The Payola Chronicles 1916 -- Variety organizes an effort to curb payola, then known as paying sheet music performers to plug songs. Money that was formerly used to advertise songs in trade magazines (such as Variety) was increasingly spent on song pluggers. Excerpt from History of Rock: By the mid-fifties the independent record companies had broken the majors stranglehold on airplay and BMI licensed songs dominated the charts. In the wake of the quiz show scandals ASCAP urged House Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Oren Harris to look into the recording industry's practice of payola. ASCAP, with its head in the sand, believed BMI licensed songs were hits only because of payola. With the breakdown in morals, ASCAP believed these records were played so often by greedy deejays causing them to become imprinted on unsuspecting teenagers. ASCAP who had always looked at rock and roll as a passing fad. With these hearings they were trying to ensure that would be the case. "The cancer of payola cannot be pinned on rock and roll." ....Billboard Magazine. Billboard stated payola was rampant during vaudeville of the 20s, and the big band era of the 1930s and 1940s. Don Henley tells Congress: "I know there's payola because I get billed for it." Jan. 30, 2003 -- At the Senate Commerce Committee Hearing on Media Concentration and Ownership in Radio, Don Henley spoke out strongly about several issues concerning the Clear Channel monopoly, how media consolidation has harmed the music industry, tie-ins between tour promotion and airplay, "benefit" concerts with minimal proceeds actually going to charity and rampant payola under the guise of "Independent music promoters." Complete Story with transcripts Payola and the Damage Done By George Ziemann -- July 28, 2005 If you haven't heard about Sony's settlement and promise of future good behavior by now, you haven't been paying attention, but here's the link to New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer's determination that music only gets on the radio because it's paid for. You really don't grasp the depth, however, unless you read Sony's documentation. Phony Outrage This week, the FCC is "shocked" to discover this is happening. Radio & Records is talking about the "stunning results" of the investigation. Some of the people indicated as blatant offenders were fired immediately. Those that got fired were probably the most shocked, because they've been doing it for so long that they thought this is just the way things work. Robert Hilburn at the Los Angeles Times, is trying to pretend it wouldn't make any difference. He seems to think that Ashlee Simpson and J-Lo would have made it on their own and you don't really have to give away trips to Vegas in order to get people to play Celine Dion in the daytime when people might listen. "Yet lots of pop fans who detest what's become of mainstream radio seem to feel the New York attorney general's settlement Monday with Sony BMG means 'real' music will soon be back on the airwaves. "Don't hold your breath. "Mainstream radio stations play hip-hop, R&B and teen pop because that's what target audiences want to hear. The payola settlement isn't likely to change that." So be assured, "real" music will not be coming back any time soon, sez Robert. And if you hate what's on the radio, well, it's your own fault because radio is playing what the "target audiences" want to hear. Of course, the target audiences are 6-12 year-olds and the fat cats that are paying them money. For everyone else, it's kind of like mind control. Just keep playing a song over and over and over. Then, like a miracle, you get a Grammy for excellence in Recording Advertising and Sales. But there is one gem of truth in Hilburn's article: "Questionable practices won't stop, one executive said flatly Wednesday, until someone goes to jail." The FCC doesn't control the record companies but they can give a severe ass-whooping to every radio station which has taken the bribes -- all of them. Looking back to the 1960s, the deejays will most likely be the first ones going to jail. That is, of course, totally theoretical. The FCC has been blind to payola for so long that it's almost impossible to imagine them doing anything serious about it now. Or ever. Spitzer did the FCC's job and nailed Sony. If nothing changes and no one goes to jail, it's because the FCC really doesn't care about localization and diversity. Spitzer Doing FCC's Job by George Ziemann -- Feb. 8, 2006 After already obtaining settlements from Sony/BMG ($10 million) and Warner Music ($5 million), New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer announced that the next targets in his payola investigation are the radio conglomerates. This is certainly welcome news and I applaud Spitzer for taking the step because it's pretty damn clear that no one else was going to do anything about it. It's not because it was ever a big secret. Even if it was, that should have ended on January 30, 2003, when Don Henley told a Senate Commerce Committee that "I know there's payola because I get billed for it." This was promptly ignored by all the media (no surprise there), but a few people started getting interested when Orrin Hatch told a pre-Grammy gathering in February of 2003 that he "would expect to hold a hearing on these issues in the coming month to examine the allegations and see how they affect artists and their ability to distribute and promote their music." Of course, that never happened. We finally heard from the FCC in November of 2003, when commissioner Jonathan Edelstein noted that it was "high time we took the most recent pay-for-play allegations in the broadcast industry seriously." Yeah, it was. No, they didn't. In August 2005, Spitzer announced his settlement with Sony. The FCC said, "Wow, that's a lot of evidence." The next day, the FCC announced that they would start a probe. In November, Spitzer came up with another