Radio broadcasters have long been accused of corrupting the public airwaves by accepting bribes from corporate music giants. In a pair of agreements disclosed Monday, U.S. broadcasters…[agreed] to pay a landmark penalty and [pledged] to play more music from independent recording artists.
Under a tentative settlement with the Federal Communications Commission, four of the largest radio station owners have agreed to pay a total of $12.5 million to resolve claims that they accepted cash and other incentives in exchange for playing songs — a practice popularly known as payola.
The payola penalty, which would come as part of a consent decree with the radio companies — Clear Channel Communications, CBS Radio, Entercom Communications and Citadel Broadcasting — would reflect perhaps the toughest Federal Communications Commission enforcement of the decades-old regulations that prohibit broadcasters from taking secret payments in exchange for playing specific songs. Critics have accused the agency of lax enforcement.
Compared with the settlements extracted by Eliot Spitzer, when NY State AG, the commission settlement “basically lets the four biggest companies off the hook for peanuts.”
Let’s face it, this crowd of sleazy profiteers, the RIAA and MPAA — plus the FCC commissioners — will all be playing golf together this weekend, as usual.
No one is surprised. Corruption in government is endemic now days. Gone are the days when I thought conservatives had morals. Now conservatives are like the old democrats. They talk the talk but don’t walk the walk.
$12.5 Million? Are you kidding me? That is absolutely sickening to think they got off that easily. Is is going to stop them from continuing their payola ways. HA! NO WAY! If the radio industry gets rid of payola, there will be massive layoffs, paycuts, station closings, and double the ads (which is hard to conceive). The quote “basically lets the four biggest companies off the hook for peanuts.” DOES about sum it up.
Are they going to play more indie music? If they do, it will be during the lowest rated times in the middle of the night, and that only for a half-hour, hour tops. Of course… it’s not like any of the money exchanging hands through payola gets to the artists anyway.
When D.J.s took the money they went to jail as the heads of these 4 “pirate” corporations should.The good news is that the whole thing is out of their control now.Indie bands can make a good living from touring and selling on the net.Some are turning down lucrative recording contracts because you have to sell your soul to stay in the business.Recording companies are about to change their business model because artists and hacks can make and distrbute their own products.They are in the same situation as Kodak is in photography.Good riddance.
Heres an old but related article..
http://www.wweek.com/html/cover041598.html
check this out..
Let me see…
Giant corporations run by bean counters took money to play pop music tracks created by committes of MBAs with no musical background and sung by marginally talented “musicians” who are only slightly better than mousekateers but who aren’t qualified to wipe Lou Reed’s ass…
Am I with it so far?
And we want to punish them and we thing 12 mil isn’t enough and this is the same blog that rambles on about libertarian this and free market that… and who cares?
If you want to save music then you have to kill every last man, woman and child in the musical industry who instinctively puts on a tie in the morning. So they said they’d play more indy artists? So what? They will just find more indy artists who sound as bad as Justin Timberlake and Kelly Clarkson, only without big record deals…
We need to have independant music stations, and program directors from a musical background, and no corporate committees, and we especially need an American public with taste.
Look people… I can’t buy all the indy music myself… I cannot singlehandedly support all the amazing new artists and established artists whose only crime is not sounding shitty enough to be played on top 40 radio… Some of you are gonna have help.
Yep, let’s stop that XM/Sirius merger because it will be terrible for competition. Because satellite radio will be the death of us all.
Yikes, twelve and a half mil for these guys! That’s gonna really put a dent in their caddie tip budget. They may have to resort to, or should I say Resort, and go back to carts. This decision must have sent a room temperature ripple up the backs of Music Fat Cats everywhere, reminding them of consequences like, a visit from the Greenbrier masseuse.
#2, Ed,
I think you nailed it right.
And these people are trying to close down internet radio ?
The pot calling the kettle black.
Sort of sounds like “I am from the government . I am here to help you “.
It is amazing after all the abuse done by this industry in the name of their profit- abuse of their customers and of the artists.
They will go down kicking and screaming to protect their perks.
You cannot stop progress but you can delay it while you feed at the troff.
In the end these people will have their day in the public court so to speak but I sure hope that we can get rid of these abusive jerks sooner.
No FCC = Good radio. Time to go back to homesteading. Which would be even better today given that the FM band can hold far more stations than before. Check out HD radio. You can now fit five stations on the bandwidth one station use to take. As for the entire band you could fit at a minimum 10 times more stations than before.