|
Radio Scam - DJ's play music in exchange for $$ and gifts
|
View this Thread in Original format
| ZzZ The Goddess |
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/st...2p-283284c.html
DJs were paid
to play that tune
Spitzer probe finds gigantic payola scam; Sony will pay $10M
BY KATE MEYER and ADAM LISBERG
DAILY NEWS WRITERS
Sick of lousy songs on the radio?
Blame it on a corrupt record business that skews the Top 40 by giving free trips and other goodies to radio programmers - and cold cash to radio stations to play their artists, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer charged yesterday.
Big-name artists like Jennifer Lopez, Celine Dion and Good Charlotte got airtime on the radio because their labels gave away computers and trips to Las Vegas, according to telltale industry E-mails Spitzer uncovered - and revealed yesterday.
"Payola is pervasive. It reaches to the very top of the industry, on the radio side and the label side," Spitzer said yesterday as he announced the first settlement in his probe of pay-for-play in the music industry.
Sony BMG Music Entertainment agreed to pay $10 million to charity to settle Spitzer's charges.
But he has subpoenaed three other record companies - and said some record labels and radio stations are breaking the law - in what could be the biggest payola scandal since the 1950s.
"We are far along with the other three labels. We have received documents and are in conversations with them," Spitzer said. "This investigation began with the labels. We have obviously expanded out to the radio stations."
The sleazy deals were no surprise to music fans like Patricia Hatcher of Brooklyn, who was shopping at Tower Records in Greenwich Village yesterday.
"You could definitely tell that they were playing the same artists over and over again," said Hatcher, 25. "I assumed that something was going on. It's kind of shady all around."
E-mails and documents from Sony show it paid up to $1,000 to get a new song played on a single radio station, gave contest prizes to deejays instead of listeners, and even hired crews of callers to bombard stations' request lines, Spitzer said.
"Payola drives promotion," he said. "It limits the diversity of music that is on-air. It limits the access of artists to airtime, and hence their capacity to succeed."
Sony apologized for its improper conduct and promised to change its ways - and in exchange, sources said, Spitzer agreed not to identify any high-ranking Sony execs by name.
The only Sony employee to lose his job as a result was Joel Klaiman, an executive vice president at Sony subsidiary Epic Records, sources said.
Two radio chains also have fired programmers since Spitzer launched his probe.
Payola long has been a problem in the record business, and independent record promoters were once notorious for giving cash, drugs and prostitutes to deejays to get airtime.
Payola is a state and federal crime, but the Federal Communications Commission has levied just one $8,000 fine in the past decade - compared with the $550,000 fine for Janet Jackson's breast-baring Super Bowl show.
Spitzer said the FCC should look at stripping licenses from the worst radio stations - and an FCC commissioner jumped aboard.
"It's unfair to listeners if they hear songs on the radio because someone was paid off, not because it's good music," said Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein. "We need an ... investigation to determine whether these practices violate federal payola laws."
But the music business may have more to fear from bored fans than from angry regulators.
"They do overplay a lot of music," said Alina Kravchenko, 20, of the upper West Side, browsing in the Times Square MTV store. "I like Jessica Simpson, but even her stuff is overplayed. Sometimes it gets on my nerves. It gets so old that I turn to the Spanish station." |
|
|
| jdat |
There was already a thread about this.
Regardless this here has been something happening forever and unfortunately I'm sure will never stop :( |
|
|
| wizniz |
lol i scanned the title...
read "djs play music in exchange for $$"
and i was like "no "
:) |
|
|
| ZzZ The Goddess |
| quote: | Originally posted by wizniz
lol i scanned the title...
read "djs play music in exchange for $$"
and i was like "no "
:) |
So sue me, im bored :p My supervisor is out for the next few days so I am just chilling on TA all day trying to be informative ;) |
|
|
| fastmp3 |
Payola Shocker: J-Lo Hits, Others Were 'Bought' by Sony
I always say when people ask me that the so-called vipers of the movie business would not last a day in the record business. Now Eliot Spitzer's office has decided to prove the point.
"Please be advised that in this week's Jennifer Lopez Top 40 Spin Increase of 236 we bought 63 spins at a cost of $3,600."
"Please be advised that in this week's Good Charlotte Top 40 Spin Increase of 61 we bought approximately 250 spins at a cost of $17K
"
Ironically, it didn't help, as the memo notes that the company actually lost spins or plays of the record even though they laid out money for them.
See above: The internal memos from Sony Music, revealed today in the New York state attorney general's investigation of payola at the company, will be mind blowing to those who are not so jaded to think records are played on the radio because they're good. We've all known for a long time that contemporary pop music stinks. We hear "hits" on the radio and wonder, "How can this be?"
Now we know. And memos from both Sony's Columbia and Epic Records senior vice presidents of promotions circa 2002-2003 whose names are redacted in the reports but are well known in the industry spell out who to pay and what to pay them in order to get the company's records on the air.
