The Australian Commercial Radio Awards (ACRAs) will skip this year.
In an internal memo to its members, leaked to Radio Today, Commercial Radio & Audio (CRA) confirms that its flagship ceremony is removed from this year’s calendar – a cost-cutting measure that was “was not easy to make.”
Instead, the trade body tells members, it will “reallocate resources” to “crucial priorities, including significant cost pressures incurred from ongoing legal matters with the PPCA.”
CRA and the PPCA have never been the best of allies, though relations have frosted considerably with the collecting society’s ongoing push to remove royalty “caps” at commercial radio and the ABC.
Those limits on royalties, which are paid to rights holders in sound recordings when music is played on radio, are fixed at 1% of commercial radio revenue — and have been for over half a century.
As a result, commercial radio pays roughly $4 million in copyright fees for the use of sound recordings, despite earning around $1 billion in advertising revenue, according to PPCA.
Scraping the caps, the PPCA has claimed, could lead to a potential 78% increase in income for artists whose music is played on radio.
David Pocock, the former Wallabies captain-turned independent senator, tackled the issue and moved it into the halls of power in Canberra, by way of the Fair Pay for Radio Play Bill, introduced August 2023.
CRA, which is responsible for the interests of commercial radio broadcasters, has warned that the Bill was a “threat” to the sustainability of regional radio.
Killing the cap “could backfire” by funneling more money to the record labels, CRA reps have said, while “simultaneously undermining the health of the radio industry, which provides a major platform for Australian artists.”
According to Radio Today, CRA will also “review and refresh… the categories, judging process, and events execution” to “reimage” how it “recognises excellence in Australian audio” for the annual commercial radio industry event.
CRA has not commented on the leak, though PPCA has chimed in.
“It is a shame to see the ACRAs paused after 36 years of success, but it is up to CRA whether they prioritise the awards or not,” reads a statement from PPCA, seen by Variety AU/NZ.
“It is strange that PPCA has been called out for simply exercising its rights before the Copyright Tribunal, particularly when CRA has historically managed to stage the ACRAs while participating in Copyright Tribunal matters. The recent years-long simulcast rights case comes to mind.”
CRA hasn’t reached agreement on a new royalty rate within the current cap, so matters have escalated to the Copyright Tribunal.
PPCA’s message continues: “By its own admission, CRA is taking time to ‘review and refresh our awards categories, judging process, and events execution.’ Perhaps rather than shifting blame to other industry bodies, CRA could be more forthright in addressing why they didn’t want to prioritise the awards this year and need to rethink the format.”
CRA recently welcomes GfK’s latest Survey 1 results which illustrated the commercial radio sector’s continued growth, now reaching a “record-breaking” total audience of 12.5 million Australians.
The ACRAs is the second major music industry ceremony to be postponed in as many days, following Music Victoria’s decision to suspend its 2025 edition.