. Then radio becomes
important because it's not just for the singles that get
pushed out on streaming that'll make some money off of that.
I think the quality of the music is better, and
the amount of music that people are making out there
because more important. Because right now in the age of streaming,
(39:57):
have we noticed how inconsistent artists are now to go
ahead and put out music. I mean, look at twenty
twenty five alone. We talked about the year in music
last week of the program, and think about how many
songs or how many artists came out with music all
the same time. They all, okay, let's just just drop
all the music now. In October Doja Cat, Sabrina Carver
(40:17):
to Tayl Swift, they all dropped Cardi B and you know,
whatever happens. If they could have played at different times,
they all did it because it was that end of
the year time and like that was I guess they
thought would be the right time to go ahead and
drop music to hopefully ben to themselves. I don't know
(40:38):
if it's for tours, I don't know if it's for
whatever else. But if they knew that radio was a
constant place for their music to always pay them back,
because that's the other part too, it's year round income.
Now we'll finally go back to these artists. That's a
big deal too. What about if there's an artist that
(41:02):
gets a song that goes viral and you know, they
haven't heard anything for them in years, and then radio
decides to start paying it, and then those world two
start going to those artists. Now that I am endormant
for a while, they'll go back and start performing. Able'll
start recording some new music. Maybe the record labels will
actually start putting a little more interest into this. And
(41:25):
I think if this act were to come in, artist
repertoire would come back, and radio promotion departments would probably
get funded again. Maybe all that can actually happen. That
would be a wonderful thing. There's more to it, but
you know, if you get a chance, I would definitely
recommend it. Go and listen to the entire testimony. I
(41:46):
will do that myself, because I only got so much
that I could get done for the program tonight, I
had go and you know, watch the Buccaneers Timba play
on THURSDA night football and lose. They're a disappointing, which
is kind of shaking me up where I had to
go and do this thing.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
Either which way.
Speaker 3 (42:02):
The NAB coming back to response on this and ITSI
Radio reports on this subcommittee cheer. Tom Tillis, Republican of
North Carolina, thinks there's interested that the poor turnout is
stronger because there might not have been a lot of
people that were in the chamber to listen to its
(42:22):
seventy five minute herey, but still lawmakers are interested in this.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
And that.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
Senator Tillo says there's a growing sense in Congress that
the issue needs to be resolved out of seventeen years.
So now what we have so far is a quarter
of the Senate and two hundred and sixteen House members
a near majority, have gone on the record opposing any
copyright law revisions impacting AMFM airplay backers of a new
(42:54):
field of stations point to the don by any nature
of the resolution, but it's effectively stopped legislation from advanced
for years, and ge Simmons would say that it's an
archaic injustice been around for a long time. If you
work hard, you should get paid. I'm out here to
demonize radio stations. We need each other, but one of
those two is making a fortune and the other one
doing all the hard.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
Work is getting zipped. And a good distinction to here.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
From my copy in that hearing saying that whose organization
would likely collect the royalties dismissed the promotional angle that
Henry Hinton would put out there, saying that promotion that
radio stations provide us phenomenal and it continues to be
phenomenal because he said that lawmakers telling him that sports
leagues presumably get the same promotion when stations their games,
(43:41):
but no one is suggesting broadcasters not pay for sports rights.
I don't know why music should be any different.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
End quote.
Speaker 3 (43:49):
And when they talk about the countries that will continue
to pay as well for the music, Michael Hubby actually
explains that Russia and China they pay their pay artists
for the royalties, but the countries that do not are
North Carolina, North Korea, around and Cuba. And because we
don't pay for artists for radio in the US, other
(44:11):
countries use that as an excuse to avoid paying Americans.
It's gotten so bad that countries like France will actually
collect American royalties. You give those royal piats to French artists.
So Americans are losing out one hundreds of million dollars
millions of dollars over seriars of a year on top
of the losing here at home. So actually Senator Jose
(44:32):
Padia and Blackburne officially introduced the bill and there have
been sponsors as a result, as we talked about, as well,
multiple hearings, bill and reintroductions. But this was the biggest
public moment would be seen so far, with Gene Simmons
testifying in front of Congress in this subcommittee. I think
(44:53):
it goes a long way, just like Frank Zeba did
against the PMRC for censorship. I think it's very important
we see that. We want to go into a couple
of different things, a little bit of rapid fire. I
want to call this now on the program because there's
so much that goes on that we never really get
into as much. But I think it's very important to
(45:14):
go and just run through the stories. When I got
the time real quick, so I'm going to start calling
this rapid fire. So Spotify expands music videos in beta
to premium. Users in the US and Canada have not
seen that yet, but Maybe it'll happen with new Music Friday,
but they are now. I've already introduced music videos in
beta in the nearly one hundred markets, and a recent survey
(45:36):
has said that more than seventy percent of users saving
more video content would enhance their experience on Spotify. Now
premium users will get the gun here and visualize the
music videos, and there will be an initially limited catalog
of music videos from artists Ariana Grande, Olivia, Dean Baby, Monster,
Addis Ray, Taller, Childers Na tell You, natangil Gano, and
(45:57):
gari Leone. So they'll build more of that music video
library coming up very soon. Some new stats about podcast
advertising ads spending has tripled to six billion dollars at
the first half of twenty twenty five versus the earlier period.
AMFM radio still accounts for two thirds of ad support
of radio audio time among adults twenty five to fifty four.
(46:17):
Podcasts come behind at eighteen percent, streaming audio twelve percent,
satellite radio three percent. Another quick story coming in from
Hollywood Reporter about how movie theaters could fill more seats again. Well,
first of all, do not let Netflix take over Warner Brothers.
Let's start with that, But then there are some of
(46:38):
the things they put into the story.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
They say that.
Speaker 3 (46:42):
They say the key benefits for the movie theaters. In
this realm of a deluge of good enough content out there,
anyone can compete, but not everyone can compete profitably. They're
saying that it's immersion, spectacle and shared experiences. So the
recommendations are focusing on premium experience. Is this community personalization
and partnerships. And then finally on the program, thought this
(47:07):
was kind of interesting. So you know, how do you
have the Robin Hood stocks, the meme stalks and all
that kind of stuff. Well that's happening right now. I
don't know why, but apparently Beasley Media Group is falling
into that room right now because their stocks are three
hundred and twelve percent as a meme buy from four
(47:27):
dollars thirty two cents earlier this week to up to
sixteen dollars sixty nine cents. I mean, I don't think
it's gonna make much of a difference then, but hey,
good for them anyway. I wish they could use that
money towards the royalties you're gonna have to pay the
radio stations anyway.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
Come back next week for the Broadcasters Podcast.
Speaker 3 (47:45):
Because content is king, and the control of your content
is in your hands.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Two Guys, Five Rings: Matt, Bowen & The Olympics
Two Guys (Bowen Yang and Matt Rogers). Five Rings (you know, from the Olympics logo). One essential podcast for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. Bowen Yang (SNL, Wicked) and Matt Rogers (Palm Royale, No Good Deed) of Las Culturistas are back for a second season of Two Guys, Five Rings, a collaboration with NBC Sports and iHeartRadio. In this 15-episode event, Bowen and Matt discuss the top storylines, obsess over Italian culture, and find out what really goes on in the Olympic Village.