Musician advocacy groups continue to urge the FCC not to remove local radio ownership limits.
The MusicFirst Coalition and Future of Music Coalition are lobbying for the FCC to keep the Local Radio Ownership Rule, which limits the total number of stations that an entity may own in a local market and the number in a market that the entity may own in the same service (AM or FM).
The FCC has been collecting comments about possibly removing the rule as part of its ongoing 2022 Quadrennial Review.
The advocacy groups recently met virtually with FCC staff of the Office of Economics and Analytics and the Media Bureau.
The NAB hopes the FCC will remove the limits.
The groups are familiar lobbying opponents of NAB policies involving performance royalties and broadcast consolidation.
They asked the FCC to “consider both intragroup competition between terrestrial broadcasters as well as intergroup competition with other audio platforms, while upholding the unique public interest objectives for broadcasters relating to ownership diversity, viewpoint diversity, localism and spectrum efficiency.”
They believe terrestrial radio has a competitive advantage over digital and streaming audio services.
“AM/FM radio stations are currently not required to pay a sound recording performance royalty to performers and copyright owners for over-the-air radio broadcasts, while competing digital audio services must obtain licenses and pay royalties for the use of sound recordings,” they told the FCC, according to an ex parte filing.
This gives AM/FM radio “a significant cost savings advantage” over non-broadcast audio competitors.
“We believe that music creators should be paid fairly for the use of their work by all platforms that use music as a draw to attract audiences and advertising dollars,” they wrote.
The groups have argued that in the past that further broadcast deregulation will hurt smaller stations (https://www.radioworld.com/news-and-business/business-and-law/music-coalitions-say-deregulation-will-hurt-smaller-stations). The NAB says broadcasters both small and large are on board with its push to remove the rule.