payola settlement with Warner Music. The FCC said they had been busy. But they were right on top of this television ad placement thing and they were making some real headway. Their focus had either shifted or became large enough in scope to include product placement, fake news and charity fundraising. After Spitzer gets done with Clear Channel and friends, the FCC will reiterate how serious they are about all of this by going back to ignoring it, just like they've done the last 30 years. FCC to Settle With Corporate Radio? by George Ziemann -- April 2, 2006 According to a story from Reuters, "Four big radio station chains have been in talks with U.S. regulators to settle their investigation into secret payments made in exchange for airplay, sources familiar with the matter said..." The "secret payments" are supposed to be payola, indicating that the "sources" must not be that familar with the matter because it's been going on decades and was never really much of a secret. So I'm already questioning the veracity of these sources who declined to be identified. Credibility is pressed even further by the input from two sources "close to the matter" (which may or may not be more reliable than sources which are merely "familiar with the matter") telling us that the "discussions included possible payments by the companies to the U.S. government to settle the investigation". One of the sources, not specifically identified as a member of either the "close to the matter" group or the "familiar with the matter" group, but more likely than not one of the "close to the matter" group, said, "Some of the companies offered $1 million each and one offered slightly higher, but they are awaiting feedback from the FCC." This is propped up by "an FCC official" who "confirmed settlement talks were taking place," but apparently forgot to leave their name. Maybe he was busy working on that feedback. My advice -- You've gotta either turn the amp up higher or kneel down right in front of it with the guitar facing the speaker. Okay, suspending disbelief long enough to take this seriously... A million dollars or "slightly higher"? We're talking about Clear Channel here. They've got 1200 stations. That's only $1000 each for selling manipulated success to the highest bidder for decades. That's not even enough to qualify as a slap on the wrist. Good thing they didn't say "fuck." FOLLOW-UP -- Spitzer to FCC: "WTF?" April 8, 2006 -- Last week, I complained about the FCC's alleged plan to settle the payola charges against four corporate radio monoliths (Clear Channel, CBS Radio, Entercom, and Citadel) arising from a payola investigation initiated by New York's Attorney General, Elliott Spitzer. My complaint -- the FCC is going to let these guys off the hook for decades of behavior with settlements of a million dollars each or "slightly higher," according to people who are "close to the matter," whatever the hell that means. It seems Spitzer has a similar complaint. According to the LA Times, he sued Entercom (the smallest of the four) last month after Entercom refused to accept the settlement agreement he offered, which included a fine of $20 million. The FCC wants to let them off for $1-$3 million. While Spitzer has spent about a year and a half on his investigation, the FCC has done nothing. They haven't even looked at all of Spitzer's evidence and they're ready to give the broadcasters all a free pass, when they should be yanking licenses. At heart, payola is a betrayal of the public trust and responsibility that supposedly comes with a broadcasting license. It is a federal offense, but when I called the FCC a couple of years ago, the word "payola" was "not in their database" of things you could register a complaint about. To put it bluntly, if Spitzer hadn't come along, the FCC would never have looked into this on their own. Sadly, if the FCC cuts a deal, this undercuts anything Spitzer had going. As much as I hate the record companies, they've been paying fines in the $5-$10 million range. But they weren't the ones that betrayed the public trust. The last time anyone took payola seriously (46 years ago) it wasn't actually a violation of law. The people who accepted the payments, the DJs, were the object of closest scrutiny -- Alan Freed, Dick Clark, Murray the K and a few others. The anti-payola law was a result of this and was designed to punish those accepting the bribes, since remedies were already available for "commercial bribery" against those offering them. It is a misdemeanor, according to the History of Rock website, with a $10,000 fine and the possibility of a year in prison. Theoretically, and especially at the time it was written, that would seem to be an appropriate charge against an individual (a DJ) for accepting a bribe. Once. But that was during the days of personal responsibility. Very few of today's DJs have any input into what is played, so it doesn't even make sense to bribe them unless you're pretty stupid. With the corporate overlords, the public trust is sacrificed nationally for profit, all at once. Forget diversity and localism, someone got a big chunk of change to shove the latest song down everyone's throats. The artists are paying for it, whether they want to or not. Of course, those that are paying get airplay, whether they deserve it or not, so it's hard to feel too damn sorry for them. May 11, 2006 -- Spitzer gets Universal Music to cough up $12 million. August 25, 2006 -- So far, the FCC has given no discernable indication that they have given a moment's consideration to this subject, despite having started a "formal investigation" months ago. October 19, 2006 -- New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's office announced that CBS Radio Inc. has settled a probe into its practices by some of its radio stations of accepting payment in exchange for playing songs on the air. The division of broadcaster CBS Corp will pay $2 million to New York