No Radio Without Royalties: Musicians Deserve to Be Paid for Radio Play

March 1, 2025

Ben Kessler  -  Ben Kessler, AFM Director of Government Affairs

Policymakers and legislative staff are often surprised to learn that musicians receive no compensation when their music is played on AM/FM radio. They are even more alarmed to learn that the United States is out of step with the rest of the free world on this issue. We are in select company in this regard. North Korea, Iran, and Cuba join the US on the list of countries that deny musicians fair pay for plays on the AM and FM airwaves. Even Russia and China are on the right side of this issue.

Terrestrial radio is the only music platform that does not compensate artists. Streaming services, satellite radio, and YouTube pay both performers and songwriters something, at least!

For years, the AFM along with the MusicFirst Coalition have been advocating for change. We’ve walked the halls of Congress trying to fix a broken system with the American Music Fairness Act (AMFA).

So why haven’t we been successful in passing the American Music Fairness Act and its predecessors?

We are going against a very powerful lobby. According to lobbying disclosure reports, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) spends millions of dollars every year advocating before US Congress on a range of issues, including lobbying against the AMFA.

NAB not only advocates against our interests specifically on AMFA but the lobbying behemoth also supports something called the Local Radio Freedom Act (LRFA). This congressional resolution with an innocuous name is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The proposal purports to simply promote local radio, but they bury the lede. The resolution prohibits any new performance fee, tax, royalty, or other charge on the broadcast of sound recordings. By “royalty,” they’re talking about the rights of musicians to receive fair compensation when their music is played on terrestrial radio.

However, LRFA is wholly unnecessary. Under AMFA, local radio stations are protected from arduous fees. Approximately two-thirds of all stations in the US would pay $500 or less annually. Some stations would pay as little as $10 a year.

Also among the NAB’s advocacy priorities is the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act. This bill is more straightforward. A congressional mandate to require AM radios to be installed in all new cars. In theory, a fine idea. Unfortunately, we can’t support the proposal so long as Congress is putting its seal of approval on a broken system. We can’t ignore that more than 240 million songs are played on AM radio alone every year.

But it’s not all bad. The energy around the AM radio bill presents an opportunity. Let’s fix both problems at the same time.

No radio without royalties isn’t just a catchy slogan; it’s commonsense. If Congress is going to mandate that car manufacturers install AM radios in every new car, they should require the broadcasters to fairly compensate musicians.

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