SONY SETTLES PAYOLA INVESTIGATION

I read the story below, the articles and the pdf files. This whole thing is pretty stunning. I am in a format (called Triple A or AAA) and in a job (on air) that doesn't see much of this stuff. I don't see any. I'm kind of like the checkout clerk at the store or the waiter at the restaurant. What goes on in the kitchen I don't know.

This report really lays it out. I learned things I never knew about. Like "spin programs" basically a paid 4 minute segment for a record company to play what they want. I had no idea that happened.

But it brings up a question. Let's say Sony records bought a 30 minute segment on a station in the mid day and announced it was sponsored, and then they played 1/2 hour of Sony label bands. It would be legal that way, and you know what I don't think anybody would care! TV does it all the time. So do newspapers, "content" thinly hidden as ads. On tv there are infomercials, in print it is often a special section on home repair, auto reviews or whatever. And how about "product placement" in tv shows and movies. Isn't that a form of payola? Getting paid to expose a product and not telling the viewer?

I think especially kids wouldn't care at all. Have a sponsored show, play the songs, give away Sony stuff. Of course radio pd's wouldn't get the trips to Vegas or laptop computers...

One other thing is I don't know how involved the bands and management are in all this. Do the bands pay extra fees to get the comapny's push for that week? I don't know. I've never heard of it but who knows. Bands would be pretty foolish to think that after their music is recorded it is all a fair game. As you can see some bands get the push some don't. Clearly if your band is picked to be promoted you'll sell a ton of records and if not you won't.


Here is the NY Attorney General's report. SONY SETTLES PAYOLA INVESTIGATION The link has pdf files with internal memo's and more. Well worth reading.

Here's part of it:

"Our investigation shows that, contrary to listener expectations that songs are selected for airplay based on artistic merit and popularity, air time is often determined by undisclosed payoffs to radio stations and their employees," Spitzer said. "This agreement is a model for breaking the pervasive influence of bribes in the industry."

After receiving tips from industry insiders, Spitzer's office conducted a year-long investigation and determined that SONY BMG and its record labels had offered a series of inducements to radio stations and their employees to obtain airplay for the recordings by the company's artists.

The inducements for airplay, also known as "payola," took several forms:

• Outright bribes to radio programmers, including expensive vacation packages, electronics and other valuable items;

• Contest giveaways for stations' listening audiences;

• Payments to radio stations to cover operational expenses;

• Retention of middlemen, known as independent promoters, as conduits for illegal payments to radio stations;

• Payments for "spin programs," airplay under the guise of advertising.

E-mail correspondence obtained during the investigation shows that company executives were well aware of the payoffs and made sure that the company got sufficient airplay to justify these expenditures.

In discussing a bribe given to a radio programmer in Buffalo, one promotion executive at SONY BMG's Epic Records wrote to a colleague at Epic:

"Two weeks ago, it cost us over 4000.00 to get Franz [Ferdinand] on WKSE. That is what the four trips to Miami and hotel cost . . . At the end of the day, [David] Universal added GC [Good Charlotte] and Gretchen Wilson and hit Alex up for another grand and they settled for $750.00. So almost $5000.00 in two weeks for overnight airplay. He told me that Tommy really wanted him to do it so he cut the deal."

Another Epic employee who was trying to promote the group Audioslave to a Clear Channel programmer asked in an email:

"WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO GET AUDIOSLAVE ON WKSS THIS WEEK?!!? Whatever you can dream up, I can make it happen."

A promotion employee unhappy with the times assigned for spins of the song "I Drove All Night" by Celine Dion wrote this internal email:

"OK, HERE IT IS IN BLACK AND WHITE AND IT'S SERIOUS: IF A RADIO STATION GOT A FLYAWAY TO A CELINE [DION] SHOW IN LAS VEGAS FOR THE ADD, AND THEY'RE PLAYING THE SONG ALL IN OVERNIGHTS, THEY ARE NOT GETTING THE FLYAWAY. PLEASE FIX THE OVERNIGHT ROTATIONS IMMEDIATELY."

The investigation revealed that SONY BMG employees took steps to conceal many of the payments to individuals and radio stations, by using fictitious "contest winners" to document the transactions and make it appear as though the payments and gifts were going to radio listeners instead of station employees.
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Wow.

I really think Roger Friedman is one of the best entertainment writers out there. It is almost never press release reprints (never). When a big story breaks like the payola settlement I know he'll have something good to say. Today he does, quotes from memo's and more.

So you may wonder do I get anything at KFOG? a few cd's but no. I just bought tickets for Los Lonely Boys and Shelby Lynn on my own. It is pretty much a top 40, urban chart, and alternative playlist kind of thing and it goes way above the on air dj. It is the program director and consultants that get most of it.

They don't put much money in promoting DJ Harry or John Scofield's new cd's.

related link Steve Albini's "Problem With Music"

the Friedman story:

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 naïve!)

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 …