H.I.S.D. & Radio Galaxy Form The Hue, Unveil Video for 'Drive'

Houston groups H.I.S.D. and Radio Galaxy have decided to team up and form a new supergroup known as The Hue. The new collective has offered up the single ‘Drive’ as their introduction to the world along with an accompanying music video. The style of the track will be familiar to fans of both H.I.S.D. and Radio Galaxy, proving this combination of talents is a natural fit.

The video sees each member representing their respective groups before coming together as The Hue in front of an all-white background. Fluttering graphics and a running clock at the bottom persist throughout this visual representation, matching the spaced out vibe crafted by producer King Midas of the duo King Coz. Ultimately, the focus is on the lyricism as everyone delivers some impressive bars

Savvi of H.I.S.D raps, “45 on drive, 59 lane change, interstate 610 mainframe / Welcome to the loop, to the loop where The Hue’s range / Rover to the shoulder, drive slower before you crash mayne / Landed on planet Peace Uv Mine, got stranded / Saw gorillas in the wilderness swinging from the branches / They told me that I need to go to sunny side Atlantis / So I took a shortcut through the Jack Yates campus / And when I got there, all the colors you could imagine / One million MCs, paint brushes to the canvas.”

‘Drive’ will appear on The Hue’s debut album ‘Aurora’ which is due out on Rappers I Know Records. The track is currently available for purchase on iTunes and can be streamed now via Soundcloud.

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Media Decoder: Apple Is Said to Be Pressing to Complete Deals for Internet Radio

After months of stalled negotiations over its planned Internet radio service, Apple is pushing to complete licensing deals with music companies so it can reveal the service as early as next week, according to people briefed on the talks.

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Apple’s service, a Pandora-like feature that would tailor streams of music to each user’s taste, has been planned since at least last summer. But Apple has made little progress with record labels and music publishers, which have been seeking higher royalty rates and guaranteed minimum payments, according to these people, who spoke anonymously about the private talks.

While it is still at odds with some music companies over deal terms, Apple is said to be eager to get the licenses in time to unveil the service — nicknamed iRadio by the technology press — at its annual developers conference, which begins June 10 in San Francisco.

Apple has signed a deal with the Universal Music Group for its recorded music rights, but not for music publishing — the part of the business that deals with songwriting. Over the weekend, Apple also signed a deal with the Warner Music Group for both rights. It is still in talks with Sony Music Entertainment and Sony’s separate publishing arm, Sony/ATV, whose songwriters include Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga.

Representatives for Apple and the music companies declined to comment.

Apple’s Internet radio feature is expected to be free and supported by advertising, and would represent a relatively late arrival by the company into what has become a fast-growing — if low-margin — sector of the music business. Pandora has more than 70 million regular users, the vast majority of whom do not pay, and similar features have been introduced by Google, Spotify and the radio company Clear Channel Communications.

The licensing fees paid by Pandora have been a sore spot for music companies, which see promise in Apple’s service, particularly since it can be linked to sales through Apple’s iTunes store, but want higher rates. Publishers, for instance, are paid about 4 percent of Pandora’s revenue, but want as much as 10 percent from Apple.

Apple is said to be negotiating directly with the music groups because it wants more extensive licensing terms.

The Haggler: Radio Shack and the Power of the Crowd

Trying an end-around, the Haggler posted a direct request in the column to Dorvin Lively, the company’s interim C.E.O., asking him to get in touch. To ensure that Mr. Lively got the message, the Haggler included the company’s media relations e-mail address and urged readers to send notes, too.

Well, many did. Exactly how many is unclear, as the Haggler is guessing that the 200 people who copied him in e-mails to Radio Shack is some fraction of the total. Suffice to say, it was a deluge, and it started about three minutes after the column was posted on Saturday night, gained momentum on Sunday and Monday and continued, in tapered-off numbers, for days.

