Are radio stations only allowed to play songs that have been released by the artist as a single?
Back in Ye Olden Days, when AM ruled the airwaves, a lot of AOR FM stations would “go one cut deeper” into an album. I remember one station in 1977 when I heard “Second Hand News” by Fleetwood Mac from the Rumours album. The song had not been released as a single and this station was the only one playing it.
Are AOR stations only a specific type of station, or can anyone broadcast any song from any album they choose? Doesn’t that violate some kind of public broadcasting copyright, or at least tick of the artist?
I don’t think many stations do it anymore, but no. How could it be against the law to play any track from an album when the whole album has been released to the public?
I had a friend who worked at a radio station. He said they can play any song from any album as long as they pay the royalty fees.
Several “one hit wonders” came about as a result of the DJ playing the wrong side of a single:
“The Horse” - Cliff Nobles & Company
“Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye” - Steam
are a couple of examples.
It depends on the specific rules of the station. Some DJs are only allowed to play singles. Others can play other things. It all depends on the rules set up by the station. Could be wrong, but I don’t believe the artist’s copyright is violated by playing non-single tracks–radio play is good advertising for the artists, and any track the DJ played would be exposure. It’s all up to the station and their advertisers to decide what songs their listeners want to hear and make the rules.
My boyfriend has a show at the college station and plays almost no singles, but it’s a night show. The station only allows single and B-side play during the day, and has specific times set up for rap, rock, pop, etc. He gets free rein on his show, but the station could just as well take that away. It’s their call.
Most radio stations have agreements with both ASCAP and BMI (the two companies handle the bulk of royalties and licenses for U.S. music companies).
The radio station is free to play any song in those catalogs that it’s willing to pay royalties for. However, individual deejays may be restricted to a “playlist.” That’s mostly a programming decision, but it also makes it easier for the station to defend itself against charges that a deejay accepted illegal payments to play/promote a song.
Not really but there’s an unwritten agreement between many radio stations and the record companies not to play any track or single from an album that hasn’t been specifically designated for airplay. Of course, that wasn’t always the case. During the 60’s and 70’s, any cut from any album played on your typical AOR station was fair game. In fact, it was not uncommon for stations to set aside times to play all of an album at once. However, in 1979, record sales went into the tank and the record industry soon found a villain that was the source of its problems: home recording. Apparently, in their view, too many people were getting their music virtually for free by buying blank cassette tapes and recording whole albums off of AOR radio stations instead of purchasing the albums at their full price. (Sound familiar?) So, the record companies forced most AOR stations to cease this practice and, by the early 80’s, the practice of playing “deep cuts” from albums had mostly ended (except, maybe, for albums released before 1980).
Stairway to Heaven , IIRC, was never released as a single.
Back in the day (late sixties - early seventies) when a new album by, say the Beatles, was released it was common in Australia for the stations to play the entire album, uninterrupted, no commercials at midnight the day of release. Good times!
And even now we have TripleJ.
Local Atlanta Station 99x made a big deal about playing “deeper cuts” about a year or so ago. They would “bump” the song with a blurb “…Another 99x Deeper cut”
So, I think in general there are certain songs that are cleared, but it costs money to go deeper… Hence 99x would want to advertise and toot their own horn.
Is there a set fee for royalties across the board, or can the record company say, “Yeah, you can play whatever songs on the album you like. The single will cost you $1 per play, and every other song will cost you $500.”
It’s been years since I was directly involved in this area, so my answer may be completely out of date.
Back in the old days, the royalty (actually the payment for performance rights) was based on a number of factors, but it boiled down to the same royalty for every song in a given situation.
Little tiny outfits (who paid little tiny royalties) would, a few times a year, keep a log of the songs they played, and the licensing company would approximate shares of the total artists. Big major outfits (who paid much bigger royalties) would keep a complete list of all the music they played, so that every artist got a fair share.
Remember that royalties are paid to the song’s composer, not the performing artist. From Bob Dylan’s financial point of view, it doesn’t matter whether I play his version of “Lay, Lady, Lay” or Jim Nabors’. The record company really doesn’t have anything to do with it. The music director at one radio station I worked for once bought up every copy of a record in town, so my station would be the only one with the song. It took the competing station a couple of days to realize what happened, call the record company, and have a copy sent directly to them.
My station (WSYC-FM) pays flat royalties of about $250 apiece to both ASCAP and BMI for the privilege of playing whatever we want. In October, we have to fill out a separate set of logs for BMI so they know we’re still playing their stuff, and so the artists can get their royalties. In fact, during the BMI logging period, we’re encouraged to play artists who may not otherwise get airplay so they’ll get some money.
That said, kunilou is pretty much right. In the era of corporate radio, it’s becoming increasingly common for a DJ to be restricted to a specified playlist. Violating that list can result in the DJ’s head on a pike as a warning to others.
Robin
Back in the olden days (late 60s, early '70s) when FM was just getting a foothold, they would play VERY few commercials, some stations had no commercials at all. Late at night there were always some groovy FM station “spinning sides”. The jock always sounded like he was strung out on Quaaludes, (spoken very softly and slowly) “Like here’s some tasty stuff from the Dead we can all lay back and dig for the next hour or two”. Then after a side was done playing, there was usually 15 seconds or so of silence, like the jock was picking himself up off the floor or something, then he’d say something like (in his soft, slow, strung-out voice), “Wow man, that’s one heavy cut of vinyl, let’s go back to that groove again real soon”.
Also, stations that have ASCAP and BMI licenses can play entire songs, but stations that do not can only play clips.
I have a friend that was a producer for WGST in Atlanta (an AM talk radio station) and they retained their licenses, so they would sometimes play full songs during technical screw-ups or if a song was controversial enough to make the news (like “Me So Horny”).
WGST’s main competitor - WSB AM - did not retain their licenses and could only play short clips for bumper music - like the few seconds of “Drive Me Crazy” by the Fine Young Cannibals at the start of the Clark Howard Show.
You see, once you have one (or both) of those licenses, you’re pretty much free to do whatever you’d like as far as broadcasting goes. Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders once tried to sue Rush Limbaugh to get him to stop using one of her songs as his theme music. But because Rush has an ASCAP\BMI license, she’s pretty much powerless to stop him. Likewise, once you have published a song, you cannot stop anyone from covering it if they pay the licensing fees. I believe that The Byrd’s released their cover of “Mr. Tambourine Man” before Dylan released his original. Even though he was totally opposed to it, he could legally do nothing to stop them*.
- = that could be the totally wrong song. I’m sure someone will correct me here soon.
In the UK radio stations can play pretty much whatever they want.
Mark Lammar on Radio 2 often plays highly obscure album tracks.
Radio One and Six Music (both from the BBC) will often have bands on playing tracks live that haven’t even been recorded before.
In fact many bands first release was their “Peel Sessions”, music recorded live for the John Peel show and later released as a 12".
Yup! Right now the new Chemical Brothers CD is thier feature album so they’re playing every track at least once as far as I can tell.
They’ll also occasionally have bands host a show where they play a few of their lesser known songs.