To the editor: As a radio programmer with greater than 50 years of expertise, and figuring out that visitor contributor Gene Simmons shouldn’t be uninformed, I discovered his opinions to be incomplete at finest (“Radio must be required to pay performers for his or her music,” Jan. 30).
The important thing incontrovertible fact that he did not be utterly open about is that he, and different performing artists who’re additionally songwriters, are already amongst those that obtain a royalty from radio by way of the music publishing rights corporations corresponding to ASCAP and BMI — an association that precedes my private historical past within the trade by greater than 20 years. Simmons receives these royalty funds each time anybody (be it his band or one other artist) performs a track on the radio that he at the least co-wrote.
In reality, two of the best-known KISS songs, “Rock and Roll All Nite” and “Shout It Out Loud,” present his identify because the songwriter, and a number of other extra songs by his band additionally carry his authorship imprint. If that feels like he’s making an argument right here for “double dipping,” I can’t disagree with that notion.
Additional, the up-and-coming artists who he purports to be apprehensive about additionally, in overwhelming proportions, have a tendency to put in writing or co-write their very own materials and obtain the identical songwriting credit. And the streaming companies that he admits many now use to find new music are already topic to efficiency royalties, as he has himself acknowledged.
Those self same different platforms have decreased radio listening, ensuing within the revenue margins for stations being a lot decrease than after I began within the enterprise. Give us yet one more mandated price to pay, and the end result can be counter to the intent: Extra stations will drop music codecs in favor of royalty-free spoken-word codecs. Is that what he needs?
Ok.M. Richards, Van Nuys
This author is program director for the syndicated radio format the Eighties Channel, whose flagship station is KRKE in Albuquerque.