It was an outpouring that gave the Haggler the kind of brief head rush that must be commonplace for megalomaniacs. Fear the Haggler, all ye recalcitrant corporations! For the Haggler Hordes stand ready at their keyboards and, given the signal, they shall unleash a torrent of highly articulate and deeply empathic missives that ye do not want clogging up thine Internet server.

“If I were you, Radio Shack, I’d respond to the Haggler P.D.Q.,” wrote Deborah Lopez, capturing the tone of a typical letter. “In the meantime, I think I’ll keep walking past your store and not stop in. Good luck.”

“If you won’t even respond to The New York Times’s Haggler,” Len Coris asked, “why should I think you would respond to me about a problem or an issue?”

“Bad Radio Shack,” wrote another reader, addressing the company as if it were a wayward Chihuahua. “Bad!”

Needless to say, this pig pile of indignity put Radio Shack in a far chattier mood. A spokeswoman, Kally Masino, wrote the Haggler at 10:08 a.m. on the Sunday that the column was published. Then she wrote again about 20 minutes later. She didn’t actually say “uncle,” but it was sort of implied.

First, though, let’s back up and explain why the Haggler contacted Radio Shack in the first place. It started with a letter from Ronnie Hirsh of Manhattan. He had tried to pre-order an iPhone 5 from his local Radio Shack, and was told that he’d have it by Sept. 21 if he bought a $50 gift card. Well, because of a delivery glitch, it didn’t arrive by then. And, it turned out, that gift card was nonrefundable.

“Radio Shack figured out how to make money without actually selling a phone,” he wrote. “In my opinion, sleazy.”

When the Haggler wrote to Radio Shack, an unnamed person in the media relations department replied, saying the pre-order agreement made clear that gift cards were nonrefundable. This unnamed person also noted (as did Mr. Hirsh, in his original letter) that people who complained loudly enough were, in fact, given refunds. Mr. Hirsh, with his returned $50 in hand, bought his iPhone elsewhere.

The Haggler thinks that if a company makes it plain that a fee or service or a fill-in-the-blank is nonrefundable — which was the case here — it’s up to the consumer to read and understand that fact. Given that Radio Shack refunded Mr. Hirsh’s money despite clearly saying it was not obliged to — well, put this one in the win column for Radio Shack.

So, if this matter was resolved, why did the Haggler invite readers to carpet e-mail Radio Shack?

Well, whoever was interacting with the Haggler stopped doing so after he asked about another matter, soon after the gift-card issue was hashed over. A few months ago, the Haggler returned an item to Radio Shack for which he’d paid cash. At the register, a cashier asked for the Haggler’s phone number. Why would you need a phone number, the Haggler asked.

“The system” requires a phone number, the clerk explained.

Ah, the system. The Haggler managed to get his money back without divulging his phone number, but an online search suggested that others haven’t been as lucky. It was when the Haggler asked about this strange policy that Radio Shack went silent.

Fast-forward to that e-mail from Ms. Masino, the P.R. rep. Reached by phone a few days after her Sunday e-mail, she said she’d been the person corresponding with the Haggler. When asked why she had suddenly ceased all communication, she said she didn’t know. The Haggler asked her to take a guess. Well, she might have handed off the Haggler’s message to someone else on the P.R. team, she said, who might have assumed she’d already dealt with the matter. Or not. At one point, she used the word “dumbfounded,” though it’s not clear what she was dumbfounded about.

The conversation dumbfounded the Haggler.

Later, Ms. Masino e-mailed: “It’s become clear that we didn’t handle your questions as well as you should expect from a national retailer. We owe you an apology because one failed response has distracted from a broader discussion about taking care of customers.”

Apology accepted. Now, what’s with this phone-number demand for cash transactions? “We collect name, address and phone contacts for refunds,” she wrote, “even for small cash purchases, because it creates an audit trail that can be used to make certain each refund is delivered to a specific person and is not a fraudulent event.”

This makes sense only once you realize that the fraudulent events that worry Radio Shack, as Ms. Masino confirmed, are those that might be committed by employees, who could hand over cash they should not be handing over. Many retailers have an identical policy, she added. But the Haggler has encountered it only at Radio Shack. Regardless, the company’s suspicions about its staff members don’t seem a compelling reason to force customers to share personal information. Radio Shack needs either a better system or more employees that it trusts.

