Upstage Radio to Return from Day of Silence with New Format - All Indie
Belmar, NJ (PRWEB) June 24, 2007 -- UpstageRadio.com , an online radio station based in New Jersey, will not only participate in the "Day of Silence" on Tuesday, June 26th, but will go one step farther. When the station begins broadcasting again there will be something missing - thousands of songs from major record labels will no longer be in rotation.
"There will be no U2, no Beatles, no Rolling Stones," said Gary Wien, program director for the online station. "I'm taking many of my favorite artists out of the rotation. We're not even going to play Bruce Springsteen, which might be against the law for a New Jersey based station! Listeners may still request these songs (through an automated request system) but they will no longer be in rotation throughout the day."
Upstage Radio's format change is due directly to the royalty rate hikes proposed by SoundExchange and supported by the record industry. The vast majority of online radio stations have always been paying royalties - including those that terrestrial radio stations have never had to pay. The record industry is now demanding that online radio stations actually pay more in royalties than they earn in revenue.
"Once I learned about the new royalty proposals I made the decision that I would no longer buy records from major labels," said Wien. "Why give them more of my money when they're trying to put stations like mine out of business? I'd estimate that Upstage Radio has spent between $10-15,000 on major label records through the years to build up the station's catalog, but they won't get a dime more from us. It's sad that many artists thought online radio stations were trying to protest paying royalties when we've been paying all along; What we're protesting is the way the RIAA is trying to kill online radio in favor of big, corporate radio stations. And since the record industry is showing their support of the big guys, we're going to show our support for the little guys."
UpstageRadio.com will still play artists from independent record labels because they generally support online radio and recognize the importance of internet radio stations. Wien estimates that about half of the 22,000 songs in the station database are major label artists who will no longer be part of the rotation, but he's looking forward to the challenge of creating a great station with solely independent artists.
Thousands of online radio stations will stop broadcasting during the "Day of Silence" on Tuesday, June 26th in an effort to show just how valuable internet radio is and to show what people will be missing if the record industry succeeds in destroying it. Even large webcasters like Yahoo! Launch, Rhapsody, AccuRadio, Live365, Loudcity, and Pandora.com will all cease their broadcasting on that day.
Internet radio stations are putting their faith into two bills - The Internet Radio Equality Act, S. 1353 in the Senate and H.R. 2060 in the House. For more information on how you can voice your support of online radio to your local representatives, please visit www.savenetradio.org.
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