Commercial Radio Cancel Awards Night Citing Battle With Musicians

Commercial Radio and Audio (CRA), the trade body representing Australia’s audio industry (including radio, podcasts and digital audio) has reportedly cancelled their 2025 annual awards ceremony, in what could only be described as baffling circumstances, denying an industry that has had a rough twelve months the ability to celebrate their wins.

And whose fault is it? Apparently, those pesky musicians! In an internal memo cited by Mumbrella, Commercial Radio and Audio strangely cited the need to “reallocate resources” towards “crucial priorities, including significant cost pressures incurred from ongoing legal matters with the PPCA” as the reason for the cancellation.

CRA is currently in a copyright tribunal battle with the Phonographic Performance Company of Australia (PPCA) over increasing royalties and is also trying to get government to overturn a post-war law which restricts music rights holders from charging any more than 1% of a station’s revenue for the music that they play. It is unclear which of the two is behind the ACRAs cancellation.

While the current tribunal case is regarding a lift within the current cap, the existence of the cap means that writers of the songs played (which are NOT subject to a cap) are receiving up to four times more than the owners of the sound recording with PPCA suggesting that the law restrains them from negotiating in a free and open market.

In a statement to The Music, a spokesperson for PPCA said:

“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. It is strange that PPCA has been called out for simply exercising our rights before the Copyright Tribunal, particularly when CRA has managed to stage the ACRAs while participating in Copyright Tribunal matters in the past.

“The recent years-long simulcast rights case comes to mind. 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 address why they didn't want to prioritise the awards this year and need to rethink the format.”

CRA reported revenue in Q2 of 2024 of $200.7 million and in calendar year 2024 $313 million, with rough maths making the industry worth a little more than recorded music’s revenue of $717 million. The way each industry chooses to balance their books seemingly couldn’t be further apart however.

It seems that the music industry knows how to party with the ARIA Awards, APRA Awards, AIR Awards, Screen Music Awards, Women in Music Awards, National Indigenous Music Awards, Rolling Stone Awards, Countrytown Awards, Golden Guitars, J Awards, National Live Music Awards, Queensland Music Awards, WAMIs, SA Music Awards and many more for its participants to let their hair down at and celebrate their wins.

It’s enough to make you wonder how the industry can stay afloat. Either they’ve worked out how to balance award show books, or they just love a good bar tab at any cost.

Perhaps they could lend radio one of their awards nights for the year? Having said that, the Music Victoria Awards announced their hiatus yesterday, so change could be in the wind.

Commercial Radio on the other hand have prioritised the spends such as $200 million on hiring Kyle & Jackie O and putting $5 million on the line for a listener to dig up on a Melbourne beach. The industry has also been going through massive changes, with networking and job losses killing what could have been a downbeat ACRAs vibe in 2025 anyway.

It’s not the first time commercial radio have chosen to lash out at PPCA, threatening to play less Australian artists if they were forced to pay more for their licence, in what might have been seen as a political own-goal with a government currently supportive of local culture.