[Fmpro] NO one?? PRS changes?

[Chris Alpiar]

That's the bottom line of course. The marketplace does determine the value.
And whether you like it or not, music you wrote that is performed on a rerun
of some show during the daytime does not deserve the same rate that a prime
time major network show is going to get paid. 

I am amazed however that they only break it into 2 barrels of time slot.
Since viewers have to be at least 90% cable or online data driven satellite
(eq DirecTV, DISH, etc), viewing can be and should be tracked to the second.
So it would make more sense to just pay for each show by how many
viewers/minute watched of each show, and how many commercials they watched
and of which caliber/rate. Then it's really truly fair and no one can deny.
So maybe we benefit by PRO non-accountability. Maybe not. There is no way to
tell. But I bet if they really tightened down the hatches and squeezed to
get EXACT value of each and every piece of music, we would end up being very
disappointed. And the advertisers would see how much lower then expected
viewers saw their ad and they would pay even less... 

With the advent of TIVO and lots and lots of people (myself included!) only
watching the shows and fast forwarding over the commercials, the networks
are in a bind to find a bottom line that lets them stay in business and
advertisers are rethinking their budgets and allocating money to different
places then TV. I think it sucks that there is going to be less money for
certain writers who as musicians and individuals are just as valid and
special as the next guy who got lucky with a prime time spot (this season).
But the reasoning on the business side makes sense. 

The world is changing, and quickly. But there is no point to wallow in
emotion of what is no longer, but instead to find what the new way will be.
How are we going to be paid for downloads, not rhetorically but technically
and exactly. Follow and understand fully how to make tracking systems
absolute and ubiquitous and lobby for fairness. And through those changes
how to change the future of TV royalties so that its 100% accountable (if
that is what we really want, though I have doubts). Maybe some mechanism to
separate loop/beat writers from an artform that costs its creator 100X more
creation time to somehow keep it alive and flourishing. And most importantly
how to identify emerging media markets and understand how people are using
them so that law can be properly put in place to keep artists and musicians
that contribute alive. It's time to stop bitching about the inevitable and
to dig in while we still can and make change for the future. 

This is the time of great shifting because of technology and trends in how
people use media. The days of CD sales are gone. The days of big advertising
money on network TV is gone. We can't control how those organizations will
re-saturate their marketing and branding but while we have this period of
flux we can spend some energy helping mold the future by guiding the
bean-counters. If we take proactive steps to educate the suits on how they
will save their barrels of clams and keep our art flourishing then we have
truly done our job. These are the issues you should be talking with the PROs
about, not screaming at a pay rate scale that I am sure is in place to try
and keep advertisers interested in a fleeting market

Chris