Phil O'Keefe Posted July 25, 2005 Share Posted July 25, 2005 Did anyone else hear about this? Check this out - Sony Payola settlement Thoughts? Comments? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members songrytr Posted July 25, 2005 Members Share Posted July 25, 2005 Let's hope Spitzer's campaign sticks. They were close to a big crackdown back in the '80s (using the RICO statutes), but Lew Wasserman at Universal got his buddy Reagan to pull the Fed judge off the case and replaced him with a more industry-friendly guy. Here's another article that details which artists got the benefit of the grease: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,163537,00.html You'll also read about a couple of other things that deserve their own threads - the Raspberries reunion and the death of Eugene Record, lead vocalist of the Chi-Lites . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members TimOBrien Posted July 26, 2005 Members Share Posted July 26, 2005 It's only been going on since Edison cut the first wax cylinders... if you think it's going away anytime you are seriously mistaken!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted July 26, 2005 Author Share Posted July 26, 2005 Hope springs eternal Tim. But you're right - they'll just find another way of doing the same thing. It's been around for years, and I don't see it going away. But OTOH, I applaud the NY Atty General for taking some action. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rim Posted July 26, 2005 Members Share Posted July 26, 2005 Even if it does end payola, I think it would just result in more commercials in radio programming. The radio stations are accustomed to the big income from payolas and will just make up for it by selling more ad time. And as more ads appear, the less attractive it will be to listeners (especially since they have the alternatives of mp3 players and satellite radios). Radio needs to come up with original content that people can't get anywhere else (at least not right away). This way, they can attract listeners away from mp3 players and satellite radio and be able to show companies who want to place ads that they still have a big and loyal listener base. If they can do that, they may be able to charge more money for fewer ads and still get big revenues. Fewer ads will help keep that listener base listening. [Added]Maybe it's time for radio to step back to the olden days - live radio. Talk shows are very popular on the radio for this reason. They should apply it to music performances. Let musical acts set up and play live at the radio station. Logistics would be massive, but can you imagine how many listeners would tune in for a chance to hear a popular band (say U2) live on the radio? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members doug osborne Posted July 27, 2005 Members Share Posted July 27, 2005 Payola (in radio) was first addressed in the '50s when Rock 'n Roll brought listenership to a new level. RnR was built on DJs being paid to play records by the record label. As radio grew, the owners and networks got more political power and paying DJs to play records was what was outlawed - the owners wanted the money for themselves. What evolved was this hideous system of record labels paying independent promoters to buy advance playlists from the stations, in effect paying the station owners money with a wink that would result in their artist's record being played. Free CDs and concert tickets (I've been the lucky recipient of many of them - ever wonder why you can't buy good seats from Ticketmaster for any popular concert in a major market?) have always served as good bribes. Cocaine and hookers have also served as incentives... It is legal to purchase time from radio stations, so these days labels will buy 30-60 minuted blocks in the wee hours and direct the radio station to play their latest non-artist for that time. This counts for popularity surveys and performance rights royalties, so it's cheap marketing. If you listen to many KISS-type stations, you will hear a song with a bumper before and after announcing "XXX records presenting YYY's new hit single BlaBlaBla..." again, perfectly legal if appropriately credited. Outside of public radio, college stations (payola exists here, too), or satellite radio, do you think we hear music based on how good it is? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members TIP Posted July 27, 2005 Members Share Posted July 27, 2005 Originally posted by rim Even if it does end payola, I think it would just result in more commercials in radio programming. The radio stations are accustomed to the big income from payolas and will just make up for it by selling more ad time. And as more ads appear, the less attractive it will be to listeners (especially since they have the alternatives of mp3 players and satellite radios). Radio needs to come up with original content that people can't get anywhere else (at least not right away). This way, they can attract listeners away from mp3 players and satellite radio and be able to show companies who want to place ads that they still have a big and loyal listener base. If they can do that, they may be able to charge more money for fewer ads and still get big revenues. Fewer ads will help keep that listener base listening. [Added] Maybe it's time for radio to step back to the olden days - live radio. Talk shows are very popular on the radio for this reason. They should apply it to music performances. Let musical acts set up and play live at the radio station. Logistics would be massive, but can you imagine how many listeners would tune in for a chance to hear a popular band (say U2) live on the radio? There is a public radio station in CA (KCRW)that has a great "live" music show called "Morning Becomes Eclectic" hosted by a guy called Nick Harrcourt. I usually go to the site every morning and stream the show from the previous day, it is a great show. If I could get here in Northern VA I would be a loyal listener, but since we don't I just stream it. I haven't listened to a commercial music station in over 15 years.......and nobody I know does either. Why would anybody?.....We all have CD players(or iPods) in our cars. It's not like new groundbreaking music is ever played on a commercial pop,rock, alternative(whatever that means) oldies station. I'm suprised that most radio stations are even in biz anymore, between the 25-45 demographic(which is what all advertisers want) we are all tuning out on the crap that is played on the typical station. I do listen to AM news radio...........for the traffic report(N. VA traffic is awful) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted July 27, 2005 Author Share Posted July 27, 2005 Outside of public radio, college stations (payola exists here, too), or satellite radio, do you think we hear music based on how good it is? Very true Doug, and you made some excellent points. But while "good" is a subjective term, I do have to agree that many / most things get played because they get "pushed" by the labels... it's not "customer driven", but "marketing driven". Instead of giving the customers the opportunity to express interest in what they want to hear, the labels and PD's try to tell the customers what they should want to hear. Completely backwards IMO, and probably would be a good opportunity for someone to come in and do a station where the playlist was entirely listener determined... that is, if radio wasn't already pretty much "dead". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members doug osborne Posted July 27, 2005 Members Share Posted July 27, 2005 How about Mercora, which allows each of us to stream our own choice of music for others to listen to, and the copyright holder gets paid through normal performance rights royalties? For some reason, even when as a kid listening to the mighty WLS out of Chicago, I always knew that radio was always a carrier for advertisements, and popular music was used to attract ears to these ads. The big difference between then and now is that radio was BIG - nearly everyone listened - and music was small. There were far fewer record labels, and fewer acts; these acts were filtered through the record labels that were run by guys who loved music, and whose judgement we could generally trust. IMO back then, the trust that DJs had in their own taste, as well as that of their Program Directors and the record labels, was much more important in shaping what was getting played than Payola at its worst. I think Radio as we know it today is a dead issue when it comes to the advancement of music. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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