Paying a Price

More dirty record label practices exposed… no-one’s surprised that this kind of thing goes on all the time. How else does all that shit music end up in the charts unless someone is buying its way there?

If the record labels and the radio industry want to figure out why their customers are dumping them in droves, they would be better off to stop blaming “piracy” and start looking in the mirror at their OWN illegal business practices. The longer they continue to treat their audiences with disdain, the more opportunity they give us to build a new, superior, business model.

Fight back by supporting emerging, unsigned artists and listening to podsafe music on TPN!

Paying a Price

When executives at Sony BMG needed to drum up support in 2002 for Jennifer Lopez's album "This Is Me … Then," they called the program director of a San Diego radio station and offered her a 32-inch plasma TV in exchange for adding the artist's songs to her play list.

Sony BMG Music Entertainment knew such payola, or "pay-for-play," was improper. Nonetheless, the company asked the programmer to provide a fictitious contest winner's name and Social Security number to cover up her involvement.

Radio airplay is considered the most powerful promotional tool for record companies. Payola has plagued the music industry since the 1930s, with disc jockeys at times accepting cash, drugs or prostitutes in exchange for airplay.

At the news conference in his Lower Manhattan office, Spitzer said payola today was as widespread and "corrosive" as it was in the 1950s.

"It is omnipresent," Spitzer said. "It is driving the industry. And it is wrong. It reaches to the very top of the industry on the radio side and on the label side."

Comments

[Tony]

I remember a few months back I was listening to a podcast, I think it was the Rock and Roll geek Show with Michael Butler, and he was interviewing some who was in radio or had worked with a record label and he said then that this thing has been going for as long as record companies have been around.

As yu say it's not surprising but maybe if they used some of that cash to actually pay the artists instead of paying radio networks all over the country piracy wouldn't be the agenda it is. Basically you could even say the RIAA themselves are the cause of piracy as they are getting radio stations to play songs repeatedly and thus people, especially teens, want to go out and download for their MP3 players.

I say the artists should take RIAA to court for a bigger share of the pie.

[Mark]

I'm actually surprised by this story. I thought it was common knowledge and standard industry practice, I didn't realise it was a hush hush thing!

[Scott Sherman]

How else, in the name of all that's holy, could you possibly convince programmers to play J Lo's music if you didn't bribe them? And if we didn't have her music, where would she have built the audience for her movies, clothing line and perfume? I think a little payola is a small price to pay for Jenny on the Block.

[dex digital]

I agree with Mark - I had figured that this was at least semi-common knowledge. I'm actually very suprised with this move, though. Recently the administration has been all about stifling creativity and diversity of opinion, and somebody goes out and does _this_? Is there hope for music after all?

And I must second your comment on the podsafe music, Cam - everybody check out the mixtape, even if you don't like hip-hop. Also the rock show. plug plug plug

[Tony]

Apparently on one of the sydney radio stations today there was a debate about this issue. I think it was Kyle sanderland (or whatever his name is) talking with a guy from one of the current affairs shows that should be on tonight ot tomorrow. I don't know too many details as I was jsut ordering a toasted sandwich for brekkie and come in near the end.

Kyle was very defensive though and had requested that the interview for the story be done live on the air so that it wasn't edited and at least his listeners heard the full story and not a chopped up one. Probably a smart move as we all know how these things get edited.

On the other issue of podsafe music I think The Podsafe Music network is getting a huge response for unsigned/unknown bands and lots of podcasters are heading there to get their music for their shows and to help promote a lot of bands. I think it's a great thing for up and coming bands and I know I have heard a lot of stuff on the Rock Show where I have gone to the site afterwards to learn more about the bands.

The record industry are running scared at the moment I think and hopefully they will change because of it.