Canadian Music Royalty Fee
I learned late last week that effective March 1, 2010, Sirius Canada subscribers will now be forced to pay the Canadian Music Royalty Fee. I was extremly disturbed to read this given that I figured after Sirius axed lifetime subsriptions and the backlash that came from it, that the company was done clawing back these sorts of things. I am of the understanding that Sirius has been absorbing this cost for some time but in order to continue its climb out of the red, they needed to pass this on to the customer.
I will personally get over this cost increase that has been passed on. I am able to make my subscription pay for itself really quickly. I encourage all subscribers to voice their concerns and any anger over this directly to Sirius Canada, but also please feel free to express your viewpoint on these pages. I will respond to every comment with my own two cents. Rest assured I will understand anyone being irritated by this.
I find myself conflicted. On one hand I am happy to see the company as a whole slowly getting itself back into the black. At the same time, I think customers (all of us) have seen enough clawbacks. Axing lifetime subscriptions was a poor enough decision, and now we are paying the price that terrestrial radio has always been able to pay through its raising of advertising revenues.
Even with that in mind, I will still never go back to terrestrial radio. I keep reminding myself today that I still have Howard Stern, and all the great options that are not available on the regular dial.
Moving forward folks, I hope all of us as customers get some good programming this year and the right contracts are renewed with the right talent….
Reader Comments
How does the Royalty Fee work? Who (exactly) does the Canadian Gov’t pay these collected royalties to? The one or two Canadian bands that Sirius plays? All Canadian bands? Canadian and American bands? Nobody; they keep it for themselves?
What if I only listen to NASCAR, and no music? How fair is that? And if the fee is 6%, why is the second radio 33% cheaper than the first radio? Was Sirius really “eating” this cost until they passed it on?
When did Sirius know about it? They never said anything to me when I paid up front for the year – in January.
Cole, thank you for your excellent comment. I guarantee you are not the only one to be asking these questions.
My understanding of this program is that SiriusXM has to pay the royalty through one channel for sure, that being the Society of Composers and Authors, (SOCAN), but I am not aware of the other channels they pay this fee to other than possibly an umbrella organization representing record companies, or if the government acts as a middle man in the whole scenario. My research turned up little to nothing in the way of clarifying this. What I want to find out is how/if American artists and for that matter international artists are getting paid their royalties from this, if any. I will say that the Canadian Content on the programming dial is quite impressive and in fact more variable than anything heard on terrestrial radio.
If Sirius was really eating this cost, then in my opinion it was a poor business decision to do so for so long, it is bad enough they took away life time subscriptions, My one major problem with the company, as much as I love the product, is that they made some majorly silly business decisions and it seems like it is now catching up to them, and it frustrates me that we as subscribers are paying for these mistakes.
When we paid for the year in January, they should have told us this might be coming or would be coming. If they were eating the cost all along, they should have been more open about this as an operating cost.
I am of the opinion that if the music stations were running periodic advertisements the way other stations do, the revenue would increase and we would not see these costs passed on to us. But on the other side of this argument, I love having commercial free music.
This whole fee nonsense is frustrating for sure. At the end of the day I can never go back to terrestrial radio since my subscription pays for itself quickly. Cheers.