And to make that clearer, the organizations (typically ASCAP and BMI in the US) are a completely separate entity from the radio station, business, or advertisers.
In my experience, their enforcement for things like that was pretty lightweight, though this was in the 90s. I was working at a company that had the radio on their hold music and we did some work with ASCAP. When one of them noticed, their legal department sent us an informational letter and explanation of what we’d need to, and we elected to switch to a classical station (which didn’t require licensing fees) instead. It was pretty painless, though we did find it a little backstabby.
ASCAP has a pretty good explanation of how they handle licensing for political campaigns. Basically, the general licensing to play songs at convention centers normally excludes political events, there are some songs that are generally licensed for use in political events, an artist can specifically opt-out for any particular campaign, tying the music into a political ad is typically a more complicated and specific license, and even if a campaign has a basic ‘play the music’ license they can still have trouble with the artist if they make it look like an endorsement the artist doesn’t want.
This suggests 'only analogue" terrestrial listeners in the UK are down to about 22% of the adult population, with the bulk of the digital audience using digital terrestrial services, rather than online streaming or radio channels through their digital TV.
I know there is discussion about the point at which analogue broadcasting can be turned off, but it looks as though that’s still a long way off.
For myself, I listen online when I wake up early (using Bluetooth headphones so as not to risk disturbing the neighbours), switching to a portable internet radio at a reasonable hour and until I’ve finished in the bathroom. Then I revert to my (25-year-old) stereo hifi FM for most of the day if I’m at home. I occasionally use the radio channels on my digital PVR to record something. If I’m travelling abroad, I use internet streaming to listen to my usual BBC station. I did have big ideas of using internet radio to keep up my foreign languages, but that’s gone by the board.
I almost always have the radio on in the car. At home I listen to baseball; I even listened to game 7 of last year’s World Series so I could hear our announcers.
My gf listens to NPR while getting dressed. She has it on normal volume, so I don’t hear it.
My current Jeep Wrangler is 5 years old. When I bought it I replaced the antenna with a rubber/plastic stubby antenna that is for looks only. I get zero reception but don’t miss it.
A story about the competition between terrestrial and satellite radio (I was intimately involved in the early implementation of HD Radio in North America).
When Sirius and XM were starting out, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) were terrified that satellite radio would destroy terrestrial (i.e., normal broadcast) radio. They lobbied the FCC and provided development funding for HD Radio and encouraged the merger of the two companies developing digital radio (USA Digital Radio and Lucent Digital Radio) into a single company (Ibiquity) which drove a single technology called IBOC (In-Band On-Channel). This was all in the interest of defining a broadcast standard that could be quickly and inexpensively deployed:
IBOC uses the existing radio spectrum that broadcasters already owned, so no new licensing from the FCC was required
IBOC could be added to the existing infrastructure of a radio station with the addition of a $50k piece of equipment, rather than a complete replacement of the transmission chain (including antennas) that would be required if new spectrum would be used (as in the European DAB standard).
IBOC allows transmission of the analog programming at the same time as one or two channels of digital programming, again using the already-licensed spectrum. The most common usage was expected to be a simulcast of the analog programming on one digital channel and alternative programming on the second digital channel.
In addition to subsidizing the development of the IBOC standard and associated technology, the NAB also subsidized radio receiver manufacturers to add HD Radio capability to their receivers. This lead to a relatively quick rollout of HD-capable receivers (the first receivers available were tabletop radios from Radio Shack and Boston Acoustics), which (if I recall correctly) were only $10 more than the non-HD models thanks to the NAB subsidy. A lot of early push to get HD Radio up and running.
Then something unexpected happened. Satellite radio did not get the adoption rate that the NAB feared. Sirius and XM both teetered on the edge of bankruptcy and ended up merging to maintain economic viability. NAB subsidy and promotion of HD Radio dried up, and the rollout of HD Radio slowed dramatically.
All this pre-dates the availability of Bluetooth Audio. My involvement with HD Radio had long ended by the time that Bluetooth Audio became widespread - I do not have any information on how the ability to easily stream audio has impacted terrestrial radio. I just know that satellite radio ended up not being the bogeyman that the NAB feared.
ETA: As to my personal radio usage, the only place I listen is in the car. I live in a pretty hilly area and get sketchy FM reception - usually not good enough for HD to work properly, so I am usually listening to analog FM.
According to ASCAP’s annual report, they collected $1.274 billion in revenue and paid out $1.184 billion in licenses to copyright holders.
So, I dispute that the effect of license fees primarily benefits the collection agencies. I’m sure they do fine with their 7% overhead, but that’s a pretty efficient transfer of money to actual owners/creators.