Music

The Plight of Black Radio.

Performance Tax The End of Black Radio? (The Black press, now Black radio. What next?) The Performance Rights Act sponsored by Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., would require radio stations to pay a fee to everyone who performs on a record, from the composer to the artist(s) to background musicians and singers to the person or company that owns the copyright to the song. That would be in addition to fees that broadcasters already pay to artist associations ASCAP, BMI and SESAC. (Source)

Cathy Hughes, founder and board chairman of Radio One, and radio personality (making the radio circuit), said "the tax could spell the end for urban radio because the additional costs would discourage the activities that help promote artists' work."

"It will put a majority of black-owned stations out of business", said Hughes.

Here's one person's take on the matter...

"It’s funny that we didn’t see any such bills being proposed years ago when black radio actually cared about the community it served, and actually provided QUALITY entertainment instead of the garbage that we are forced to listen to now.

Quite frankly, in my opinion, black radio ceased to serve its purpose when they changed their format from R&B/pop to misogynistic rap music with in-your-face lyrics that are co-signed by jocks who don’t care that small children and teenagers make up a sizable percentage of their listening audience.

Black radio should clean up it’s act, clean up the offensive lyrics in the songs they play every 15 minutes, and start caring about the black community again. Then maybe some of us in the black community will care about black radio." (Source)

Certainly the above quote does bear some merit, however, Black radio is more than just music, Black radio talk stations (the forward thinking ones) may also be at risk.

Keep abreast of this issue, click here. Related article, here.

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