Since being forced to play old music, Bulgarian National Radio is more popular than ever

The management at Bulgarian National Radio (BNR) might be thanking their lucky stars that they got embroiled in a copyright battle, leaving the station permitted to only play music produced before 1945 — since waving goodbye to music from this side of the Second World War, the broadcaster has seen audiences grow by 20 per cent.

The research, carried out from 2 — 29 January by Ipsos Bulgaria, showed some regional stations almost tripling their audience share compared to the final quarter of 2016.

While the study did not provide any possible reasons for the increase in audience, BNR’s director general Alexander Velev put the recent success down the change in music, in addition to the impact of recent political events.

Since the beginning of the year, BNR has been locked in battle with copyright organisation Musicautor, forcing the station to only play music produced before 1945. The dispute is due to BNR’s refusal to agree to a gradual threefold increase in its payments to Musicautor, bringing payments more in line with those of other European public radio broadcasters. Until the end of 2016, BNR paid just 1% of its subsidy as royalties to Musicautor, with neighbouring Romania’s public station paying 3.25%, and other European broadcasters contributing even greater proportions.

Source: Balkan Insight