Consumers have never had access to more music. There seems to be universal agreement about that. If you’re a music fan or a member of Congress who represents music fans, you’ve got to figure that something about the current system must be working.
The digital revolution has been just that – revolutionary. Business models have felt the seismic shifts, including the music industry. That’s not a bad thing. Not unless, of course, you’re one of the businesses that enjoyed protected status and benefited from limited competition under the old regime.
{mosads}Digital distribution of music has been a homerun for listeners, with more and more choices, no matter how they may consume music. That’s partly because the record labels can no longer get away with dictating the terms by which consumers get music. Does anybody want to go back to the days when you had to buy an entire album, eight-track or CD to get the one song you really wanted?
Earlier this week, Recording Industry Association of America’s CEO Cary Sherman lamented those bygone days when record labels raked in money hand-over-fist. The truth is that when music fans had the chance to break free from the recording industry’s blatantly anti-consumer policies, they did. And with gusto.
Sherman decried several new coalitions, including the MIC Coalition – a broad coalition whose members range from Amazon, Google and Pandora to the National Restaurant Association, the National Retail Federation and, yes, broadcasters. He rages that one of the members of the MIC Coalition garners revenues ten times that of the entire recording industry. And, his point is? Perhaps this unnamed MIC Coalition member or other members of the Coalition are serving the interests of consumers more efficiently and cost-effectively than his members did in the old days when they were the gatekeepers of music.
The Free Radio Alliance is not a member of the MIC Coalition, though some of our members are. But, we read the first and perhaps most fundamental principle of the MIC Coalition and thought it seemed pretty spot-on: “Music must be affordable and accessible so that consumers can continue to enjoy it, artists can be compensated for it, and the marketplace can continue to grow…”
Consumers have a limited willingness and ability to pay for music, which is why advertiser-supported models continue to thrive even while pay-only models exist, too. Now, not only are consumers in charge of what they listen to, but digital distribution has eliminated some of the “fat” in the industry. It’s gone and it’s not coming back. That’s why the record labels are trying so hard to get Congress to funnel millions of dollars more in radio station revenues to them.
Where does all this leave the artists that Sherman repeatedly calls out to be the face of his congressional campaign? Artists haven’t been suing radio stations to stop playing their music but a whole lot of them have been suing record labels for keeping too much of the money. If the record labels got everything they are asking Congress to give them, the bulk of the new found money would go to the labels, themselves, followed by big-name artists who already make millions. For the other 95 percent of artists, crumbs. Just like today.
Radio stations continue to be the most important way, by far, that artists are introduced to the fans who will buy their music, attend their concerts and purchase their merchandise. Artists and radio: that’s a partnership that’s more than 80-years strong.
Binzel is spokesperson for the Free Radio Alliance, a coalition advocating to keep radio and other businesses that play recorded music strong for communities across the nation by opposing a performance tax.