Payola in the record industry

In the news today, Sony-BMG finally accepted the obvious and admitted to breaking payola laws. They accepted a $10 million dollar fine. However, they are not the only one record label who does this. I suspect that the other companies are not far behind in negotiating settlements to avoid prosecution.

Payola, for those who don't know, is the practice of paying a radio station to play a particular song. When the radio station fails to disclose to their audience that someone paid them to play the song they are listening to, then the radio station has broken the law. Here are two excellent links that describe modern payola in American radio: [Salon][SlashDot].

In 1960 the US outlawed payola, seeing it as a form of bribery. To get around these laws, the record companies and the radio stations come up with all sorts of clever ways to "compensate" programming directors at the radio station in exchange for including the label's songs on the station's play list. It is so bad that the companies that own the stations expect compensation as part of their normal business.

Basically, every minute of broadcast time is bought and paid for by someone. Not just the ads you have to endure between songs, but the songs themselves. That is why radio in the US sucks.

I was wondering about something this morning when I read about this. Why are the radio stations even bothering to appear to be not accepting bribes to play songs? If they simply disclose the fact that the music was bought and paid for, then wouldn't they be able to simple set the price for labels for pay for airtime? Why try to avoid the law? Why bother with schemes and fines and bad press?

After all, the public is numb to such commercial exploitation. The line between commercial sponsorship and entertainment content was blurred a long time ago. Sponsors pay television to put their products into the programs. They pay movie studios to put their brands in the movies. Video games have products in them. Why does radio continue to pretend to be above it all? Everyone knows that they are not.

The risk of course is that the radio station is afraid that they will loose credibility, and hence listeners. What idiots. Don't they know that they have lost all credibility a long time ago? Why not just go with it and disclose the "sponsorship" of music?

They need to wake up and realize that Podcasting and other web delivered music streams are going to kill radio if they keep this up. Why on earth should I endure and hour of crap bubblegum pop and obnoxious ads on my drive to work? I have an alternative now. My computer can download a Podcast stream of excellent tunes from all over the planet while I sleep. Then I simple plug my iPod into my car stereo and enjoy.

The greed and abuse of radio station owners and big music labels are killing their golden goose. I'd say lets all step aside and let them finish the job. The sooner, the better.