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Sony bribes radio programmers of airplay { July 31 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/music/ny-etpayola-0731,0,2847002.story?coll=ny-entertainment-headlineshttp://www.newsday.com/entertainment/music/ny-etpayola-0731,0,2847002.story?coll=ny-entertainment-headlines
Signals of trouble for radio
Broadcasters are battered by formula formats, satellite stations and decrease in local listenership
BY RAFER GUZMÁN
STAFF WRITER
July 31, 2005
Now that Sony BMG has admitted to bribing radio programmers in exchange for playing songs by Sony artists -- the first result of an ongoing state investigation into music industry corruption -- the average music fan may be thinking: No wonder my local radio station is so lousy.
But the real question is: Will stamping out payola make radio any better?
Radio's problems go far deeper than payola. During the consolidation craze of the 1990s, media conglomerates such as Clear Channel and Infinity snapped up stations around the country, resulting in standardized formats and less creative freedom for local programmers.
Battle for listener loyalty
A reliance on telemarketer-style research ensures that popular songs are rotated relentlessly, leaving little room for untested new music. And as radio stations face competition from a slew of new technologies -- satellite radio, Internet radio, portable MP3 players such as Apple's iPod -- stations are scrambling to adopt new niche formats in an effort to reach untapped audiences.
Meantime, people are spending less time listening to traditional radio: about 19 hours and 30 seconds per week, down from 22 hours per week in 1993. "Stations exist in a very crowded marketplace, now more than ever," says Tom Taylor, editor of InsideRadio.com, an industry Web site. "Consumers have plenty of other places to go."
Payola probably has existed as long as pop music itself. During the Big Band Era, song pluggers would slip the orchestra some cash to perform their tune. The disc jockey Alan Freed, credited with coining the term "rock and roll," was busted in 1960 for taking bribes to spin songs (he even received a co-writing credit on Chuck Berry's "Maybellene" as an incentive to spin it more often). In the 1990s, a payola scandal swept through the Latin music recording industry.
An investigation by New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer found numerous e-mails from Sony BMG employees arranging to give laptops, flat-screen televisions and travel arrangements to radio programmers in exchange for spinning Sony songs. Bribes were employed to boost hot new acts (Franz Ferdinand, Good Charlotte) and more established performers (Jennifer Lopez, Celine Dion). Earlier this week, Sony BMG agreed to pay a $10-million settlement and halt such "wrong and improper" practices.
The power of payola
"The radio and the record industries, they've always been intertwined," says Paul Heine, director of news, music and programming at the trade magazine Billboard Radio Monitor. "Anytime you have a system that's that interdependent, there's always room for corruption."
Payola can force a song into listeners' ears and boost its position up the airplay charts (which, in turn, can trick retailers into stocking more copies of the album). But in the end, payola is costly and ineffective, says Taylor. "Ultimately, listeners decide what gets on the air. If radio stations play stiffs, for whatever reason, then their ratings go down. There's an old industry saying: If it's not in the grooves, you can't make it a hit."
One thing the investigation will change is the way record labels and radio stations work together. Part of Sony's settlement is adhering to a list of "permissible" and "impermissible" business practices. Providing items for contest giveaways and sending artists to appear at station-sponsored events is allowed. Hiring phony "fans" to call stations with requests is not. And when Sony pays to spin a song under the guise of advertising, the arrangement must be clearly announced before and after the song.
The American Association of Independent Music, a newly formed group of independent record labels, is hoping their fledgling artists will now have an easier time breaking into the tightly formatted world of corporate radio. "Once you level the playing field, we'll benefit," says the association's acting president, Don Rose. "If the programming decisions become purer -- and by that I mean if they're made by individuals with good taste and solid knowledge of their audience," he says, "then radio could get better."
Maybe -- but media analysts say the radio world is becoming even more rigidly formatted. Over the past decades, radio has relied more and more on "call-out" research to determine what listeners want and don't want. Research firms typically call people at home or gather them in conference rooms to listen to quick snippets of songs. One company, Big Champagne, is taking that concept to the Internet, monitoring day-to-day downloading of music files and reporting that information to stations.
If that research sounds like an appeal to the lowest common denominator -- well, it is, says Big Champagne's chief executive, Eric Garland. "Hit-driven radio is not hit-driven by accident, and not because it's pay-for-play," he says. "Those most-repeated songs are statistically, overwhelmingly, the ones that most people like, and the ones the least people dislike."
Reviving listenership
But music fans are discovering a multitude of new options. The XM and Sirius satellite radio networks, with their dozens of commercial-free niche channels, together claimed more than 4 million subscribers last year. Nearly 11 million people will own an MP3 player by the end of this year, according to Forrester Research, Inc., and more than 20 million will listen to Internet radio.
Radio is reacting by pitching new formats to untapped audiences. The emerging Hispanic urban format (nicknamed "hurban") mixes hip-hop and rap in Spanish and English. New York's K-Rock (WXRK/92.3 FM) recently switched from alternative rock to a mix of new and classic rock. One new format sweeping the radio industry is called Jack, which plays a broad mix of genres but appeals mainly to 30-ish rock fans by focusing on the 1980s.
Though it's too early to tell, several newly converted Jack stations around the country have reported dramatically improved ratings.
One idea being discussed in radio circles is a return to local radio with local DJs and programmers who are closely in touch with their audiences -- which is exactly what radio did before the consolidation craze of the 1990s.
As listeners become accustomed to accessing information from around the world via satellite or the Internet, they'll discover a need for music and news that reflects their hometowns.
That shift hasn't happened yet, but many say it's the best way for radio to remain relevant.
"Our choice for many years was to turn it on or turn it off," Garland says. "Now, there are so many different entertainment choices that programmers have to be really finely attuned to an audience and what they want. You have to be not just broadcasting but listening."
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