Clear Channel Radio, AFTRA Have Deal on Multicast Work

AFTRA believes a national agreement on multicasting, reached with Clear Channel Radio last summer, sets a base line for similar agreements with other radio groups.
The union’s General Counsel and Legislative Director Tom Carpenter told Radio World other radio group owners have been asking questions about the union deal, which covers roughly 30 to 35 of Clear Channel’s 1,200 stations.
The company approached the union last summer and indicated it wanted a national contract to cover multicasting, Carpenter said.
“We said to them if they would commit to making sure it would be done with a union contract and with basic working conditions, they could have a discount wage rate for the supplemental streams.”
The amounts paid to air talent vary by market size and the agreement gives the radio group “a little latitude” on voice-tracking, he said, which makes sense as multicasting is in its infancy.
“If people do a voice-tracked shift in addition to their regular air-shift, there’s a fee that attaches to that,” said Carpenter. The fee is higher for those on the main channel than for voicing a supplemental channel. “At a minimum, people are going to get paid” for supplemental channel work, he said.
The union and Clear Channel plan to meet regularly to see how the multicasting business plan changes and whether the contract will need to be handled differently in future.
Clear Channel did not return a call seeking comment.