The Performance Rights Act has radio stations and some music artists pitted against each other. Now that Congress is involved, they will try to decide whether or not radio stations should be forced to pay artists for having their songs play over the FM and AM dials. It's an issue that has Cathy Hughes, founder and chairperson of Radio One, Inc., riled up. Hughes is one of the 240 sponsors of the Free Local Radio Act, a counter bill that would prevent the Performance Rights Act from getting a pass through the Senate. She believes imposing this "tax" on radio stations will be the death of Black radio. Currently down 400 workers, Hughes contends that she would rather hire her employees back then to have to pay royalties to artists like Beyoncé and Jay-Z. She tells ESSENCE.com why she believes the Performance Rights Act is unfair, the story behind who would really benefit from the passing of this Act, and why she's considering legal action against the NAACP.

ESSENCE.COM: Why are you so against the Performance Rights Act?
CATHY HUGHES: It won't put Radio One out of business but we are fighting this for the brothers and sisters who aren't large enough to fight for themselves. This Act would immediately put a third of Black radio stations out of business and severely affect my subsidized formats like my talk radio and gospel stations. Neither one of them have caught on with advertisers but are popular with listeners. In some markets, my FM gospel stations have been number one, but couldn't translate it into advertising dollars and so we've had to cut back because they're not at a point where they can fully sustain themselves. Based on our present royalty payments, we're looking at paying about $1 million a month. My corporate headquarters works a four-day week now because we can't afford to be open on the fifth day. The number one category for Black radio is automotive and we know what's going on there. If I had an extra million dollars a month, I would hire my employees back. We have more Black folks working collectively in our company than the radio industry has in total. So believe me, it would drastically change the way we do business.

ESSENCE.COM: You've said that you consider yourself a little fish in a big pond. Why is that?
HUGHES: There are a total of 209 radio stations owned by African-Americans. I own 52 of them. Clear Channel owns 1,100 by themselves and there are 11,000 plus stations in total. Even though I'm the largest Black owned, I'm the largest amongst a pool of little fish. I am not a big boy. We are miniscule compared to Clear Channel and this is just the worst time in our country's history to impose a tax on the radio industry. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee told our CEO last week, "I don't believe this will put you out of business." Sheila Jackson Lee has never had to cover a payroll with over 1,000 people or operated a radio station. We're a public corporation. This isn't opinion. She can look at our books, instead of commenting on something she knows nothing about.