Clear Channel Makes Revenue-Sharing Deal With Fleetwood Mac

The radio giant Clear Channel has struck a deal to pay Fleetwood Mac when the band’s songs are played on the radio and on the Internet.

The revenue-sharing deal, announced on Wednesday, was characterized as the first of its kind between a radio station owner and a music act. Last year, Clear Channel started to sign similar deals with record labels.

The agreement with Fleetwood Mac “is the clearest sign yet that this kind of revenue-sharing model represents the industry’s future â€" it is a win-win-win, for artists, fans and the music business,” Bob Pittman, the chief executive of Clear Channel, said in a statement.

Payments for radio broadcasts of songs, called royalties, have been a source of disagreement within the recording industry for decades. Historically songwriters and music publishers have received those royalties while the record labels and musicians have not. The Web works differently: there, whenever songs are streamed, the performers are paid. As radio stations have migrated to the Web, these two systems have come into conflict, leading companies like Clear Channel to come up with fixes.

Clear Channel’s first revenue-sharing deal, announced this time last year, was with Big Machine, the record label that counts Taylor Swift among its artists. Since then Clear Channel has signed similar deals with a number of independent labels.

Earlier this year Fleetwood Mac released four songs, its first set of new music since 2003. Fleetwood Mac’s longtime manager Irving Azoff, the former chairman of Live Nation, is a Clear Channel board member. In a statement he said, “It’s fitting that a group that’s played such an integral role in radio and music history would be the first band to take such a major step â€" helping the music industry create a sustainable digital marketplace so it can thrive for decades to come.”