{"id":439368,"date":"2025-12-11T05:09:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T05:09:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/439368\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T05:09:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T05:09:14","slug":"peoria-artist-radio-station-weigh-in-on-american-music-fairness-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/439368\/","title":{"rendered":"Peoria artist, radio station weigh in on American Music Fairness Act"},"content":{"rendered":"

PEORIA (25News Now<\/a>) – A national debate over artist compensation could soon affect local radio stations as Congress prepares to consider the American Music Fairness Act<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The proposed legislation would require radio stations to pay new royalties to performers, marking the first time the U.S. would implement such payments.<\/p>\n

Currently, radio stations pay licensing fees to songwriters and composers. However, the bill would introduce an entirely new fee structure.<\/p>\n

Midwest Communications, which owns local radio stations such as WMBD Radio, said the legislation could hit small-market stations the hardest. <\/p>\n

Operations Manager Fritz Moser said the radio has spent decades promoting artists for free, and this shift could force some stations to change their operations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just going to be harder for us to justify some of the costs to get some of these newer acts on the air. I think you\u2019re going to see some radio stations either create their own record labels. I mean, that\u2019s a possibility. Or they\u2019ll change formats to where they\u2019re out of the music business altogether,\u201d Moser said.<\/p>\n

Local artist Warith Muhammad, co-founder of God\u2019s Music Productions, supports the Fairness Act, saying even small payments could make a major difference for artists.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re an independent artist, every penny counts. You don\u2019t even say dollar because most of the time your streams aren\u2019t making dollars. They\u2019re only making pennies. So this bill saying, \u2018hey, this money is going to go directly to the artist\u2019 is huge,\u201d Muhammad said.<\/p>\n

The American Music Fairness Act has support from several major artist groups but faces strong opposition from broadcasters nationwide. <\/p>\n

The legislation is expected to be debated again when Congress returns next session.<\/p>\n

You can watch 25News<\/a> – any newscast, anywhere – streaming LIVE<\/a> on 25NewsNow.com<\/a>, our 25News mobile app<\/a>, and on our WEEK 25News SmartTV streaming app<\/a>. Learn more about how you can get connected to 25News streaming live news here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 WEEK. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PEORIA (25News Now) – A national debate over artist compensation could soon affect local radio stations as Congress…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":439369,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[9835,202910,202912,202913,171,202917,202919,202920,202915,975,202914,202911,67,132,68,202918,2452,202916],"class_list":{"0":"post-439368","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-25news","9":"tag-american-music-fairness-act","10":"tag-artist-compensation","11":"tag-broadcasting-legislation","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-fritz-moser","14":"tag-gods-music-productions","15":"tag-imani-mcclay","16":"tag-midwest-communications","17":"tag-music","18":"tag-music-industry-payments","19":"tag-radio-royalties","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-warith-muhammad","24":"tag-week","25":"tag-wmbd-radio"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115699211874800251","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=439368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439368\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}