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Topic: Has Pay for Play returned ? |
Janice Brooks
From:
Pleasant Gap Pa
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Posted 30 May 2001 4:39 pm |
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Report: Music promoters have deals with radio stations for airplay
Critic charges pay-for-play practices have returned
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES Some independent music promoters have deals with radio stations
that one critic says are nothing more than payola, the illegal practice of
paying for airplay, the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday.
THE PROMOTERS have arranged so-called "banks" for radio stations that play
record labels' products, allowing stations able to make "withdrawals" in
cash and promotional material, such as airplane tickets, for airing certain
tunes, the newspaper reported.
According to internal documents obtained by the newspaper, the "banks" are
detailed logs that list the date a station plays a song followed by a dollar
amount collected from the artist's label.
"This document destroys the notion that the new payola is any different from
the old payola," said Peter Hart, an analyst for the New York-based media
watchdog group Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting. "What you have here is a
smoking gun. This document confirms suspicions that critics have long had
about potential tit-for-tat arrangements between independent promoters and
radio stations.
"An appropriate government investigation could blow this whole industry wide
open," Hart said.
Federal law prohibits radio stations or programmers from taking cash or
goods to play songs without telling listeners about the exchange. The
practice was prohibited after the payola scandal of the late 1950s in which
disc jockeys such as Alan Freed were found to have accepted money from
record labels to play their songs.
According to one document, the newspaper said, Michele Clark Promotion, a
Calabasas, Calif.-based company, took in about $50,000 last year from record
companies for songs added to the playlist at Portland, Ore.'s KINK-FM, a
division of Viacom-owned Infinity Broadcasting. The "bank" lists every time
KINK aired a song followed by a specific dollar amount and the name of the
label Clark billed for the play time.
"We aren't doing anything wrong here," Clark told the newspaper. "The
support I get from labels has no effect whatsoever on the musical decisions
of the program directors at my stations."
Besides, she said, "It's standard operating procedure in the promotion
business."
The documents cited by the newspaper show that each of the five major record
companies - Vivendi Universal, Sony, Bertelsmann, AOL Time Warner and EMI
Group - paid fees to Clark that were allegedly linked to what songs KINK
added to its play list.
The station denied wrongdoing.
"We don't do anything illegal or unethical here," KINK Program Director
Dennis Constantine said. "No matter what the companies pay Clark or what she
writes in that bank, it has absolutely no bearing on how we program this
station."
Officials at the Federal Communications Commission and the Justice
Department declined to comment on their four-year probe of the radio
business, the newspaper said.
Five executives from Latin music labels and radio stations have pleaded
guilty to payola-related tax offenses, and Clear Channel Communications, the
nation's largest radio conglomerate, was fined.
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Janice "Busgal" Brooks
ICQ 44729047
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David Pennybaker
From:
Conroe, TX USA
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John Macy
From:
Rockport TX/Denver CO
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Posted 30 May 2001 7:19 pm
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Did it ever really leave??  |
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erik
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Posted 30 May 2001 11:47 pm
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The bigger concern is that people don't get to hear what they want, but what the industry decides they should hear.
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Pat Jenkins
From:
Abingdon, VA, USA
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Posted 31 May 2001 3:07 am
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Playlists, bah, humbug...Pat
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Larry Miller
From:
Dothan AL,USA
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Posted 31 May 2001 2:09 pm
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| WHO CARES! WE ARE JUST MUSHROOMS! MONEY TALKS AND YOU KNOW WHAT,(B@^^**%T) WALKS |
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Ron Page
From:
Penn Yan, NY USA
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Posted 31 May 2001 3:37 pm
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Well, if I were in charge I sure as hell wouldn't play most of it for free. 
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HagFan
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Tim Rowley
From:
Pinconning, MI, USA
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Posted 31 May 2001 7:41 pm
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Maybe this is how these airhead disc jockeys can say "debuting at number 1". Tell me, how can a record "debut" at number 1 without a little (financial) help? I had thought, evidently mistakenly, that the amount of requested airplays, retail sales, and jukebox plays determined the popularity chart status of a single. Man, am I ever out of the loop on this!
Tim R. |
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Steve Feldman
From:
Central MA USA
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Posted 1 Jun 2001 4:25 am
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It's alive and well in Nevada - always has been, always will be.
huh? |
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Craig A Davidson
From:
Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin USA
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Posted 1 Jun 2001 4:45 am
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In the words of Sammy Allred in the movie, "Songwriter":"Payola ain't dead. It ain't even feeling bad."
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1985 Emmons push-pull, Session 500, Nashville400, 65 re-issue Fender Twin, Fender Tele
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