Radio jobs ‘will go’ over royalties

The commercial radio industry has warned of widespread job losses if a proposed increase to artists’ royalties goes ahead, while senior figures from the music industry claim the current payment system is a hangover from yesteryear.

Radio and music executives and artists attended a Senate hearing on Thursday to discuss the Copyright Legislation Amendment (Fair Pay for Radio Play) to help determine whether the cap on royalties paid to artists and labels – 1 per cent of the station’s gross annual revenue – should be changed. Ciaran Davis, chairman of Commercial Radio & Audio, which represents the nation’s 260 commercial stations, said “cutbacks will have to be made” if royalties paid to musicians were increased.

“In a world where we are faced with reducing revenues because of streaming services, because of the macro environment we are in, it’s not sustainable,” said Mr Davis, who is also the chief executive of ARN Media. “There will be losses of jobs and there will be losses of content and that will impact the communities in Australia.

“We have seen declining revenues, our costs are going up. I’ll speak for ARN here – we paid about 16 per cent of our EBITDA last year in royalty fees. That’s gone up from 11 per cent back in 2021-22.

“There’s no doubt we cannot sustain increased royalty fees, which is why we also try to sustain our quotas on what we pay for music, for local news and content and the important role we play with communities.”

Mr Davis said if the one per cent cap were increased, stations would look to play less Australian music. At present, there is a legislated cap that requires stations to program a minimum of 25 per cent Australian music on any given day.

Paul Dempsey, lead singer of Something for Kate, said “every cent counts”. “Removing the cap would hopefully result in a more equitable situation for musicians,” he said. “It’s feels grossly unfair.”

Mark Seymour from Hunters & Collectors said: “I don’t really understand why the commercial radio industry is a protected species in this area.”