Radio Stations

Like a hit song rising with a bullet, Top 40 station KLSX-FM (97.1) continued its ascent up the radio rankings, but KIIS-FM (102.7) remained No. 1 in Los Angeles and Orange counties last month, even putting some distance between itself and the upstart, according to figures released Wednesday. From April 30 to May 27, top-of-the-pops KIIS increased its audience share from 4.9% to 5.3% of all listeners ages 6 and older, the Arbitron ratings service reported.

Broadcasters call the Performance Rights Act a tax. To the music industry, it's more like a royalty fee. But the legislation, which is gaining momentum in both the House and the Senate, is making radio stations nervous. For more than 80 years, commercial stations have aired songs without paying royalties to musicians.

In a small, square room with a view of the Hollywood Hills, KFI's John and Ken spend hours needling public officials and tossing out satirical and sometimes sophomoric lines that reach an estimated 1 million listeners per month. Now, the radio provocateurs may have a surprisingly significant impact on the prosecution of a man who was once Orange County's most powerful law enforcement officer. This week, attorneys for former Orange County Sheriff Michael S.

It's the midmorning commute, and time for the horoscope on "Good Morning Syria," the nation's hottest radio show. "Cancer," host Honey Sayed addresses listeners first in Arabic, then in English, with an air of sisterly candor, "don't get all worked up for nothing." On the other side of the window, deejay Abdullah Shaaban cues an oldie from John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. "I got chills, they're multiplying," Travolta sings. "And I'm losing control."

She did it her way, with boots that were made for walking, when Nancy Sinatra followed in her famous father's footsteps by becoming a singer. Now, just as the late Frank Sinatra did, she's striding down another similar path -- activism for fellow musicians. On Wednesday, she headlined a House subcommittee hearing, urging lawmakers to force broadcast radio stations to pay royalties to performers and record companies when the stations air their songs.

More than 100 years ago, Congress gave composers the right to demand royalties from those who played or sang their musical works in public. That 1897 law would later help songwriters (along with their publishers) collect a percentage of the revenue from radio stations that broadcast their tunes over the air. But when the radio industry was developing early in the 20th century, there was no copyright protection for the sound-recording business that was emerging around the same time.

For CBS Corp., it wasn't video that killed the radio star -- but a severe downturn in local advertising. The New York-based broadcasting company, controlled by billionaire Sumner Redstone, said Thursday that it planned to sell 50 radio stations in a dozen mid-size markets as ad revenue continued to slide in a weak economy. The company's once-mighty radio division continued to produce static and a drag on the company's earnings. Revenue rose barely 1% to $3.

A multimillion-dollar industry that relied on the honor system to determine its income will turn a page this week. On Wednesday, radio stations in Los Angeles and Orange County will get their ratings for the first time from a new electronic monitoring system, replacing the decades-old method in which listeners scribbled in a diary what they'd been tuning in to.

If you've ever been stuck with preset radio stations in a rental car or you're on the road and searching -- desperately -- for a channel you like, Radio-Locator.com may be music to your ears. What's hot: Radio-Locator not only tells you where you can find adult contemporary, Top 40, hip-hop, smooth jazz, news/talk, Spanish, alternative and other radio formats in U.S. cities and Canadian provinces, but it also indicates signal strength.

WASHINGTON -- Video killed the radio star, as the 1979 hit song goes, and now some fear an obscure group of federal copyright judges may be on the verge of killing Internet radio. In a ruling made public Tuesday, the Copyright Royalty Board significantly increased the royalties paid to musicians and record labels for streaming digital songs online. The decision also ended a discounted fee for small Internet broadcasters.