ShowBizRadio

When we started up ShowBizRadio.net in 2005, one of the features we touted was our Internet radio station. We played soundtracks from Broadway shows. It was a lot of fun, plus we got to hear a lot of music from shows that aren’t performed locally.

Unfortunately, a decision on March 2 by the Copyright Royalty Board has massively increased the performance royalty rates that we have to pay. We use the services of Live365 for our webcast. Under the old system, we had to pay a percentage of our station’s revenues. The new system we have to pay a fraction of a cent for each song we play, for each listener. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but the money adds up very quickly under the new system.

Well, since the radio station aspect of ShowBizRadio really hasn’t been all that popular, and we are busy enough with reviewing shows, conducting interviews, and maintaining our auditions listings and performance schedules, we are thinking of shutting down the “Radio” aspect of our web site. if you have any thoughts about that, please contact us.

If you’d like to help us out, and the other webcasters, you can call your members of Congress, and ask them to sponsor the Internet Radio Equality Act. IREA sets the performance royalty rate as a percentage of revenue, which is much more fair for webcasters. Satellite radio pays approximately 6% of revenue, regular AM or FM radio pays zero – nothing for performance royalties. HR 2060 and S 1353 would make the amounts paid by Internet broadcasters more in line with those other forms of radio.

You can get more information about this issue at SaveNetRadio.org.