Feb. 4, 2026 11:33 AM PT
To the editor: As a radio programmer with greater than 50 years of expertise, and figuring out that visitor contributor Gene Simmons will not be uninformed, I discovered his opinions to be incomplete at greatest (“Radio should be required to pay performers for their music,” Jan. 30).
The important thing undeniable fact that he did not be fully open about is that he, and different performing artists who’re additionally songwriters, are already amongst those that obtain a royalty from radio through the music publishing rights firms reminiscent of ASCAP and BMI — an association that precedes my private historical past within the business by greater than twenty years. Simmons receives these royalty funds each time anybody (be it his band or one other artist) performs a tune on the radio that he not less than co-wrote.
In actual fact, two of the best-known KISS songs, “Rock and Roll All Nite” and “Shout It Out Loud,” present his identify because the songwriter, and a number of other extra songs by his band additionally carry his authorship imprint. If that appears like he’s making an argument right here for “double dipping,” I can’t disagree with that notion.
Additional, the up-and-coming artists who he purports to be anxious about additionally, in overwhelming proportions, have a tendency to jot down or co-write their very own materials and obtain the identical songwriting credit. And the streaming companies that he admits many now use to find new music are already topic to efficiency royalties, as he has himself acknowledged.
Those self same various platforms have decreased radio listening, ensuing within the revenue margins for stations being a lot decrease than once I began within the enterprise. Give us one more mandated price to pay, and the outcome will probably be counter to the intent: Extra stations will drop music codecs in favor of royalty-free spoken-word codecs. Is that what he needs?
Ok.M. Richards, Van Nuys
This author is program director for the syndicated radio format the Eighties Channel, whose flagship station is KRKE in Albuquerque.