State not-for-profit entities to fund music education. Still no action from the FCC. FCC Pulls Radio Licenses Over Payola December 2, 2006 -- Just kidding. They haven't done a gotdamn thing. FCC's Incredible Payola Settlement by George Ziemann -- March 5, 2007 I just read an article at the LA Times announcing FCC's settlement with the radio conglomerates over payola. Or radio's settlement with the FCC, depending on your point of view. At $12.5 million, the fine was minimal, especially divided out across the four broadcasting entities -- each getting stung for about the cost of getting 6 songs on the air at 1993 prices. It is, however, "one of the largest fines ever levied by the FCC." "In a separate agreement, the radio companies have agreed to set aside 8,400 half-hour segments of free airtime over the next three years for local and independent artists. The segments would have to air between 6 a.m. and midnight." That sounds like a lot. Let's see, 6 a.m. to midnight is 18 hours, times 365 days a year... that's 6750 hours a year of available broadcast time in those hours. 8,400 half-hour segments divided over 3 years, give us 2800 segments a year, which works out to 1400 hours, or a little less than four hours a day. Four hours a day. That's the incredible part, as in not credible. More likely, this is a cumulative offer, just like the monetary fine. Break it out across the four conglomerates and we're down to each one needing to offer 350 hours of independent programming a year. Less than an hour a day. That's still an awesome improvement over today. Unless... Clear Channel has about 1200 stations last I heard. If 700 of them air one single indie half-hour segment per year, that's 350 hours. This would seem to satisfy the terms of the agreement. It all depends how they intend to add it up. I'd bet that it'll be a lot closer to a half-hour a year than an hour a day. We'll just have to wait and see. Music's Impending Apocalypse by George Ziemann -- May 22, 2007 They've ripped off the musicians for decades. At the tail end of the 90s, the record labels decided it was time to screw with music fans as well, not content to charge $16 for a CD that costs about $1 to produce. They sued web sites, then manufacturers of mp3 players and peer-to-peer companies. Still not content, the labels started adding spyware and cripple-ware to audio CDs, punishing the paying customer. Now they're suing their core fan base (college students) and raising the royalty rates high enough to threaten the existence of webcasting. It almost seems like they would have run out of people to piss off. Almost. Yesterday, a satirical article at The Onion ("RIAA Sues Radio Stations for Giving Away Free Music") was only a few hours ahead of the Los Angeles Times article announcing "Artists and labels seek royalties from radio". "For years, [broadcast radio] stations have paid royalties to composers and publishers when they played their songs. But they enjoy a federal exemption when paying the performers and record labels because, they argue, the airplay sells music. Now, the RIAA and several artists' groups are getting ready to push Congress to repeal the exemption..." So that's the basic issue. The record labels want royalties from radio. Again. We're back to 1922. If this isn't already setting off the irony alarm, it should be. I'm wondering if the author of the article is a paid cheerleader or just unfamiliar with what's really going on. There's a paragraph about the sad, sad state the industry is in. We also are told that the labels have tried this before but "politically powerful broadcasters beat back those efforts." This time, "the record companies and musicians have a strong hand." I suppose this means they have purchased as many congressmen as the broadcasters. "The groups have a major ally in Rep. Howard L. Berman, who now chairs the House subcommittee dealing with intellectual property law. Berman is 'actively contemplating' leading a legislative push to end the exemption." "'Given the many different ways to promote music now that didn't exist as effectively when this original exemption was made,' he said, "the logic of that I think is more dubious.'" What I find most dubious is that none of the people quoted nor the author of the article seem to remember that the labels (and broadcasters) just got nailed for payola. From the mid-1960s until late last year, the record labels have been paying radio to get airplay. The government had to intervene to stop payola. Now Berman is going to intervene again and make radio pay the record labels. Shameless greed at work, as the RIAA maliciously slaps radio in the face for keeping its labels alive all these years. It seems rather bizarre that someone who works for the LA Times could write this story and ignore the glaringly obvious connection to payola. A last quote from the article: "The creation of music is suffering because of declining sales," said RIAA Chief Executive Mitch Bainwol. "We clearly have a more difficult time tolerating gaps in revenues that should be there." I think he's got it all backwards, as usual. Music sales are declining because the record labels stopped worrying about the creation of music a decade ago and started attacking anyone and everyone who used to listen to music. Gaps in revenue? Not only has the payola bill disappeared, the labels are saving billions in promotional copies that they no longer send out. (In 2000, the industry sent out 290 million promotional copies representing 27 percent of the total units shipped. Last year it was 89 million, just under 14 percent of the total.) The RIAA's time is almost up. They're no good for music; they're no good for the music business. Their product is tainted. We don't need the RIAA equalization curve any longer, either. They no longer serve any useful purpose whatsoever. Pretty soon we get to start over and go back to when the music was more important than the money.