College Broadcaster

Utah State University will soon have its very own student-run radio station via HD radio as an HD3 channel.

http://www.hardnewscafe.usu.edu/artlife/features/031808_radio.html

The Copyright Royalty Board has published the music works royalty rates for 2008 for comment. 

In short, the musical works are the lyrics and musical compositions, as opposed to sound recordings.  Stations that play music must pay royalties to one of three “Performance Rights Organizations” (PROs).  The rates for the use of these works are subject to negotiation/arbitration every five years.  This is the year that this rate setting process takes place.  The entities involved in the process have reached agreements for the various noncommercial broadcast services (NPR, Educationally Affilated and “Other”) and submitted them to the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB).  The CRB after some changes (as noted in the document linked above), the CRB publishes the outcome for public comment. Any comments and/or objections are due May 17, 2007.  It is unlikely that there will be any changes to what has been proposed.

This post only talks about the broadcast licensing rates for entities licensed to colleges and universities.

 For non-NPR stations by public broadcasting entities licensed to colleges and universities the rates have not changed significantly.  Below is a history of the rates for the three PROs, including the proposed 2008 rates (ASCAP, BMI and SESAC), which are adjusted by the CPI annually, except when the rates come up for renewal, or otherwise specified by the CRB (or its predecessor(s)). 

                      ASCAP         BMI          SESAC         Other

2008             $277*         $277*        $116               $1        *(subject to CPI adjustment)
2007             $277           $277          $90                $1
2006             $273           $273          $89                $1
2005             $262           $262          $85                $1
2004             $254           $254          $82                $1
2003             $249           $249          $80                $1
2002             $244           $244          $66                $1
2001             $239           $228          $65                $1
2000             $231           $231          $63                $1
1999             $225           $225          $61                $1
1998             $217           $217          $60                $1
1997             $217           $217          $50                $1
1996             $211           $211          $49                $1
1995             $205           $205         $48                $1

What is rather significant is the change in the rate structure for the “Other” stations (community and non-educationally affiliated religous stations).  Those stations had a similar, but higher fee structure in the past.  For example, the 2007 ”Other” station fees were $535 each for ASCAP and BMI with $106 for SESAC.  The published structure for these stations is now population based, with a range of $550 to $5,000 for EACH ASCAP and BMI and from $120 to $1,000 for SESAC with roughly a 3% bump each year.  

For clarification, these fees are for BROADCAST stations.  Fortunately, the blanket campus agreement with colleges and universities covers the webcast fees for musical works (but not sound recordings).