Long time readers know I’ve pointed to the metric of “Look at music stations switching to talk or sports” as a metric of whether the NAB is going to lose the “Performance tax” battle. If the thing passes, then those who switched early will have already lined up the better sports talk networks or talk hosts.
The NAB’s CEO floated the idea of offering a 1% of net revenues royalty in exchange for a wish list of things the Copyright Board has no power to mandate (like FM receivers in all cell phones). This was the first crack in the wall of the position that “We will not pay for music” – that proposal has reportedly caused some serious arguments within the NAB between its members and its leaders. Just as a comparison, Sirius/XM is paying 6-8% of gross revenues for music rights.
In the past few days, there have been a flurry of stations changing to sports. Congress is back in session. The FCC is also on the brink of turning over unused TV spectrum for “Super WiFi”. The NAB appears to not have the strings on power it used to have. Streaming of Pandora now exceeds all of “over the air” radio combined. Is it a mystery why no lending institution will even return phone calls from people wanting to borrow money for the radio business?
We need more control! More control, damn it!!
Radio One is again way over the “brink of default” in the last few days. The bankers / bondholders are scared to foreclose because Radio One employs Al Sharpton. Having Reverand Al mad at you is bad business.