Payola

[desdemona]

June 11, 2004, 10:39AM

Paid 'ads' for song plays revive payola memories

By JEFF LEEDS

Los Angeles Times

During a single week in May, Canadian pop rocker Avril Lavigne's new song Don't Tell Me aired no fewer than 109 times on Nashville radio station WQZQ-FM.

The heaviest rotation came between midnight and 6 a.m., an on-air no man's land visited largely by insomniacs, truckers and graveyard shift workers. On one Sunday morning, the three-minute, 24-second song aired 18 times, sometimes as little as 11 minutes apart.

Those plays, or "spins," helped Don't Tell Me vault into the elite top 10 on Billboard magazine's national pop radio chart, which radio program directors across the country use to spot hot new tunes.

But what many chart watchers may not know is that the predawn saturation in Nashville — and elsewhere — occurred largely because Arista Records paid the station to play the song as an advertisement. In all, sources said, WQZQ aired Don't Tell Me as an ad at least 40 times the week ending May 23, accounting for more than one-third of the song's airplay on the station.

The Don't Tell Me campaign is part of the latest craze in record promotion, a high-pressure part of the music business in which the labels try to influence which songs reach the air.

In the late 1950s, rock's earliest days, the industry was hit by a series of payola scandals in which cash bribes were paid to disc jockeys who agreed to play certain songs. That practice was subsequently outlawed, prompting record companies to find more subtle means of currying favor with radio programmers, such as free junkets and concert tickets.

In the latest twist, it's the radio stations themselves that have been reaching out to the labels, offering to play songs in the form of ads, often in the early morning hours when there tends to be an excess inventory of airtime. The practice is legal as long as the station makes an on-air disclosure of the label's sponsorship — typically with an introduction such as "And now, Avril Lavigne's Don't Tell Me, presented by Arista Records."

To be sure, Don't Tell Me is a bona fide hit, even without spins being bought and paid for. Radio stations must play a song many thousands of times for it to crack the Billboard top 10. Nonetheless, a few hundred spins here and there can move a song up a place or two in the rankings — and ensure that it is climbing rather than falling on the charts.

Playing songs as advertising makes "the chart unreliable," said Garett Michaels, program director of San Diego rock station KBZT-FM. "Basically, the radio station isn't playing a song because they believe in it. They're playing it because they're being paid."

All five major record corporations have at least dabbled in the sales programs, industry sources said, with some reportedly paying as much as $60,000 in advertising fees to promote a single song.

Interscope Records has purchased spins for the Black Eyed Peas' song Hey Mama in recent weeks, as well as for Sheryl Crow's The First Cut Is the Deepest and Sugababes' Hole in the Head, sources said. Virgin Records has bought advertising time for rock band A Perfect Circle. Lava Records has purchased airplay for singer Cherie, and V2 Records has done the same for Katy Rose.

Representatives for the record labels declined to comment.

But one label executive who has purchased airplay, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the idea was clearly to prop up songs long enough for them to attract genuine fans.

"In our business, perception is reality," he said. "The minute you're down in spins, these program directors drop the record."

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/2621567

below an article about alan freed and the 1950's payola scandal

Payola

Payola - The paying of cash or gifts in exchange for airplay.

"Payola" is a contraction of the words "pay" and"Victrola" (LP record player), and entered the English language via the record business. The first court case involving payola was in 1960. On May 9, Alan Freed was indicted for accepting $2,500 which he claimed was a token of gratitude and did not affect airplay. He paid a small fine and was released. His career faltered and in 1965 he drank himself to death.

Before Alan Freed's indictment, payola was not illegal, however, but commercial bribery was. After the trial, the anti-payola statute was passed under which payola became a misdemeanor, penalty by up to $10,000 in fines and one year in prison.

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 (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) 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.

Prior to the beginning of the hearings the FTC filed complaints against a number of record manufacturers and distributors. Those that wished to escape prosecution agreed to a 30 days Consent Order. Many of the companies found themselves back where they had started and folded.

"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

The committee decided to look into deejays who took gifts from record companies in return for playing their records on their shows. Fearing the worse the record companies began stepping forward and announcing that they had given money to specific deejays. Soon twenty five deejays and program directors were caught in the scandal. Among the more popular ones were Joe Niagara (WIBG, Philadelphia), Tom Clay (WJBK, Detroit), Murray "The K" Kaufman (WINS, New York) and Stan Richards (WILD, Boston) The probe quickly focused in on the two top deejays in the country, Dick Clark and Alan Freed. Freed's broadcast alliances quickly deserted him. In late November, Freed was fired from both ABC-radio and WNEW-TV.

Clark, with more to lose, quickly gave up all his musical interests when ordered to do so by ABC-TV. When asked to sign a statement denying involvement Freed refuse and was promptly fired from his job with WINS.

When Clark appeared to testify he brought Bernard Goldsmith a statistician. Goldsmith told the committee that Clark had a 27% interest in records played in the past 28 months and those records had a 23% popularity rating. The committee was stunned as they wondered what came first the chicken or the egg.

Clark's testimony began with telling the committee he had given up all outside interests connected with the recording industry. He also said the only reason he had gotten involved with those businesses were for the tax advantages. Clark admitted a $125 investment in Jamie Records returned a profit of $11,900 and of the 163 songs he had rights to143 were given to him.

When questioned about Jamie records it was discovered that Jamie paid out $15,000 in payola, but Clark denied ever accepting any. The committee clearly didn't believe Clark, but he received just a slap on the wrist. In fact, committee chairman Oren Hatch called Clark "a fine young man."

Freed who refused to deny involvement wasn't so lucky. Though he would only receive a small fine and six months suspended sentence his career was in tatters. Freed would die penniless, a bitter broken man, Jan 20, 1965 in Palm Springs, California.. He was forty three.

http://www.history-of-rock.com/payola.htm

another story about this topic here:

http://dir.salon.com/ent/feature/2001/03/1...yola/index.html