Internet radio provides an alternative to the bland programming available from today’s commercial radio stations. When I attended college I was a dj and the president of WRPI, 91.5fm. It was the college radio station for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. I really enjoyed the experience because of the variety of music I was exposed to, and allowed our listeners to experience as well. Today’s radio stations are now mere extension’s of media outlets like ClearChannel. In the Boston area, try listening to WXKS KISS 108FM, owned by ClearChannel, and you’ll have a lot of airplay of a particular band who also happens to playing a concert in town at one of the concert sheds and amphitheaters that it owns as well. Internet stations are much more like college radio stations than your typical commercial station.
Internet radio is an emerging medium that needs the opportunity to explore its potential. NPR is leading a fight against these new rates, at least 20 times more than what stations have paid in the past, because it knows that the unfairness will kill the online broadcasting opportunities. The new Internet royalty fees are much more expensive than what radio stations currently pay for over-the-air use of music. Compound this with the fact that most online radio stations have a mere fraction of the over-the-air stations, because of the niche they are fulfilling and its an obvious ploy by the RIAA to stiffle innovation.
Please keep Internet radio alive. Please don’t let the RIAA control the music industry and control what we can listen to.
