Media, Culture & Society

Here is an interesting opinion supporting payola. He claims its pay-for-play system of payola as a same system as Frito-Lay paying to the supermarket for the Doritos to be put in the end of the aisle. He also claims that, raise of internet and satelite radio or new tools such as podcasting, iTunes enable the new artist to build a career in music without radio stations or Sony.

I thought it was an interesting opinion to see what we’ve learned in a different way.

After the $12.5 million settlement, between the FCC and four of the nation’s largest radio conglomerates, the radio industry is trying to avoid payola relapse. The settlement was the easy part, but the challenge will be to make sure the industry does not relapse into it’s old habits. Large record labels give gifts and money to radio stations in order for them to play their artists’ songs. Therefore, payola keeps a lot of local artists off the air. The article predicts that once the spotlight moves away, something like payola will emerge again. Click here to read more about the major payola settlement and the future of the radio industry.

Everyone remember when the Roots came and played here? Well here is the link to a video of their drummer ?uestlove (Quest Love) explaining a lot of different things that really have nothing to do with this class, but if you fast forward to about 5 minutes into the interview he explains how they got their newest single on the radio. According to him it took a minimum of $750,000.  See the video.

This article came from Entertainment Weekly (EBSCO) March 7th 2007 by Vanessa Juarez. This article talks about how angry the record companies are getting due to payola becoming such a big scandal. Since Eliot Spitzer has made it such a big deal radio stations are nervous and don’t want to do anything suspicious so they are taking less songs and charging more. Before this the average cost was $2,000 for 28 spins. It talks about how Spitzer may be calling them out and filing law suits but only the FCC has the power to revoke the station’s license. Even though it seems that the stations are never the ones getting in trouble. It also gave the amounts of money that the four largest labels agreed to pay in order to avoid prosecution by the state of New York.

EMI
Gorillaz, Norah Jones, Rolling Stones-3.75 million

Universal
Lindsay Lohan, Ashanti, Godsmack-12 million

Warner
Jet, Michelle Branch, Josh Grobin- 5 million

Sony/BMG
Beyonce, Good Charlotte, Jessica Simpson-10 million

This week I listened to a radio payola panel audio clip from the National Conference for Media Reform in Memphis, TN on January 12, 2007. The panel consisted of Jared Ball, from FreeMix Radio, Paul Porter, from Industry Ears, Michael Bracy, from the Future of Music Coalition, Jonathan Adelstein, a FCC Commissioner, and B.J. Wade, an attorney. The panel discussed issues about how payola laws need to be enforced, Spitzer’s incredible radio investigation, and how local artists feel that they cannot get played on local stations. The panel members also questioned where the next genre is going to come from, since the old genres all stared out by being promoted and played on local radio stations and then broke out nationally and internationally. A lot of key questions were raised and a lot of crucial information was discussed during this panel discussion at the National Conference for Media Reform. Anyone interested in hearing radio payola opinions from a variety of experts and this panel’s actual discussion? Click here: here

This article was found in the Multinational Monitor in Jul/Aug2005, Vol. 26 Issue 7/8, p70-70, 1/3p. It talks about how sony has promised to stop all means of payola with radio stations due to New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s investigation and pressure. Emails were found from sony to radio stations for example: “What Do I Have to Do
to Get Audioslave on WKSS this Week?!!.> Whatever you
can dream up, I can make it happen.” To see the article click here

SONY BMG Music Entertainment agreed to pay $10 million fine on July, 2005. Although it seems like a huge payment, it does not hurt the company too much, putting in the context of how much money they spend on promotion, which is $300 million. It also tells you that payola is too common among music industries, that they just do it without knowing or knowing that it is illegal. Check the article from here.

How can they feel “Payola” is an “illegal” and “fatal” action when it revealed? Is the amount of penalty for payola does not scare the large industries with huge fund? Or even do they intentionally include the fine as one of the budget for promotion, in case the payola revealed?

Here is a short article from Tampa Bay about how excited local independant musicians are regarding the recent Federal Payola settlement. It just might give you an idea about how this should have a major effect, even locally.

This article was on the front page of Yahoo and talks about settlements that broadcasters will have to pay for payola violations.  Negotiations also include blocks of air time for independent record labels and local artists.  This would give more bands more exposure and provide a larger variety on the radio.

In the article, “Paying to Play”, James Surowiecki discussed the history of radio payola and the reasons to pay-for-play. Payola was first introduced in the 1950s when DJs were playing songs in exchange for favors and money. Later on some forms of payola were illegal, but apparently there were some loopholes. In 2000, tens of millions of dollars a year were being spent on “legal” payola. Even though payola has a bad reputation, it has a positive side as well. Since there are so many CDs that are published each year, pay-for-play helps stations and DJs find hits instead of making them sift through bundles of CDs for hits. The term signaling arose during this process because the stations trusted the record labels taste. No label would put so much money and effort into a CD that would not have the possibility of becoming a hit, since hits are what the radio cares about the most. For example, songs in Billboard’s Top 10 get more airtime and “pop music thrive on repetition”. This article summarized the history of radio payola and rationalized the positive aspects of radio payola.