I like to color... with my Payolas
Update: this was re-worked an published as a column in the BG News.
I've been around CDs in a professional manner for many years. Not in an important, influential manner, but a manner nonetheless. In fact, I can remember my broadcasting class at Sheboygan North High School. It's were Tony and I created a meaningless little radio show called "Samizdat".
But I also learned about a certain unethical practice in that class. It's called "payola." This cute-sounding practice works very simply: Overzealous record company pays/gifts willing radio station in return for airplay for certain songs. The legality of it is complex, but all agree that it's unethical.
Well, a certain tiny distributor caught caught paying the prostitutes of radio. Tiny. Some company called Sony BMG (Stories: the Washington Post / MSNBC). Oops.
Flash back again to early 2004. My fellow record store employee introduces me to some quirky Scottish group named after an assassinated archduke. It was a good album, and we liked saying the banf's name in bad German accents. Cut to that summer. Somehow, this group scores a hit single, and now Franz Ferdinand is big time.
That's odd... they've got great music, but how did this unknown band end up with a summertime hit? Oh, right. It's because radio stations whored themselves out to Sony BMG reps.
Or take the case of Audioslave. They're new single was a hot item, and radio stations were foaming at the mouth with free giveaways in anticipation of the album. But why? The song was horribly mediocre. It was worse than any of the singles from their first album, much less anything they had done with Soundgarden or Rage Against the Machine. What gives?
Ah, yes. Sony BMG. Payola. How bad is the music industry when band members that used to protest and storm the NYSE are now connected to corporate shills? Not directly, of course, but that connection is now in the public's mind.
Even more alarming is the state of the radio and record industries. For example: the next time you buy a CD from that group you heard on the radio, ask the employee who distributed it (but not if said employee is busy; that'd be rude). More likely than not, there will be one of four answers -- EMD, Sony BMG, Universal, or WEA.
Now think about the radio station you heard the song from. Assuming the call number is higher than 92.0, it's probably owned by one of four corporations: Clear Channel, Cumulus, Infinity, or Citadel Communications. You can thank deregulation for that. Thanks FCC!
With that in mind, think about the effect if one distributor to regularly pay for play on one radio corporation's station. Now think about this:
That's the best-case scenario.
I've been around CDs in a professional manner for many years. Not in an important, influential manner, but a manner nonetheless. In fact, I can remember my broadcasting class at Sheboygan North High School. It's were Tony and I created a meaningless little radio show called "Samizdat".
But I also learned about a certain unethical practice in that class. It's called "payola." This cute-sounding practice works very simply: Overzealous record company pays/gifts willing radio station in return for airplay for certain songs. The legality of it is complex, but all agree that it's unethical.
Well, a certain tiny distributor caught caught paying the prostitutes of radio. Tiny. Some company called Sony BMG (Stories: the Washington Post / MSNBC). Oops.
Flash back again to early 2004. My fellow record store employee introduces me to some quirky Scottish group named after an assassinated archduke. It was a good album, and we liked saying the banf's name in bad German accents. Cut to that summer. Somehow, this group scores a hit single, and now Franz Ferdinand is big time.
That's odd... they've got great music, but how did this unknown band end up with a summertime hit? Oh, right. It's because radio stations whored themselves out to Sony BMG reps.
Or take the case of Audioslave. They're new single was a hot item, and radio stations were foaming at the mouth with free giveaways in anticipation of the album. But why? The song was horribly mediocre. It was worse than any of the singles from their first album, much less anything they had done with Soundgarden or Rage Against the Machine. What gives?
Ah, yes. Sony BMG. Payola. How bad is the music industry when band members that used to protest and storm the NYSE are now connected to corporate shills? Not directly, of course, but that connection is now in the public's mind.
Even more alarming is the state of the radio and record industries. For example: the next time you buy a CD from that group you heard on the radio, ask the employee who distributed it (but not if said employee is busy; that'd be rude). More likely than not, there will be one of four answers -- EMD, Sony BMG, Universal, or WEA.
Now think about the radio station you heard the song from. Assuming the call number is higher than 92.0, it's probably owned by one of four corporations: Clear Channel, Cumulus, Infinity, or Citadel Communications. You can thank deregulation for that. Thanks FCC!
With that in mind, think about the effect if one distributor to regularly pay for play on one radio corporation's station. Now think about this:
That's the best-case scenario.
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