CANDIDATE KRIS PHILLIPS SUED FOR STIFFING MUSICIANS

Few radio stations fail to pay their monthly bills for blanket licenses to monopolistic Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI). Wonder why St. Augustine mayor candidate KRIS PHILLIPS did not pay BMI and ended up getting sued? Bad management skills or impecuniousness?





Radio stations WAOC and WFOY, owned by PHILLIPS BROADCASTING, LLC and mayoral candidate KRIS PHILLIPS, was sued for thousands of dollars for stiffing musicians in 2014.

BROADCAST MUSIC, INC. sold a blanket license to radio stations WAOC and WFOY, requiring both stations to pay $49 for broadcast music each months.  Blanket license fees paid to BMI, based on contracts and a sliding scale, are divvied up among musicians and other copyright holders.  Countless bars and restaurants are sued for failing to pay the two blanket license organizations -- monopolists BMI and ASCAP.  It is relatively rare for a radio station to forget to pay its BMI bills.  How gauche and louche,

KRIS PHILLIPS was defended by former State's Attorney J. Stephen Alexander, Esquire.  The case was filed on November 17, 2014 and voluntarily dismissed on March 19, 2015, with both sides sharing the costs.  No record as to whether PHILLIPS paid the thousands of dollars in bills due to BMI.

KRIS PHILLIPS's affidavit asserted no signed copy of her contract was attached to the complaint.   PHILLIPS also claimed that she does not play "much music," and that the price should be less, asserting that her station's format is primarily "talk radio."

Bills submitted by longtime local radio broadcaster Al Brennan in his 2012 lawsuit against Phillips establish that the station's few sponsors, ten of them local government agencies, paid for radio commercials during Christmas music programs.

PHILLIPS literally played Scrooge by firing Mr. Brennan before the 2009 Christmas holiday.