From Epic, home of J-Lo, a memo from Nov. 12, 2002, a "rate" card that shows radio stations in the Top 23 markets will receive $1000, Markets 23-100 get $800, lower markets $500. "If a record receives less than 75 spins at any given radio station, we will not pay the full rate," the memo to DJs states. "We look forward to breaking many records together in the future."
Take Jennifer Lopez's awful record, "Get Right," with its shrill horn and lifted rap. It's now clear that was a "bought" sensation when it was released last winter. So, too, were her previous "hits" "I'm Glad" and "I'm Real," according to the memos. All were obtained by Sony laying out dough and incentives. It's no surprise. There isn't a person alive who could hum any of those "songs" now. Not even J-Lo herself.
Announced today: Sony Music now known as Sony/BMG has to pony up a $10 million settlement with New York's Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. It should be $100 million. And this won't be the end of the investigation. Spitzer's office is looking into all the record companies. This is just the beginning.
But what a start: Black-and-white evidence of plasma TVs, laptop computers and PlayStation 2 players being sent to DJs and radio programmers in exchange for getting records on the air. And not just electronic gifts went to these people either. According to the papers released today, the same people also received expensive trips, limousines and lots of other incentives to clutter the airwaves with the disposable junk that now passes for pop music.
More memos: "We ordered a laptop for Donnie Michaels at WFLY in Albany. He has since moved to WHYI in Miami. We need to change the shipping address." One Sony memo from 2002: "Can you work with Donnie to see what kind of digital camera he wants us to order?"
Another, from someone in Sony's Urban Promotion department: "I am trying to buy a walkman for Toya Beasley at WRKS/NY.
Can PRS get it to me tomorrow by 3 p.m.
I really need to get the cd by then or I have to wait a week or two before she does her music again
"
Nice, huh? How many times have I written in this column about talented and deserving artists who get no airplay, and no attention from their record companies? Yet dozens of records with little or no artistic merit are all over the radio, and racked in displays at the remaining record stores with great prominence. Thanks to Spitzer's investigation, we now get a taste of what's been happening.
More memos. This one from Feb. 13, 2004: "Gave a jessica trip to wkse to secure Jessica spins and switchfoot." That would be Jessica Simpson, for whom Sony laid on big bucks in the last couple of years to turn her into something she's clearly not: a star.
And then there's the story of a guy named Dave Universal, who was fired from Buffalo's WKSE in January when there was word that Spitzer was investigating him. Universal (likely a stage name) claimed he did nothing his station didn't know about. That was probably true, but the DJ got trips to Miami and Yankee tickets, among other gifts, in exchange for playing Sony records. From a Sony internal memo on Sept. 8, 2004: "Two weeks ago it cost us over 4000.00 to get Franz [Ferdinand] on WKSE."
Franz Ferdinand, Jessica Simpson, J-Lo, Good Charlotte, etc. Not exactly The Who, Carly Simon, Aretha Franklin or The Kinks. The "classic" is certainly gone from rock.
The question now is: Who will take the fall at Sony for all this? It's not like payola is new. The government investigated record companies and radio stations in the late 1950s and again in the mid 1970s. (When we were in high school, we used to laugh about how often The Three Degrees' "When Will I See You Again?" was played on WABC. We were young and naοve!)
Spitzer is said to be close friends with Sony's new CEO, Andrew Lack, who publicly welcomed the new investigations earlier this year when they were announced. Did Lack anticipate using Spitzer's results to clean house? Stay tuned
By Roger Friedman |
|
|
| Jackson |
| That explains alot. |
|
|
| Vlad |
| OMG SAY IT AINT SO!! SAY IT AINT SO!! The beloved commerical music industry... CORRUPT!!?!?! WHAT WILL WE DO NOW? :rolleyes: :rolleyes: |
|
|
| jonze234 |
| i hate the radio so much. in the morning all thats on are a bunch of dumb s talking about "today's headlines" or "did you see what happened last night on desperate housewives/oprah/leno?" if one station would shut up and play music they would have the market cornered. i wonder if it has something to do with FCC regulations. |
|
|
| ZzZ The Goddess |
| quote: | Originally posted by Vlad
OMG SAY IT AINT SO!! SAY IT AINT SO!! The beloved commerical music industry... CORRUPT!!?!?! WHAT WILL WE DO NOW? :rolleyes: :rolleyes: |
Yea we all know about it...we just happen to be discussing it. Is it necesarry for you to come to just about every thread rolling your eyes at something. |
|
|
| Vlad |
| quote: | Originally posted by ZzZ The Goddess
Is it necesarry for you to come to just about every thread rolling your eyes at something. |
Please find me in every thread. |
|
|
| ZzZ The Goddess |
| quote: | Originally posted by Vlad
Please find me in every thread. |
I didnt say EVERY thread, I said just about every thread. I know what posts I read I dont need to search you as a reference. Your posts used to be so friendly, I wonder what happened. |
|
|
| Vlad |
I dont know why you thought my post was directed towards you? It was a general comment directed toward the general population about how ignorant the government really is to what goes on in todays business world.
aka... sarcasm. |
|
|
|
|
