On one front, Commercial Radio Australia is engaged in a spirited defence against the Phonographic Performance Company of Australia (PPCA) who want considerably more money from Radio for copyright fees. On the other front, they are on the attack, trying to get the government to repeal the laws that govern “trigger events” which put a freeze on staff numbers and other resources at stations. On the third front, CRA wants digital radio exempted from Australian Content requirements while it is in the development stage.
CRA CEO Joan Warner hit back at the record industry in a withering statement after which, coincidentally, PPCA chief Stephen Peach announced his resignation from the post he had held for eight years.
Ms Warner said, “Comments by PPCA deliberately misrepresent the significant copyright payments made by commercial radio stations each year. Radio stations pay copyright fees twice each time a song is played on radio – firstly to the composers and songwriters through the Australian Performing Rights Association (APRA) and then a second fee to the record companies through the PPCA.
“We understand only around one third of the copyright fees collected by PPCA are subsequently distributed to the artists. This is all about increasing the profit margins of the multinational record companies at the expense of Australian commercial and public radio stations,” Ms Warner said.
On the other front, CRA is appealing to the government to overturn the cross-media rules, introduced in 2007, that require regional commercial stations to “maintain a local presence and comply with minimum service standards following a trigger event”. A “trigger event” being any change of ownership including the transfer of a regional commercial radio broadcasting licence, the formation of a new registrable media group that includes a regional commercial radio licence, or a change of controller of such a registrable media group.
Back in 2006 when the new rules were announced CRA fought tooth and nail against them resulting in the Howard government promising to review the rules if they led to “unintended consequences for regional commercial radio licensees, especially for small or family-owned licensees”.
Of course, there are consequences aplenty, Joan Warner wanting the current Minister, Stephen Conroy, to know, “If a regional radio station is sold, if there’s a death in the family that owns it, if there’s a bankruptcy, or if anything happens to a regional radio station, that’s considered a trigger event. The consequences are that staff numbers are then frozen and can never be reduced . . . no matter what.
“Our broadcasters are saying this is unfair intervention in how someone runs their business,” said Ms Warner.
A review of the local content requirements is due by April.