Music Industry Seeks Payola Inquiry

An Anonymous Coward writes "The big media story of the day seems to be that the RIAA, artists, and others in the industry are complaining that there are monopolies (such as Clear Channel) forming in the radio broadcast industry. The group is stating that the practice of "independent promotion" is really a new form of payola and that it is hitting the artists' bottom line directly." Another submitter writes in with another story on the subject and the industry's Joint Statement on Current Issues in Radio.

Comments

The more things change...

[cybrpnk2]

A brief history of the original 1950s payola scandal is here. Another interesting payola scandal that I don't think ever went anywhere is that Salon ran an article accusing the US government of payola for having Hollywood run anti-drug plots...

Clear Channel Station List

[cheesyfru]

Not to side with the RIAA (shudder), but Clear Channel is a pretty ugly company. You probably listen to them now and don't even know it. There's a station list available at http://www.cjr.org/owners/clearchannel.asp

Salon summaries on Payola

[abischof]

For reasons I'm unsure of, Salon really seems to really be on top of the poison that is payola:

• Pay for play "Why does radio suck? Because most stations play only the songs the record companies pay them to. And things are going to get worse"
• Fighting pay-for-play "Sources in the music industry call for a federal clampdown on the new payola"
• The "Bootylicious" gambit "Can a hot new single from Destiny's Child help Columbia Records crack the indie promoters' control of pop radio?"
• Payola City "In the wild world of urban radio, money buys hits -- and nobody asks questions. "

Man, that reminds me -- I really ought to subscribe to Salon :-/.

PS Since ClearChannel has a large stake in XM Radio, I completely expect XM Radio to support payola >:-[. But, does anyone know if SiriusRadio also support payola? I'm thinking of subscribing, but I wouldn't want to do so if they're corrupt as well.