Is pay for performers on radio a good thing?

For local bands I'm not sure if it's a good thing or not. Managing those payments would mean a lot of overhead and administrative headaches. Also, smaller stations -- the ones more likely to play indie music -- operate with much smaller budgets. This could be a crushing blow to them which would result in less revenues for indie bands instead of more. There should be some kind of grace period so that new music can be promoted without the fees.