Tucson Citizen Payola

Monday, November 28, 2005
REVERE: Don’t think that radio payola is dead
C.T. REVERE
Metro Columnist
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The next time you’re listening to the latest radio hits on your favorite commercial station, ask yourself how those performers got there – and why other, equally talented musicians don’t.
The word “payola” conjures up images of an era of sock hops and ducktail haircuts.
But the old practice of paying deejays for radio play still thrives in multimillion-dollar corporate fashion.
What used to consist of slipping a C-note into the sleeve of a 45-rpm record on its way to the local radio station now involves high-priced middlemen working a sort of shell game between radio conglomerates and major record labels.
Now, efforts are under way from New York City and Washington, D.C., to southern Arizona to end a practice that lets a select few make huge profits from the public airways while radio listeners and a heck of a lot of really talented musicians pretty much get squat.
“Are they really entertaining us, or is this just a business transaction between the radio station and the recording company?” asks state Rep. Jonathan Paton, a Tucson Republican. “Are we receiving content that is simply manufactured to look popular? That’s what I want to know.”
Paton is planning to hold town hall meetings in the coming months to explore the issue, with an eye on introducing legislation to prevent abuse of Arizona airwaves.
“I want to have a hearing in which we get to hear from the feds, we get to hear from the radio stations and we get to hear from the musicians. If there’s no issue there, there’s no issue. But I want to put some sunshine on it.”
Tenacious New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer already has provided plenty of evidence that there’s an issue here, enough so that he was able to reach a $10 million settlement with Sony BMG Music, which records hundreds of major artists including Aretha Franklin, the Dixie Chicks and Beyonce Knowles.
This month, Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., introduced the Radio and Concert Disclosure and Competition Act of 2005, a bill intended to address a problem that Congress helped create by opening the door for huge corporations to gobble up the majority of radio stations across the nation.
In the process of creating the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which was intended to promote competition in the telecommunications industry for the sake of the public good, our elected ones let radio station owners into the room.
By lifting the limits on how many stations a company can own in a given market and nationwide, Congress created a small group of very large radio corporations that have succeeded in setting up a profitable system of checks and balances that adds up to payola.
It’s an indirect approach in which “independent promoters” sign exclusive contracts with radio stations, then accept payment from recording companies that want their artists to get air time.
“The only way to get on the air is if you hire this promoter,” said Michael Bracy, a founding member of The Future of Music Coalition, a Washington-based group lobbying for change in the industry. “As ownership of radio has come more and more into these national corporations, we’ve lost the local flavor. It’s basically a world where few songs get through the pipeline to get played.”
To make things even cozier for those on the inside, the major radio stations also own the concert venues.
Cross-ownership allows the radio stations to use the airwaves to promote their own concerts, further locking out the bands that don’t fit their corporate mold.
“Is it just a paid advertisement, or was it a song that was on the radio because people want to hear it?” Paton wondered.
Joey Burns said his Tucson-based band, Calexico, has found its niche playing in smaller venues in the U.S. and across Europe, but he’d welcome a chance to expand their fan base.
“We’d love to get played on some of those stations,” Burns said. “It’s upsetting because the individuality of radio and regionalism gets left out because of what’s happening nationally.”
Public radio – KXCI Community Radio in Tucson – provides the opportunity to hear a broad array of music that can’t be found on the commercial stations.
But being shut out of commercial radio severely limits the ability of independent artists and promoters to make a living, not to mention alienating music fans who want something other than the 50 or 60 songs on most playlists.
Radio stations are private property, but the airwaves they use are not. They are owned by the American people, and those who use them with the blessing of the Federal Communications Commission have an obligation that extends beyond their own bank accounts.
Through the efforts of people such as Spitzer, Feingold and Paton, perhaps we’ll be able to tune in commercial radio someday soon and hear what we want to hear instead of what greedy corporate executives want to feed us.
C.T. Revere can be reached at 573-4594 and ctrevere@tucsoncitizen.com. Address letters to P.O. Box 26767, Tucson AZ 85726-6767. His columns run Mondays and Thursdays.
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