E-mail: haggler@nytimes.com. Keep it brief and family-friendly, include your hometown and go easy on the caps-lock key. Letters may be edited for clarity and length.

Internet Radio Royalty Bill Would Change Rate-Setting Standard

They are part of a federal judicial standard that is the basis of how royalty rates are set for Internet radio services like Pandora Media. For years, however, online services have complained that the standard is unfair, and results in burdensome rates that are much higher than those paid by satellite radio.

The battle flared up again on Friday with a new Congressional bill, the Internet Radio Fairness Act. Introduced in the House by Jason Chaffetz, Republican of Utah, and Jared Polis, Democrat of Colorado, the bill would move so-called noninteractive online radio services like Pandora and Clear Channel Communications’ iHeartRadio app from the “willing buyer, willing seller” standard to the one used to determine rates for Sirius XM Radio.

That model would let the panel of federal judges that set the rates consider evidence both on the value of the music and on the effect the royalty rate would have on the industry over all. Pandora and its supporters believe that standard would yield lower rates.

On the other side of the issue are record labels and artists, who believe that the existing rates are fair and accuse Pandora and others of wanting to deprive copyright holders of the income they deserve.

Pandora pays a fraction of a cent each time a user listens to a song, and the total must be a minimum of 25 percent of its annual revenue; last year it paid about half its revenue to labels and performers. Sirius’s current rate is 8 percent. (Both kinds of services also pay separate royalties to songwriters and publishers.)

Tim Westergren, Pandora’s founder, took to his company’s blog to say that the bill is long overdue. “The anti-Internet bias in federal law is nothing short of absurd,” he wrote.

Pandora’s position is supported by other digital services and by the National Association of Broadcasters.

Ted Kalo, executive director of the MusicFirst coalition, which represents many labels and artists, on Friday defended the current rates and said that the promised changes would unfairly benefit services like Pandora.

“There’s nothing fair about pampering Pandora, with its $1.8 billion market cap, at the expense of music creators,” Mr. Kalo said in a statement. “Going from a fair market, ‘willing buyer, willing seller,’ rate to a government-mandated subsidy will break the backs of artists, while Pandora executives pad their pockets.”

Throughout the music industry there is a wide belief that Pandora could solve its financial problems — the company, which went public a year ago, has never turned an annual profit — by simply selling more ads.

The issue is expected to be deliberated after the national elections in November, and probably into the spring.

Internet Radio Royalty Bill Would Change Rate-Setting Standard

They are part of a federal judicial standard that is the basis of how royalty rates are set for Internet radio services like Pandora Media. For years, however, online services have complained that the standard is unfair, and results in burdensome rates that are much higher than those paid by satellite radio.

The battle flared up again on Friday with a new Congressional bill, the Internet Radio Fairness Act. Introduced in the House by Jason Chaffetz, Republican of Utah, and Jared Polis, Democrat of Colorado, the bill would move so-called noninteractive online radio services like Pandora and Clear Channel Communications’ iHeartRadio app from the “willing buyer, willing seller” standard to the one used to determine rates for Sirius XM Radio.

That model would let the panel of federal judges that set the rates consider evidence both on the value of the music and on the effect the royalty rate would have on the industry over all. Pandora and its supporters believe that standard would yield lower rates.

On the other side of the issue are record labels and artists, who believe that the existing rates are fair and accuse Pandora and others of wanting to deprive copyright holders of the income they deserve.

Pandora pays a fraction of a cent each time a user listens to a song, and the total must be a minimum of 25 percent of its annual revenue; last year it paid about half its revenue to labels and performers. Sirius’s current rate is 8 percent. (Both kinds of services also pay separate royalties to songwriters and publishers.)

Tim Westergren, Pandora’s founder, took to his company’s blog to say that the bill is long overdue. “The anti-Internet bias in federal law is nothing short of absurd,” he wrote.

