Re: [ARSCLIST] Editorial on Radio Broadcast Copyrights

[Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Whatever, wherever, it's anti-profitable not to promote a new product. Perhaps these record labels 
felt in-store promotion was enough? I'd wager they were small and didn't survive long or catered to 
a mail-order niche. Mike Richter said this was in the LP era, not the early days of recordings when 
radio was not a big part of the business model.

The impression I always got from record company veterans was there was some resentment about all the 
freebies radio got but no one complained when radio play boosted sales. And there was always 
recriminations toward the radio folks if a "sure thing" bombed -- rather than self-examination about 
getting behind something with little market appeal.

With all the talk about radio being irrelevant these days, note the lack of mega-hits. There was a 
wire story around the beginning of the year about how Alicia Keys had the #1 record with either just 
over or something under 100,000 units, the first time in decades. Aside from needing to stop putting 
out lousy product, the record companies badly need a return to the hit-making radio model. Problem 
is, centrally-programmed auto-pilot radio can't do that at the local level. And, many broadcasters 
find talk-radio (ie filling air with blather) much more profitable than nettlesome music 
programming.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Lennick" <dlennick@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, March 08, 2008 7:34 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Editorial on Radio Broadcast Copyrights


> My understanding is "Not Licensed for Radio Broadcast" or "Broadcast Under License Only" were 
> holdovers from the early days of radio, since most stations DID pay license fees to 
> somebody..certainly for the music itself, but I'm vague on whether payment was required to play 
> records. A very few records in both the 78 and LP eras were specific about not being allowed on 
> the radio, and these included items restricted by the publishers such as settings of Winnie The 
> Pooh verses (I kid you not), Sophie Tucker's "My Dream" (oy how we suffered not being able to hear 
> that on the radio) and a few others. Gilbert and Sullivan could be played but it would cost ya..I 
> know this from my parents' experience when they had radio programs on the CBC in the early 50s and 
> had to report the number of minutes of G&S they played.
>
> In Canada, Decca Records WERE kept off the air, for reasons nobody seems to understand today. The 
> Compo Company decided it wanted pay for play, the radio stations told Herbie to drop dead, and 
> Deccas were removed from Canadian radio libraries till late 1949 when the restriction somehow 
> faded away, or stations began playing the discs and nothing happened (it might also have been 
> slightly later when Compo was purchased outright by Decca).
>
> dl
>
> Tom Fine wrote:
> > Hi Mike:
> >
> > Which labels were those? All the major American labels specifically released broadcast-only 
> > promotional copies for airplay and made available talent and executives to promote new releases 
> > on-air. I know in the case of one label that radio airplay was encouraged and 3-way deals were 
> > made between the record company, local record stores and the radio station to heavily-rotate new 
> > releases that were on display and/or on sale in the local stores, and special sales reports were 
> > prepared to track the success of these promotions. The key to making it work was the match 
> > store(s) to radio audience as certain cliques of fans in some cities would listen to a certain 
> > radio program and shop in certain stores and if you didn't have it matched up properly the 
> > promotion was for naught.
> >
> > Seems to be anti-profitable not to promote a new product. What was the business model of these 
> > labels who banned airplay?
> >
> > -- Tom Fine
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Richter" <mrichter@xxxxxxx>
> > To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > Sent: Saturday, March 08, 2008 5:37 PM
> > Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Editorial on Radio Broadcast Copyrights
> >
> >
> > > Dan Nelson wrote:
> > > > It seems to me this may be a case of artists shooting
> > > > themselves in foot.  Having been involved in radio we had  gazillions of
> > > > record promotion men delivering boxes of promotional
> > > > records and some suggested artists they would like to
> > > > see  played ...   why because it  made money for the
> > > > artist and record co's.
> > >
> > > That seems quite likely for some artists in some fields, but there are classical music labels 
> > > which explicitly prohibit broadcast - or did in the LP era.
> > >
> > > Mike
> > > --
> > > mrichter@xxxxxxx
> > > http://www.mrichter.com/