Recording industry: How about fixing your problems yourself? (You know, without bankrupting broadcasters.)

I see in the news today that the the FCC (in other words, the federal government) is going to investigate whether radio stations are refusing to play music by artists who support legislation aimed at forcing radio to pay royalties.  I don’t know if you’ve heard about this:  Suddenly, recording artists want radio to pay for playing their songs.  In other words, radio should pay the artists for the honor of providing said artists with free publicity.

A music coalition called musicFIRST (one of the biggest bullies and the jerks at the forefront of this mess) filed a petition a few months ago whining to the feds about it. They also cried that broadcasters are refusing to air their ads—ads intended to push their anti-radio agenda!

musicFIRST’s executive director said broadcasters are using public airwaves to—get this—“stifle debate, threaten artists & musicians, and undermine the public interest.” Completely laughable. Like a restaurant reserves the right to refuse service to anyone (like for instance, a loud drunk who would be bad for business), radio has the right to refuse ads aimed at damaging the broadcast industry.

This debate, the one musicFIRST says is being stifled, is playing out every single day in boardrooms and in the media. And now apparently, the federal government will be debating it too. I don’t see any “threat” to artists and musicians. In fact, what I can see is exactly the reverse: Artists and musicians are suddenly trying to turn this decades-old business model on its head for their own financial gain.  It’s a threat to the broadcast industry! And to say any of this “undermines public interest” is to knowingly and blatantly blow smoke up the public’s ass.

Let me break this down for you in a way artists and groups like musicFIRST are hoping you never comprehend. Radio has worked the same way for, like, ever. Artists record music and send it to radio. Radio plays the music if they want to, thereby offering the artist free promotion. True, radio makes money on advertising but that is (and has always been) the way the business works.  It’s a mutually exclusive situation.

But in modern days, with the advent of file-sharing and digital music sales (think iTunes, mp3.amazon.com, etc.), the recording industry finds itself in need of a new business model. Gone are the days of gouging the public by charging $18 for a CD that cost 50¢ to produce. But the recording industry has failed. Honestly, it doesn’t really seem like they’re trying. It simply decided to try to change the rules.

They are asserting that the free promotion isn’t enough.  This of course ignores decades of precedent which includes record companies begging—and even paying—to get radio to play the music (for free). The recording industry can no longer figure out how to make money…so they have turned on the broadcast industry and are demanding money from them!

The broadcast industry rightly balked at this ludicrous flip-flop so the recording industry went to the artists and got a bunch of them all riled up. I imagine the conversations may have sounded something like this:

Um, Bono. Hey. We noticed people aren’t so much “buying” your “records” anymore. And sure, you’re making tons of money off of touring—and sure, that’s pretty much how recording artists can expect to make money going forward—but do you realize you could make more money if radio had to pay you every time they play one of your songs? Wait. Hold up. Hear me out. Why should they get to use your stuff for free? Just because that’s the way it’s worked since before you were born? That’s no reason, Bono. Look, you’re not making money off of record sales anymore so you need another form of income to supplement the $100 million you’ve already made for your current tour–which started less than a month ago. More money, Bono! More money! See? Yeah. Totally. Oh! Do me a favor and call Sheryl Crow? Great. Thanks. We’ll be in touch.

A sudden pay-to-play situation will quite obviously put a lot of radio stations out of business and will have a hugely negative impact on the bottom line for so many of the already-suffering broadcast companies. None of this matters to groups like musicFIRST. They just want the money.

To make matter worse, they expect the broadcast industry to let them use airtime to run ads trying to get the public on their side of the issue. Radio says “Umm, no. Why would we do that when we can sell every available ad slot to Geico and Verizon Wireless?” And the recording industry runs crying like a little bitch to the FCC.  (You do not want to get me started on the FCC.)

The whole thing is just ridiculous. If you suddenly find yourself with a failing business because times changed but you forgot to, you have no one to blame but yourself. Trying to bankrupt another industry to save your own is bad business and will probably ensure that you all end up in hell.

If radio doesn’t want to play Bono’s songs, that’s their prerogative. Back to the restaurant analogy for just one second:  Restaurants can choose to add and remove menu items based on business decisions with no explanations necessary or expected.  (And perhaps there have been way too many cheeseburgers on the menu for way too long.  You catch my drift, Bono?) Radio’s playlist decisions, just like a restaurant’s menu decisions, hardly constitute an undermining of the public interest!