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suckshardcore wrote:

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I didn't realize Payola was a hot topic in the last 50 years.

Sony BMG Music settles Spitzer's payola probe
Recording company to pay $10 million, curb 'pay for play' practices


Wed., July 27, 2005

ALBANY, New York - Recording industry titan Sony BMG Music Entertainment agreed Monday to pay $10 million and stop bribing radio stations to feature its artists in what a state official called a more sophisticated generation of the payola scandals of decades ago.

The agreement springs from an investigation by New York state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who called the practice "pervasive" in the industry and suggested other music industry giants could face similar penalties.

Pay-for-play "is driving the industry, and it is wrong," Spitzer told reporters.


Sony BMG, whose various labels include hundreds of artists from Aretha Franklin and Tony Bennett to Beyonce Knowles and the Dixie Chicks, said in a statement some of its employees had engaged in "wrong and improper" practices.

The company said it looked forward to "defining a new, higher standard in radio promotion," but did not say whether it had fired or disciplined any of those employees. A spokeswoman did not immediately return a call for further comment.

A 1960 federal law and related state laws bar record companies from offering undisclosed financial incentives in exchange for airplay. The practice was called "payola," a contraction of "pay" and "Victrola," the old wind-up record player.

Asked why he did not bring criminal charges in the case, Spitzer noted the criminal laws governing pay-for-play are more specific and difficult to violate than the civil laws.

Companies in the recording industry depend heavily on airplay for their artists. It boosts sales by encouraging listeners to buy their music and helps them climb the charts, which are based on airplay.

Spitzer said Sony BMG's efforts to win more airplay took many forms, including outright bribes of cash and electronics to radio stations and paying for contest giveaways for listeners. In other cases, he said, Sony BMG used middlemen known as independent promoters to funnel cash to radio stations.

The attorney general called the system more sophisticated than the 1950s and '60s payola scandals, most of which involved direct payments of cash to DJs in exchange for airplay.

"This is a more formalized, more corporatized structure to get the same result," he said. He added, "I feel a little like Bill Murray in the movie 'Groundhog Day,"' a story about a cynical weatherman who is forced to continuously relive the worst day of his life.

Jonathan Adelstein, a Democratic member of the Federal Communications Commission, said Spitzer "appears to have found a whole arsenal of smoking guns."

"We need to investigate each particular instance that Spitzer has uncovered to see if it is a violation of federal law. This is a potentially massive scandal," he said.

The FCC has power over the nation's radio stations, which are licensed to use public airwaves.

Executives aware of payola

In the Sony BMG case, Spitzer released to reporters e-mails, most of them dated 2003, 2004 and 2005, that he said showed company executives were well aware of the payola practices.

In one case, an employee of Sony BMG's Epic label was trying to promote the group Audioslave to a station and asked: "WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO GET AUDIOSLAVE ON WKSS THIS WEEK?!!? Whatever you can dream up, I can make it happen."

In another case in 2004, the promotion department of Sony BMG label Epic Records paid for an extravagant trip to Miami for a Buffalo DJ and three friends in exchange for adding the Franz Ferdinand song "Take Me Out" to the DJ's station's playlist.


And in another, a program director for two Clear Channel radio stations, WKKF-FM and KISS-FM, sent an e-mail to a Sony executive saying: "Looking for a laptop for promotion on Bow Wow," a reference to a rapper.

Spitzer said Sony BMG employees sought to conceal some payments by using fictitious contest winners to document the transactions.

Still, he praised Sony BMG executives for fully cooperating with the inquiry.

Spitzer has asked for documents from three other major recording industry names - EMI, Warner Music Group and Vivendi Universal SA's Universal Music Group. While Spitzer would not talk specifically about investigations into those companies, he said the payola problem goes "way beyond Sony BMG."

Don Henley of the Eagles, a founding member of the Recording Artists Coalition, praised Spitzer for addressing a problem that hurts recording artists.

"We look forward to other record labels agreeing to similar reforms," said Henley, who has given $25,000 in campaign contributions to Spitzer over the past year. Spitzer is running for governor in 2006.

Sony BMG is a joint venture of Sony Corp. and Germany's Bertelsmann AG. Shares of Sony were down 23 cents, or about two-thirds of 1 percent, at $34.40 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

Sony BMG is an umbrella organization for several prominent record labels, including Arista Records, Columbia Records, Sony Music International and Jive Records. Star artists signed with the Arista label alone include Whitney Houston, OutKast, Pink and Sarah McLachlan.

The $10 million will be distributed to not-for-profit entities and earmarked for music education programs, Spitzer said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8700936/

KellysMomCalledMeFine wrote:

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Hi thread stalker - take the Kelly shit to her thread. Your continued bitterness years later is pathetic. No one cares anymore.

Actually this is right on topic, I'm just using examples to make my point. Adam and Kris will do as well in sales as the labels are willing to $upport them. Notice that Kris is doing a handful of radio station concerts in Dec. He does these for free in exchange for radio spins. Also notice that Adam isn't doing any.

Who do you think is going to sell more based on label support alone? Yup. Kris.

Adam
November 22/09 - AMA Awards
November 23/09 - Album Release
November 24/09 - GMA Concert
November 25/09 - Letterman
December 01/09 - The Ellen DeGeneres Show
December 09/09 - ADL Annual Benefit - Spielberg to be honored

Kris
November 08/09 - Live in the Vineyard - Napa Valley
November 09/09 - Kris album streams live on AOL Music
November 10/09 - Kris presents nominees for Peoples' Choice Awards
November 13/09 - Conan O'Brien
November 17/09 - GMA Concert/Album Release
November 18/09 - Regis & Kelly
November 20/09 - Ellen DeGeneres - Broadcast (Probable)
November 21/09 - VH1 Top 20 Video Countdown appearance 9:00 AM EST
December 01/09 - 107.9 Jingle Ball - Sacramento, CA
December 04/09 - Miracle Near State Street show in Chicago with The Fray
December 06/09 - Kissmas Bash in Buffalo, NY
December 07/09 - 104.5 XLO Acoustic XMas at Mechanics Hall in Worcester, MA.
December 11/09 - Z100's Jingle Ball '09 - Madison Square Garden, NYC
December 18/09 - XL106.7 XL'ent Xmas '09 - HOB, Orlando
December 22/09 - AOL Music Sessions with Kris Allen premieres including exclusive performances and interviews

eraserhead19 wrote:

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She did contests and giveaways and YES that is a form of pay for play... but her songs also sold over 1 million plus downloads each so CLEARLY the music listeners were LIKING what they heard otherwise why would they buy it?

Music listeners bought millions of copies of dogs barking Jingle Bells too.

So wait... doesn't this directly conflict with the idea that Kris's label hates him and that Adam is the chosen one? I'm really cornfuzzled now...

I never said that.