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The podcast continues to be a hot form of broadcasting, growing from an audience of about 12% of those aged 12 and over in 2013 to more than 31% today. In Sweden, the number is at least 47 percent. Canada is around 34 percent; That number increases to 46% for Canadians aged 18 to 49.
Over 500 million people (23.5 percent of all Internet users) listen to podcasts from the approximately 4.3 million programs available regularly, with many listening to half a dozen or more each week. Comedy is the largest category followed by news, true crime and health and fitness.
A little further down the list, you’ll find music, an insanely popular genre. About half a million podcasts are dedicated to music in some form, meaning there are millions of episodes on the subject. But almost none of them include full songs.
Why? As the title says, it’s complicated.
When an artist signs a deal with a publisher, the publisher owns some of the artist’s material and has influence over how it is used. In exchange for monitoring this use and paying royalties, the publisher is entitled to about 50 percent of the revenue generated.
A deal with a record company gives that company the exclusive right to distribute that artist’s music as well as a share of the profits.
Over the years, the normal ways you listen to music, such as listening to the radio, streaming music online or buying a CD, have led to systems that pay artists, publishers and record companies. These systems were developed a long time ago, decades before podcasts became part of our daily information diet.
When the military turned radio broadcasting over to the public in the years after World War I, the industry exploded. Many stations began broadcasting music, making it the first time in history that audiences could enjoy great and important concerts in their homes for free. This did not go down well with record companies, music publishers, composers and musicians. Why would anyone buy his records if the public could enjoy this music for free? The record industry fought hard against radio with their merchandise.
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After a long struggle, performing rights organizations (PROs) proved to be the solution. Instead of each radio station asking for permission to play every record in their library, the stations simply reported which songs they played to the PROs (SOCAN in Canada, ASCAP, BMI and SESAC in the US, PRS in the UK and similar societies in countries around the world) and they would set how much in royalties for airplay The professionals collected the money and then distributed it to their friends accordingly.
This is called a “blanket license” and allows radio stations to play whatever they want as long as they report it and then pay the associated royalties.
And so it went on for decades. Before we got into computer music tracking, I remember having to deal with SOCAN weeks several times a year. This meant filling out special playlists detailing the song name, artist and composer of every song we played during our shifts, 24/7, for anywhere from four to seven days (did we ever have to do it for 14 days? I can’t remember) . All those sheets of paper with our bad handwriting were then sent to SOCAN so they could sort it all out. It was exhausting and boring manual work. Today, PRO reports are filed electronically at the click of a button.
(By the way, Canadian radio stations pay commissions equal to a percentage of their pre-tax revenue to SOCAN and several other PRO companies for the privilege of playing music as part of our business model. In America, only the composers get paid if an artist covers, only the writer or writers of the song get royalties on playback and not the performers of this cover.
Music streaming services operate under similar conditions. Because of the way their music is delivered, each of them knows exactly which songs are being played and how often they are being streamed. At the end of the month, they send this data to the PROs (along with the required cash) for distribution to the rights holders.
Going back to podcasts, there is no universal PRO system to track and cover music usage. Furthermore, I’m not aware of a single organization anywhere in the world, local or international, that a conscientious podcaster can go to for permission to use a song and pay for that use, unless you separately hire a private music clearinghouse. . The only real exception is Spotify which has a system called Anchor that allows podcasts to incorporate songs from Spotify’s library into podcasts. But by doing so, the podcast is tied to Spotify forever and Encore didn’t do as well as expected.
Even if there was, licensing music for podcasts would be much more difficult than for radio. Not only will the composer, publisher and label have to be compensated somehow, but we enter the complex world of master recording mechanics and rights. Identifying songs in podcasts for tracking purposes is also very difficult, but let’s not go down that rabbit hole because your eyes will just glaze over.
But if a solution could be found, a court Maybe you can make money. Imagine being able to download a full top 40 countdown to listen to at your leisure. or a full concert.
The music industry is looking to license music to formats other than radio, television, film, video games and commercials. Allows podcasters to use – and pay! – because music can open the floodgates and bring more money to creators and rights holders. But how can this be done?
There are organizations trying to make it work, but there is still a long way to go. There are so many stakeholders involved – well, good luck with that. But something has to give in the end. One Day.
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Alan Cross is a broadcaster with Q107 and 102.1 the Edge and a commentator for Global News.
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