For years, online radio outfits were worried that aggressive royalty payment structures designed by the entertainment industry could force them out of business. For now, at least, it appears that those worries are over. After two years of negotiations between webcasters and copyright holders, the new deal has large webcasters paying copyright owners up to 25% of their revenue or a "per-performance" rate that's supposedly 40-50% lower than those previously set by the Copyright Royalty Board. Smaller webcasters will also pay either a percent of revenue or a percent of expenses. "For us, it's hard to overstate how significant this is," Pandora founder Tim Westergren says of the deal. "It was either this or an ugly alternative."

Internet radio webcasters like Pandora have been struggling to stay in business because exorbitant royalty revenues mandated by Congress last year are making it too difficult to keep on operating. However, they’ve gained a small victory this weekend as the House of Representatives has approved a bill allowing them to negotiate a lower royalty rate with the entertainment industry. There had originally been strong opposition to this bill by the National Association of Broadcasters but that opposition has been dropped and it is believed that the Senate will likely approve the bill without problems. If the Senate does quickly approve the bill, it is believed that a deal for lower royalty rates could be worked out as early as next month.

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Internet radio webcasters are nearing their "last stand," according to a piece today in the Washington Post. A company like Pandora, which has roughly 1 million daily listeners, pays nearly 70% of their $25 million revenue on royalties -- an arrangement that could force the company out of business, according to the company's founder. "We're approaching a pull-the-plug kind of decision," says founder Tim Westergren. "This is like a last stand for webcasting." While traditional and satellite radio pay far less (and in some cases virtually no) royalties, the Copyright Royalty Board drastically ramped up the costs paid by Internet broadcasters after being pressured by the entertainment industry. Negotiations are still underway, but the Post suggests that things aren't looking good for Internet radio.

It has been nearly a year and a half since the nation’s only two satellite radio operators, XM and Sirius, announced their plans for a merger. Throughout that time, the merger has been pending approval from the FCC.

At the end of 2005, the city of Princeton in Illinois began testing out a municipal wireless system based on BPL technology. The rollout has been successful and the city announced that they will be completing the project by the end of this month with rollout to the final quadrant of the city which had not yet been served. One of the biggest concerns at the start of this project was that BPL technology would interfere with local radio signals. However, there have been no reports of interference since the project began. Approximately 100 residential customers have subscribed to the BPL Internet option in the area so far.

More than a year ago, Sirius and XM Radio announced their plans to merge into one company. Consumer groups with concerns about the monopoly this would create in the satellite radio market spoke out against the merger and the FCC decided to seek comments from the public to assist them in determining whether or not the deal should be allowed to move forward.

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* For those interested, DSLReports.com now hosts some blogs for your reading pleasure. Please be sure to check out the "About DSLReports.com" Site Blog by DSLR owner Justin; keep up with MS related news in DSLR resident Microsoft MVP MSeng's blog "Microsoft Watch"; read about various interesting computer related tidbits in "The Burnfolder" blog from DSLR moderator rjackson, and you can also catch industry news and commentary in the "Broadband Bytes" blog. The blogs can be found by opening the "News" tab on your DSLR control panel and clicking on the blog you are interested in.

Tasmanian energy supplier Aurora Energy was boasting about the amazing powers of BPL back in March but rather quietly scrapped the $2 million trial at the end of last month. Much of the opposition to the trial came from the Radio and Electronics Association of Southern Tasmania which details that opposition here.

XM and Sirius stocks went up yesterday after a prediction by an analyst that the DOJ will approve their merger in the immediate future. Robert Peck says that he has Washington D.C.

As we near the date when the FCC will make a decision about the XM/Sirius merger, people on both sides of the debate have stepped up their campaigns. The National Association of Broadcasters used a series of targeted pop-up ads placed on consumer websites to generate over 8,000 anti-merger e-mails to the FCC.

Earlier this year we saw a big dispute between SoundExchange (which collects recording royalties) and Internet radio broadcasters over rising royalty rates. The uneasy end to the dispute came when SoundExchange postponed the rate hike until a better deal could be worked out.

After much lobbying and media coverage about the negative effect of higher royalty rates on small Internet radio broadcasters, SoundExchange put a halt on realizing the rates until a better deal could be worked out. It’s now being reported that SoundExchange will continue a discounted rate for small Internet radio broadcasters through 2010, giving them a couple more years to get a toehold before putting on the price brakes.

In the debate about the merger between XM and Sirius, the major reason for opposition comes from the fear that the merger will create a monopoly. But if Primosphere has its way, that won’t actually happen. Primoshpere is a company which was around back in 2004 when bidding on satellite radio was big. It lost the bid and seemed to disappear from the picture but has emerged to request that if the Sirius / XM Merger happens Primosphere be allowed to receive half of the combined spectrum in order to launch their own service.

Wired News blogger Eliot Van Buskirk notes that SoundExchange promised before Congress yesterday they won't start collecting the new higher royalty rates this weekend. Instead, they'll wait for a deal to be hashed out with webcasters. "This is a direct result of lobbying pressure [by consumers], so if anyone thinks their call didn't matter, it did. That's why this is happening," says Pandora founder Tim Westergren.

A newly approved royalty rate system set to go into effect on Sunday threatens to put many webcasters out of business by consuming their entire revenue streams -- and then some. A federal appeals court has declined a push by the webcasters to delay the new royalty system. Webcasters are now hoping for an eleventh hour intervention from Congress, which has been bombarded with complaints by consumers.

We’re in the midst of the 180 day “shot clock” for the FCC review of opinions on the Sirius / XM Merger and those opinions are coming out strong on both sides.

The Americans for Tax Reform and The 60 Plus Association both say that the merger would create a more appealing, family-friendly product.

After a long week, webcasters protesting royalty rate hikes may have gained some ground, albeit only a little bit. First, there was the “Day of Silence” protest that gained some media attention.

Today, Internet stations around America are participating in an Internet "Day of Silence" to protest a freshly passed royalty rate hike system lobbied for by the music industry. The webcasters say the new royalty rate system threatens to put the majority of them out of business by consuming their entire revenue streams -- and then some. The Radio and Internet Newsletter (RAIN) explains why it's a big deal:

"Although a royalty rate like this is typically 4% to 5% of revenues in other media (e.g., satellite radio), for other rights (e.g., the musical compositions), and in other countries -- the rates set by the CRB judges equate to roughly 50% of revenues for large webcasters like Yahoo! LAUNCHcast (and probably many terrestrial station streamers), 150% to 300% of revenues for small webcasters like AccuRadio, Radioio, and Digitally Imported, and, for webcasters with large numbers of channels like Rhapsody and Pandora, well more than 1,000% of revenues.

Webcasters urge concerned listeners to call their representatives in Congress and ask them to support the "Internet Radio Equality Act" (IREA) (H.R. 2060 in the House and S. 1353 in the Senate).