Some of Australia’s biggest names in music, and the radio stations that play their songs, are at loggerheads over a push for radio stations to pay artists more when their songs are played. Tones and I and John Farnham are among a 500-strong group of Australian artists who have signed a letter calling to scrap a decades-old rule cap on the sound recording fees that radio stations pay to play their songs. Commercial radio is warning scrapping the cap could lead to stations shutting down.
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00:00 From singing songs to signing letters, Gordie is among a 500 strong list of Australian artists
00:10 including Tones and I, John Farnham, Client Liaison and Gang of Youths calling for radio
00:16 stations to pay them more for playing their songs.
00:20 Written into Australian law is a prevention that stops commercial radio stations from
00:25 paying more than 1% of their gross earnings in licence fees for the broadcasting of sound
00:30 recordings.
00:31 When you think about a song, it kind of splits down the middle.
00:35 Writers and composers are paid separately.
00:38 This push is just to do with the sound recording aspect.
00:42 If I recorded a Taylor Swift song for instance, she would own the publishing side of things
00:47 and I would own the recording side of things.
00:51 While stations pay millions more in other music fees, annually commercial radio stations
00:56 pay about $4.5 million in sound recording fees for all the Australian music they play.
01:04 The ABC, including Triple J, pays about $130,000.
01:10 That money is then split up between the artists.
01:13 In an average calendar year they might get $1,500.
01:16 We are simply asking for the right to negotiate a fair market rate for the use of those sound
01:22 recordings.
01:23 But the commercial radio industry warns that could lead to big consequences and says if
01:29 the cap goes, the quotas for how much local music they have to play should too.
01:34 If this price hike were to go through, what we could see is less Australian music being
01:40 played, we could see the quotas fall away, we could see radio stations closing.
01:44 At the end of that, that's a really vicious cycle.
01:47 The debate is set to reach parliament here in coming months with an inquiry set to examine
01:52 submissions from across the industry.
01:55 Independent Senator David Pocock also has a bill to try and scrap the cap, but to do
02:00 that, he'll need the government's support.
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