The U.S. Copyright Royalty Board known as the CRB has endorsed a plan by SoundExchange, the royalty-collections division of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), to raise the fees Internet radio broadcasters must pay to broadcast their music.

The royalty increases are high enough (.0008 per performance) to put Web-based radio stations out of business. They can’t afford to pay those royalty fees.

Lets look at it this way:

For a station with 2,000 listeners playing 15 songs per hour, the math looks like this:

15 x $.0007 = $.0105 per listener/hour
$.0105 x 2000 = $21 for 2000 listeners in an hour
$21 x 24 = $504 per day
$504 x 365.25 = $184,086 per year

This exceeds the gross revenues of most internet radio station today. (LinuxJournal)

“It’s the end of Internet radio as we know it,” one broadcaster fumed. “The RIAA wants to put us all out of business.”

In all honesty, I don’t listen to Internet Radio. I can’t find an internet radio station that suits my personal taste. It’s very fragmented. For those who do, start getting aquainted with FM again.

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