Understanding Broadcast and Cable Finance, 2nd Edition

14 Music Licensing and Syndication Fees

Mary M. Collins¹

You work for a local all-news station that’s getting crushed in the ratings with its late night programming. Looking at the competition, you realize that none of the stations in the market have any music after midnight. So you decide to show your boss that you have initiative, and you program a weekly one-hour music special that runs at 2:00 a.m. Relatively speaking, your new program is getting killer numbers, and you begin to plan what you are going to do to celebrate your raise and promotion. But you failed to consult the business manager before you put the program on the air—and now you find out that this one-hour weekly obligates your operation to a different music license. Instead ...