Payola, or What You Won’t Hear on Radio

I have a certain fondness for radio, having spent several years working in the trenches at a local station. Of course, the station where I was working was a Classic Rock format, so there was no pressure from the record labels to promote a specific artist or song. Hell, we only played what tested well (in other words: what songs a bunch of random people being paid for their time enjoyed hearing while sitting in an auditorium), which amounted to the same couple-of-hundred songs every day, played in different order. For more current formats where the “no repeat” gimmick is not employed, the record labels have always sought ways to boost the rotation of their current artists’ tracks (in other words: get their artists’ songs played more often). How better to have songs played than to offer up a few “incentives” to DJs and Program Directors? Much like lobbyists spend lots of money bribing politicians via “gifts”, record labels get their artists played in the increasingly few slots available on commercial radio using “payola“.

Payola is hardly a new invention. Several DJ friends of mine who worked during the 70’s and 80’s tell me stories of opening up albums sent by the labels to find packets of cocaine, parties paid for by the local label representative and the inevitable straight cash payoff . Nowadays the labels tend to give gifts of electronics and trips to exotic destinations. With these kinds of incentives, it’s not surprising that not only are stations and DJs playing the tracks the labels want played, they’re paying people to call into the station to make fake requests for specific songs.

After a long investigation, New York State Attorney General, Eliot Spitzer, brought charges against Sony BMG (the same fucktards who are trying to force copy-protection on CDs down consumer’s throats) for their payola practices. Spitzer’s investigation revealed many instances of illegal payola practices, for which Sony BMG has agreed to pay $10 million in damages.

So is there a problem with payola? If you were a DJ and someone offered you gifts or cash to play a track, would you say no? Remember that the majority of DJs are not multi-millionaire names like Howard Stern, but are instead working stiffs making anyway from absolute dogshit to decent salaries, depending on their ratings and the market. A little extra icing on the cake is awfully tempting (even to the DJs who are making the big money). It’s ethically unsound, to be sure, but it has to be pretty tempting. My problem with payola is that it takes an almost-obsolete medium one step closer to extinction. With the ever-increasing amount of paid advertising (aka: spots) being forced into every hour to maximize profitibility, the amount of slots for actual music is steadily decreasing. Reducing that number of slots to play only the songs the labels want played means that radio has even less relavence for the audience. Where will music fans hear new artists and new music? If radio is busy playing only what the labels want, and the labels only invest in high-profit potential bands (read: copycat bullshit), then it stands to reason that new, exciting music is never going to make it on air anytime except the middle of the night on some local show that no one is able to hear. Since the FCC heavily regulates the airwaves (generally in favor of broadcasting corporations as opposed to the owners of the airwaves, aka: the public) options for alternate broadcasts are few.

So the labels, when not suing their customers into bankruptcy or price-fixing commerical sales of CDs, are busily trying to force their generic money-maker’s down the public’s throat by throwing cash at stations and their staff. The stations and staff are betraying the public by taking this money and spinning the bland garbage that the labels want spun. Meanwhile, small bands without big label deals are unable to find outlets for their music except for file-sharing (which is well on its way to being outlawed) and regular club gigs in local areas. So unless you like an endless parade of “me-too” artists, you’re pretty much shit out of luck when it comes to commercial radio.

Perhaps this “new” payola scandal will finally convince music fans to abandon commercial radio to the grave it’s dug for itself and switch over to satellite radio. I know that’s where I’m going to head if I ever decide to listen to radio again. Besides, several of my DJ friends have left the Clear Channel and Infinity Broadcasting bosoms to join the satellite radio stations. I don’t know that satellite will escape payola, but since their income is based on subscriptions more than advertising, we can hope that they’ll keep the listeners first and foremost in their minds when making their programming decisions.

BTW - this article brings up an interesting point: don’t be surprised if you hear a lot of noise from the labels about cleaning up payola. In the long run, if the labels can find a way to get their music played without having to “grease the wheels”, they’ll be saving money. It should be interesting to watch; dinosaurs crashing through the undergrowth trying to outrun the inevitable comet.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 27th, 2005 at 12:52pm and is filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.