NEWS BLOG - You'll hear something unusual from many of our Midwest Communications radio stations tomorrow.

At 8am Thursday morning, our three music stations will stop playing music for an hour. Our news, talk, and sports stations will also stop our regular formats. All of our stations will be part of a special simulcast to talk about the Music Performance Tax. If it passes Congress, it would cripple local radio stations.

The large record companies, and some allies on Capital Hill, want to tax radio stations for the music we broadcast.

Radio stations already pay a licensing fee to the songwriters. An additional tax to the performers would lead to many changes. Some marginal radio stations would turn off their transmitters and turn in their licenses. Others might drop music programming. Radio stations that continue to play music would be less-likely to play new songs, or to publicize new, unproven artists.

Dave Kalloway and Stacey Cole from WIFC will host the special broadcast. We hope you'll lend an ear and support our cause. We really need people to sign the on-line petition at http://www.noperformancetax.org/

Chris Conley
Operations Manager, Midwest Communications-Wausau
2.18.10