#088: Kristin Thomson – The Future of Radio
Kristin Thomson is the Education Director at the Future of Music Coalition, a national nonprofit organization that works to ensure a diverse musical culture where artists flourish, are compensated fairly for their work, and where fans can find the music they want. The coalition works to lobby lawmakers to ensure that the voice of the artist community is heard during the legislation process. At the moment, fair access to radio is one of the top issues they are working. Kim will guide us through the tangle of legislation that has drastically shaped the radio landscape and aquaint us with the steps her organization is taking to make radio a more open fair medium.
To learn more about the Future of Music Coalition, go here – http://futureofmusic.org
I know Ms. Thomson means well, but I disagree with pretty much everything she had to say. I’m all for large media companies and radio stations (garbage like Clear Channel, etc) getting killed in the market, but to try and reform the country through more legislation is very problematic.
Also, If the community radio thing is happening organically right now, why not just get out of the way? Anything else would be artificial and unsustainable in the long run.
The mechanical rights law she was talking about I don’t agree with (I don’t agree with songwriter rights either, I’m an anti-IP guy.) I didn’t get the details of how some of this would be put in place, but if I had to guess the FCC would handle it which I’ll get back to at the end.
Net Neutrality is frightening because combined with the on again/off again hazy “indecency” mandate the FCC has, it can create all sorts of free speech, contract, and property issues. She mentions all of these bands that are for Net Neutrality, as if to say “they like it, so you should follow their lead.” And yet, without any current net neutrality law, the bands mentioned as well as many others have done very well.
All of this combined strikes me as fundamentally bad. The FCC has done a bad job since their inception, they should be abolished, not reformed.
PS – I mean no disrespect to anybody, I’m just trying to voice my opinion.
I love CD Baby podcasts but (here it comes!) this one was completely America-centric and so had zero value for any listener outside the US. That’s fine every now and again, and I don’t know if you have many listeners like me, outside the US, but I would just make a plea to keep us in the loop!