Column: Radio's greatest threat: H.R. 848

If you have recently listened to the radio, then you have probably heard something about a "performance tax" that could kill radio stations.

Wow! This sounds really bad, right?

Well, there is more to this issue than what it may seem.

This "tax" is actually not a tax, but rather royalties radio stations would have to pay to musicians for using their songs on the air under a reworded, previous bill, HR 848 or the "Performance Rights Act."

Currently radio stations are not required to pay for using a singer's songs, but that would change under this bill, which was pushed for by lobbyists of the music industry.

Personally, I feel that this bill is a vain attempt by the artists and music companies to increase their already large revenues.

I think radio stations are responsible for any of the revenue the music industry brings in.

Let me illustrate my point.

Let's say that Coke has just come up with an even better tasting product SuperCoke (please note that there is no such thing as SuperCoke and that I am using it simply as a rhetorical device in a hypothetical situation).

Coke wants to market SuperCoke, contacts the television stations, airs a few commercials, and, after SuperCoke commercial have become so popular, they demand that the televisions stations pay for the right to air the SuperCoke commercials.

Does this seem right? Should the TV stations have to pay for the right to air promotions for Coke's product?

No. Coke is using the televisions stations to advertise for their product, and therefore should pay the television to broadcast their advertisements.

Now, it may not seem connected to radio and royalties, but it is an analogy between the two.

The artists create their products, their songs and albums, and the radio stations provide an outlet for these singers to advertise their albums by using singles released from the album.

So, in essence, under H.R. 848, artists would be receiving payment for a service they should be paying radio stations for.

Given that radio stations offer this wide-spread advertisement for free, the artists and their record labels should be happy that they don't have to pay for this service.

Also, most radio stations do run on a small budget, and having to pay royalty fees to an untold amount of artists for their songs would damage an already strained money pool.

We all have a stake in this since most of us listen to the radio at some point during the day, and, if the stations die, we no longer have something to break the monotonous car drive, listening for weather reports, and other important things.

Therefore, I encourage you all to, if nothing else, research more on this bill, make your own decision and try and persuade your representatives in Congress.

Hopefully, you will see that this is an unnecessary bill that would actually hurt our local stations, cutting off our access to the new music that comes out for our enjoyment.

More information about HR 848 can be found at www.congress.org/congressorg/issue/bills and searching the bill; also, the addresses and contact information for our local Terre Haute and Indiana representatives are listed here on this page.