Soundless
The other day I tried to log onto the internet stream of WZBC, Boston College's radio station, it's several hundred miles up the road from DC and just out of fm range. I got a strange message from iTunes when I did so : "unable to allow connection, all available connections to server are filled." I thought likely this is just an issue with that server at this moment, but it also could be a portent of future. Streaming content radio stations will need to throttle connections down to fixed ceilings to avoid fees.
It made me pause and ask again: where do we stand with Internet Radio? There was an article in the Washington Post late last month describing a congressional hearing on the future of radio
Web Radio Seeks Resolution - washingtonpost.com. The article dealt with the struggle between the Digital Media Association which is trying to establish reasonable copyright royalty fee structures for internet radio, ideally even rates in parity with terrestrial radio and SoundExchanges (collecting fees for the RIAA) rate structure signed off on by the Federal Governments Copyright Royality Board. Soundexchange is supposedly in the midst of consultations and talks with internet radio entities, but this could be little more that a delaying tactic.
Over on
WFMU's Beware of the Blog: Radio News You Can't Use Liz Bergs latest post mentions that a bill allowing for more LPFM licenses (Low Power FM) is heading towards a Senate vote. In my days being a DJ for a 10 watt college station, the message we consistently got from the FCC is that they considered low power educationally licensed and community radio to be a dreadfull mistake they were doing all in their power to undo. It was up or out, and we were constrained by a powerfull well funded entity at 88.5 (on the other side of DC) that said 'not up, children'. For many Radio stations [music disseminators] that airwave seed, the license, is critical. Through that you have excuse to accrue equipment to build the knowledge pool, the staff. Adding an internet stream is really only of value to those organizations that have pushed themselves into the first rank. I think that pure internet entities like Pandora are secondary transmitters. That while the enthusiasm represented is peer to peer, it is technology aided word of mouth. Behind this are still primary focal points of music culture dissemination, often the few remaining free form radio stations like WFMU. Another troubling aspect of this that the Washington Post's article touches on is the degree that SoundExhange's steep fees seemed to be aimed at innovations in music broadcast perhaps not incidently at the more diverse low key and innovative music culture internet Radio seemed to represent. From the article: The most contentious of these issues, though, involves what online radio stations will pay in order to sustain both innovations in radio and the artists whose music they feature...
Webcasters have argued that a royalty fee schedule set by the Copyright Royalty Board last spring would put online radio stations, and the independent musicians whose work they often play, out of business.
These music cultures that bubbled about for years known variously as indie alternative underground. Popular music culture able to get by with less, and still carry impact and meaning. Bands like Onieda for instance. This is a music culture considerably less dependent on the music industry than previous, and increasingly in its various forms more relevent. After the demise of WHFS a few years ago there has been no local broadcast station here in DC I listen to (I believe Cerphe and Weasel are up to something somewhere). Jake Einstein who was the guiding force of the original WHFS (the father you might say) passed away a month or so ago. I would never depend on some satellite radio to reproduce what he did.
This energetic concern for diviesity would be beside the point if the FCC goes ahead and allows the next round of media consolidation. Metafilter had a front page post on this appear - with several links - the day after I had written my previous post
FCC Moves to Change Ownership Rules Again | MetaFilter . Many markets would have the majority of broadcast outlets locked up within a single corporate entity. With only strays and nonprofit license holders on the outside. These corporate owners will use music industry product up and down the length of their vertical integration for entertainment programming, and their own opinions for news. It will be all most will know.
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