"B" Class Stations

Radio Record, Volume IV, Issue 29, 30 January 1931, Page 5

"B" Class Stations

Many Cease Operating Copyright Position Again

TURING the past week an announcement was made that a number of "B" class stations in various parts of the country were ceasing to operate on account of the position that has arisen in connection with the Australian ‘Performing Rights Association. The position herein is quite clear, and has been explained at various times in our columns. The . Australian Performing Rights Association is a body which claims to hold the copyright of approximately 98 per, cent. of all the music available through all mediums. Permission to use that music is available to various organisations in return for various scheduled payments. The "A" class stations are required to pay 6 per cent. of its gross receiving license revenue for its use of copyright.items. When the "B" class stations began operating in New Zealand they had available no revenue with which to meet any demands for copyright fees. For some time they operated without any claim being made upon them. Eventually, however, the Australian Performing Rights Association intimated to them that the position would have to be clarified. ‘They did this more particularly because of the position obtaining in respect of gramophone records. Sales of gramophone records-which also carry a royaltywere, it was claimed, being interfered with by the amount of broadcasting of records being indulged in by the "B" class stations. The buying public would naturally not buy so freely of gramophone records if its appetite was satisfied by ample broadcasting of such records. There would thus seem some justification for the contention that the reduced revenue from the sale of gramophone records should be compensated for in some measure by royalties from "B" class broadcasting stations. In the course of negotiations between the Australian Performing Rights Association and the "B" class stations, it was, it is understood, intimated that a collective payment of £200 per annum would be accepted on behalf of the New Zealand B class stations, this amount being substantially £10 per station, In the absence of unanimity being reached between the "B" class broadcasters this offer lapsed, hence the decision of the stations concerned to go off the air. On behalf of a Christchurch station, Mr. ©. F. Woodhead advances the view that they did not understand that the payment of the £200 would be the whole extent of their liability to the Performing Rights Association. This was advanced, he states, with the stipulation that it was not to be taken as an estimate of the amount the association considered should be paid by "B" class stations, and Mr. Woodhead comments: "If we admitted their claim we do not know what they would ask in the future.’ There is really no question of "admitting" the claim of the Australian Performing Rights As

sociation. That has been definitely established at law, and on the face of things the "B" class stations would seem to have been very leniently treated indeed by the organisation through-~-out, much more leniently than have the "A" class stations in respect of

which the Australian Performing Rights Association made substantial. demands upon the revenue of listeners. Mr. Harris’s Views. [N view of the closing down of B class broadeasting stations, Owing to copyright difficulties, Mr. A. R. Harris, general manager of the Radio Broadeasting Company, was asked by a Christchurch reporter if he had any comment to make on the position, and particularly as to whether he considered the B stations should be called upon to pay copyright fees. "No, I do not know why the B stations should have to pay copyright fees for broadcasting musical works," replied Mr. Harris. "The Australasian Performing Right Association claims to control 98 per cent. of the world’s copyright in so far as Australia and New Zealand are concerned, and in return for the privilege of broadcasting its catalogue the Broadcasting Company pays to the association 6 per cent. of its gross revenue from receiving licenses. "Tf the service broadcast by B stations increases the number of listeners then the Broadcasting Company automatically pays the Performing Right Association a percentage of the license fees received from these listeners. "The payment to the Performing Right Association is made on the gross receipts from receiving licenses regardless of the fact that the broadcast service includes sporting broadcasts, lectures, news and market reports, aud entertainment on which copyright is not concerned, and which is the sole and only interest of a great many listeners."