THIS JUST IN: Wired is reporting this evening that Internet radio is saved (for now)! Credit is being given to all of the fans of Internet radio who called Congress and voiced their concerns. As quoted from a new Wired posting this evening:

“At today’s Congressional hearing about the new rates for online radio that would essentially destroy it, SoundExchange, which was scheduled to receive the new royalty payments on Monday morning (since the enforcement date falls on a Sunday), made a startling statement. The SoundExchange executive promised — in front of Congress — that SoundExchange will not enforce the new royalty rates. Webcasters will stay online, as new rates are hammered out. Whew!

I just spoke with Pandora founder Tim Westergren, who expressed relief that Pandora wouldn’t have to shut down on Sunday in response to the new rates. He said, “It was getting pretty close. I always had underlying optimism that sanity was going to prevail, but I was beginning to wonder.”

He said everyone who called their Congress person about this should feel that they had an effect on the process:

“This is a direct result of lobbying pressure, so if anyone thinks their call didn’t matter, it did. That’s why this is happening.” The flyer DiMA distributed to Congress today probably helped a bit too, but overall, it appears Congress intervened due to pressure from web radio listeners.”

THANK YOU to all of our listeners who took the time to contact their Congressional representatives! Now I just need to come up with a way to thank everyone via the radio streams - time for some freebie giveaways!! [Source]