Spitzer Pimpslaps Sony on Payola; Other Labels Looking for New Rocks to Crawl and Hide Under.
So I have a growing respect for NY AG Eliot Spitzer; the guy seems completely fearless, and the more his detractors grumble and whine, he continues to slam his way through more and more high profile investigations of corporate chicanery. In the case of his recent activity, he just gave Sony/BMG a big headbutt over their "payola" practices (basically industry institutionalized bribery to get mediocre artists airtime).
How else could you get bands as bone-headedly bad as Good Charlotte getting airplay? Easy, pay one radio station $750 to put them on the playlist. I would have paid double to keep them off the radio.
In a more humorous section, "the label group orchestrated fake call-in campaigns, hiring people to request songs so that the station might add a track because it thought listener demand warranted it" Hey idiots, if listener demand warranted it, they would have called in themselves.
"In one e-mail exchange about the practice, a label employee instructed the call-in campaign leader to make the callers sound more excited: "My guys on the inside say that it's the same couple of girls calling in every week and they're not inspired enough to be put on the air. They've got to be excited. They need to be going out or getting drunk or getting in the hot tub or going clubbing ... you get the idea." Considering how many of the artists the labels try to wedge onto the radio sound, you would have to liquor me up just to stomach listening to them. Even some that sound ok, don't after the upmteenth listen that hour. One can only fit the same Franz Ferdinand track into a days worth of programming you know. Makes you think that maybe radio stations could go back to playing album tracks that were artist-centric, which would help actually solidify interest in a group and get the album sales popping. It was a technique that seemed to work for hard rock stations in the late 90s with Tool (which was really the last I have seen of the practice that I saw as nearly ubiquitous with Bay Area stations like 98.5 KOME and 92.3 KSJO throughout the 80s and 90s until they became Clear Channel automatons).
The best thing about this is Spitzer isn't done yet, "...Spitzer's office said it is still investigating payola practices at other companies. ". May Bronfman and the rest of his ilk leak it to the loafers for it.
How else could you get bands as bone-headedly bad as Good Charlotte getting airplay? Easy, pay one radio station $750 to put them on the playlist. I would have paid double to keep them off the radio.
In a more humorous section, "the label group orchestrated fake call-in campaigns, hiring people to request songs so that the station might add a track because it thought listener demand warranted it" Hey idiots, if listener demand warranted it, they would have called in themselves.
"In one e-mail exchange about the practice, a label employee instructed the call-in campaign leader to make the callers sound more excited: "My guys on the inside say that it's the same couple of girls calling in every week and they're not inspired enough to be put on the air. They've got to be excited. They need to be going out or getting drunk or getting in the hot tub or going clubbing ... you get the idea." Considering how many of the artists the labels try to wedge onto the radio sound, you would have to liquor me up just to stomach listening to them. Even some that sound ok, don't after the upmteenth listen that hour. One can only fit the same Franz Ferdinand track into a days worth of programming you know. Makes you think that maybe radio stations could go back to playing album tracks that were artist-centric, which would help actually solidify interest in a group and get the album sales popping. It was a technique that seemed to work for hard rock stations in the late 90s with Tool (which was really the last I have seen of the practice that I saw as nearly ubiquitous with Bay Area stations like 98.5 KOME and 92.3 KSJO throughout the 80s and 90s until they became Clear Channel automatons).
The best thing about this is Spitzer isn't done yet, "...Spitzer's office said it is still investigating payola practices at other companies. ". May Bronfman and the rest of his ilk leak it to the loafers for it.
posted by theloniusfunk at 10:37 PM
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