Piece Description

On Tuesday, June 26, 2007 many webcasters will turn off their music streams for a day, in protest of new high Internet Radio music royalty rates. KCRW presents a one-hour special for RADIO and INTERNET STREAMS in honor of this Day of Silence, D-Day for Webcasters. Hosted by KCRW General Manager Ruth Seymour, guests include: Live 365.com, AccuRadio, Pandora, NPR, Bagel Radio, Yahoo Music and WAMU-FM. KCRW will replace all of its regular webstreams with this program, every hour from 12:01 am to 11:59 pm (PDT) on KCRW.com. The station will broadcast the program on its terrestrial signals from 2 to 3 pm and 6:30 to 7:30 pm on Tuesday, June 26th. THIS PROGRAM IS AVAILABLE TO ALL PUBLIC RADIO STATIONS FOR RADIO BROADCAST ON TUESDAY OR ANY DAY THEREAFTER ON PRX. IT WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR WEBSTREAMS, AS AN MP3 DOWNLOAD AT KCRW.COM, THERE ARE NO RESTRICTIONS ON BROADCAST OR WEBCAST EXCEPT THAT WEBCAST IS EMBARGOED UNTIL WEDNESDAY, JUNE 27. BROADCAST WILL INCLUDE THREE :30 BREAKS AT: 12:37 29:36 44:31 OUTCUE FOR THE BREAKS WILL BE: you're listening to D-day for webcasters, a day of silence......We'll be back in a moment. BANNER GRAPHICS ARE AVAILABLE FOR WEBSITES; CONTACT ANIL.DEWAN@KCRW.ORG. WE DO REQUIRE YOU TO TELL US THAT YOU ARE CARRYING EITHER OR BOTH THE ON-AIR OR ONLINE VERSIONS. PLEASE LET SARAH SPITZ KNOW VIA EMAIL WHAT DAY, DATE AND TIME YOU ARE CARRYING, STATION AND CITY/STATE. sarah.spitz@kcrw.org DETAILS FOLLOW: HOST: Ruth Seymour, General Manager KCRW and KCRW.com NPR: Mike Riksen will describe public radio's history with CARP and CRB up to the latest developments. AccuRadio: Kurt Hanson -- also publishes RAIN. Organized the first Day of Silence and spearheaded the current event. Pandora: Tim Westergren - personalized internet radio music service. WAMU: Caryn Mathes - NPR station webcaster in Washington D.C. Yahoo: Ian Rogers - Head of Yahoo Music, one of the largest streamers online. Bagel Radio: Ted Leibowitz - music tastemaker; operates out of his apartment in San Francisco. Live365: Johnny Floater, General Mgr. Media; provides bandwidth for ten thousand small webcasters. PRESS RELEASE CONTACT: Sarah Spitz 310 314-4627; sarah.spitz@kcrw.org KCRW 89.9 FM/Santa Monica and KCRW.com will join with fellow webcasters for a Day of Silence, Tuesday June 26th.The station will shut down regular programming on all three of its webstreams as a protest against the new high music royalties for Internet radio, established by the Copyright Royalty Board in March. KCRW will produce a one-hour program, D-Day for Webcasters, featuring Pandora, Live365, Yahoo, AccuRadio, SomaFM, indie webcaster Bagel Radio and public radio station WAMU/Washington, DC among others. They will join host Ruth Seymour, KCRWs General Manager, to describe the effects that the new rates will have on their ability to stream and to serve audiences online. D-Day for Webcasters will be webcast all day Tuesday, June 26th on KCRW.com. It will be also be broadcast on KCRWs airwaves on Tuesday, June 26th from 2 to 3 pm PDT, and repeated from 6:30 to 7:30 pm. Webcasters are supporting the Internet Radio Equality Act, which has garnered bipartisan support in the House as well as the Senate. In addition, they have filed appeals and a request for a stay with the US District Court in Washington, DC. However, if none of these tactics succeed, webcasters will be required to send checks to Sound Exchange, the collection agency for the record companies and the artists, on July 15th. Rates are retroactive to 2006.