Pandora’s position is supported by other digital services and by the National Association of Broadcasters.

Ted Kalo, executive director of the MusicFirst coalition, which represents many labels and artists, on Friday defended the current rates and said that the promised changes would unfairly benefit services like Pandora.

“There’s nothing fair about pampering Pandora, with its $1.8 billion market cap, at the expense of music creators,” Mr. Kalo said in a statement. “Going from a fair market, ‘willing buyer, willing seller,’ rate to a government-mandated subsidy will break the backs of artists, while Pandora executives pad their pockets.”

Throughout the music industry there is a wide belief that Pandora could solve its financial problems — the company, which went public a year ago, has never turned an annual profit — by simply selling more ads.

The issue is expected to be deliberated after the national elections in November, and probably into the spring.

Two Apps, TuneIn and iHeart Radio, Put Radio Online

The apps, iHeartRadio and TuneIn, are aggregators — conduits for thousands of online radio streams. With a few taps on a smartphone, a listener can dart among a pop station in New York, gospel in Atlanta and talk almost anywhere.

Both have quickly amassed big audiences. TuneIn, which offers 70,000 streams from around the world, announced on Monday that it has 40 million monthly users. IHeartRadio, owned by the broadcasting giant Clear Channel Communications, has been downloaded 95 million times and has attracted more than 12 million registered users.

For broadcasters, these aggregators can help reach audiences in the growing but increasingly fragmented world of online radio, which can mean anything from a customized playlist on Pandora or Spotify to an iTunes stream.

“Our mission is about getting our content to as wide an audience as possible,” said Anil Dewan, the director of interactive media at KCRW, a public station in Santa Monica, Calif., whose digital outlets include TuneIn, iHeartRadio, iTunes, Spotify and an app of its own.

At the same time, many broadcasters say they worry about the rising costs of online royalties; the plans of the companies behind the apps; and the possibility of being lost within the aggregators, like needles in enormous digital haystacks.

Both aggregators let users find stations by typing a city, genre or station name into their search bars. TuneIn also points listeners to any station currently playing a given artist or song; iHeartRadio has an extensive custom-radio function, modeled after Pandora.

But as businesses they represent two poles of media. TuneIn, in Palo Alto, Calif., which started as a simple directory, transformed itself into an app purveyor two years ago, with streams that include not only radio and podcasts, but also emergency scanner signals. Recently the company raised $16 million in new investment, bringing its total financing to $22 million.

Clear Channel, which owns 850 stations, added a custom radio feature to iHeartRadio last September, making it a Pandora competitor as well as a platform for almost 2,000 stations. Hundreds of those belong to direct competitors, a few of which, including Cumulus Media and Univision, have made exclusive deals.

The apps are going head-to-head in the marketplace as consumers grow accustomed to tapping on one app for all their radio needs, and manufacturers of everything from televisions to cars begin to incorporate suites of streaming apps.

“They are both competing to be one-stop shopping in the Wild West of Internet radio,” said Paul Heine, a senior editor at the trade publication Inside Radio. “They both want to be a destination that helps consumers navigate radio’s infinite dial online.”

For now only a fraction of the radio audience is online; John Hogan, chief executive of Clear Channel Media and Entertainment, the company’s radio and online division, said that 98 percent of listening to his company’s stations is still on its terrestrial signals. But it is growing quickly. According to Triton Media, a company that measures Internet radio audiences, Clear Channel’s online audience has risen 117 percent in the last year.

“What will end up happening is that every radio station stream is going to become a secondary station, if not a primary one,” said Jackie Paulus, director of marketing and digital innovation for WGN, a news and talk station in Chicago owned by the Tribune Company.

But making money through online radio remains a puzzle, largely because of its royalty structure.

While terrestrial broadcasters pay music publishers negotiated rates, no matter how many people are listening, online and satellite radio operators pay publishers — as well as labels and artists — for each new listener. Pandora, while enjoying rapid growth, still pays more than half its revenue in music royalties.