9 radio stations in bribery probe
p2p news / p2pnet: New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer has significantly stepped up his attack on members of the Big Four record Organized Music cartel over air time bribes.
Warner Music Group recently agreed to pay $5 million to nonprofit music organizations plus $50,000 to cover the costs of Spitzer’s inquiry into payola charges, echoing an earlier deal he’d reached with Sony BMG, which agreed to pay $10 million on the same charge. Sony executives were said to have known what was going on.
He’s also investigating Sony in the recent First4Internet rootkit DRM spyware debacle.
Now Spitzer has subpoenaed Clear Channel Communications, Infinity (CBS Radio), Citadel Broadcasting Corp, Cox Radio, Cumulus Broadcasting, Pamal Broadcasting, Entercom Communications Corp, Emmis Communications Corp and ABC, "in his investigation of claims that some major recording artists got air time because of payoffs by their labels," says the Los Angeles Times.
The investigation takes in Jennifer Lopez’s ‘I’m Real’ and John Mayer’s ‘Daughters’.
"Songs by other artists also are being examined, including ones by Jessica Simpson, Celine Dion, Maroon 5, Good Charlotte, Franz Ferdinand, Switchfoot, Michelle Branch and R.E.M," says the LA Times.
"A lot of the major songs have been implicated in this, and it showed how pervasive the payola infrastructure had become," Spitzer is quoted as saying.
"Major artists, major songs were sent up the charts through improper payments to buy spins on the air that translated into sales. Artists and writers are not targets, Spitzer’s office said.
” In fact, some have supported the probe and provided complaints that assisted investigators.
"Station owner representatives who were reached for comment denied that payola had taken place at their companies."
Definitely stay tuned.
Also See:
$5 million – Spitzer nails Warner Music, November 23, 2005
$10 million – Spitzer goes after Sony BMG, November 29, 2005
spyware debacle – Spitzer goes after Sony BMG, November 29, 2005
going on – Sony BMG execs knew of payoffs, December 7, 2005
Los Angeles Times – Spitzer Names 9 Radio Firms, February 9, 2006
February 9th, 2006 at 1:54 pm
How many internet users will they have to blindly sue to make that money back.
February 9th, 2006 at 10:52 pm
Has anyone thought that will the successful conclusion to bringing two of the four major cartel members to task over payolla, that it hasn’t affected what is still being played on the radio? The same songs are still being played the same way, inspite of the supposed successful ending of the two in playing with payolla.
The reason I bring this up is that we the listening public aren’t seeing any difference in the playlist from those stations. Why? Isn’t that the purpose of payolla, to affect what’s aired?
So how is it that with two of the major players out of the picture this is still happening? Simply, payolla is alive and well and another method is being used to continue the same practice without the middle man to pay. Instead of buying the air time through a third party, they are now paying enomorous sums for the playlists themselves. You can’t tell me that 2 or 3 hours of secretaries time to create a list is worth thousands of dollars a month. The payolla survives through the buying of a product (the future proposed playlist at an inflated value) and may look legal on the surface. You and I know that can’t be the case if those same playlists are so high in price as to have no real meaning in either the returns from the paper, electronic file, secretaries time, or station programmers’ time. It is merely a way to continue to pay for play and continues to be rampant within the broadcast industry.
Hence the same old same old.
February 10th, 2006 at 1:25 am
“Station owner representatives who were reached for comment denied that payola had taken place at their companies.” Bunch of lying Bastards!!!! They should RIP the station’s a new one!!! No fines/ pull them off the air for a period of time say 6 mos to a year!!!! Start doing things like this and you WILL stop payola!!!!
February 10th, 2006 at 4:15 pm
Most artists and songwriters have not realized this but payola makes the competition field among artists and songwriter not level, to the disadvantage of the better ones and the majority.
Payola favors the worst artists and songwriters and we see the result: Most music peddled by the cartels varies from worthless to worse and damage the reputation of music as a form of entertaiment.
Wake up artists/songwriters.
And where is the so called composer associations? In bed with the cartel.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com