Slashdot Mirror
Shocked, Shocked at Payola
"It costs a record company about $250,000 just to launch a single on rock radio today. That doesn't guarantee success; it just gives the single access to the airwaves. If the song catches on and eventually crosses over to the mainstream Top-40 format, indie costs balloon to more than $1 million per song." Salon.com has a pair of articles on payola today: one on
the widening scandal
and one specifically on
a curious Clear Channel case. For context, here's
our latest payola story,
or if you want the background on why the labels hate the promoters but can't shake the habit,
my writeup from a year ago.
(If you want some beach reading on this topic, go check out
"Hit Men.")
Customers getting screwed by the RIAA whos getting screwed by Clean channel
WOO WOOO
-THIS SPACE FOR RENT!
What is this "beach" you speak of? It sounds suspiciously like something that involves "fresh air" and "natural light".
"More organs means more human." - Zim
Shouldn't it be the other way around? I thought radios had to pay the RIAA for each single played. Who's screwing who? Or is this some cartel keeping out the little players?
I'd launch a single for them for $1000. My only over head would be the disc, the duct tape, and the Estes Rocket.
In another shocking story, the *sun rose in the east* this morning....
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
In the index, of course.
Best Slashdot Co
If the record companies have to pay so much to get broadcast radio to play their music, you think they'd be happy to let the internet radio stations do it for free.
So I would expect this to continue until someone with political clout (e.g. Clear Channel) is hurt; at that point there there will be a big brawl in Congress but again the individual consumer will not be at the negotiating table.
sPh
They pay Clear Channel, yet shut down SomaFM for not paying more than they already do.
sulli
RTFJ.
What gets me is that on one hand, the labels are whining that the radio stations WON'T play their music, and on the other hand bitching that webcasters ARE playing their music.
Free exposure was there for them, but they shut it down!
I'm not sure exactly how the whole satellite radio thing works but don't they have their own radio stations for satellite radio (i.e., Clear Channel-free) with their own disc jockey's and whatnot? If so, I wonder how the payola involved in satellite radio compares with that of FM radio.
As with the sun's light
My mom was magnificent
Unquestionable
And I like to add:
So let's start spreading the word, especially to the music artists we know. Maybe it will change something...
Oh yea, I forgot: I have no ideas on how much can a CD cost in the US. Here in Europe they cost like 20 euros each (which is more or less 20 dollars..). And please forgive me for my bad English, I hope you got the point and won't start bitching me around for spelling. Cheers.
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
People jump to the conclusion that Payola is a bad thing. Why? You say it doesn't allow small artists airtime. So what. If they're good, they can get a record contract and get on the air too. Music and Radio are businesses, not god-given rights. The music industry spends a lot of money finding (or making) what people want. Radio stations are businesses also. If they collect money from record companies - who have invested a lot of time and money in their artists - to give them airtime, what's the big deal?
If you don't like the crap they're trying to sell, listen to a different station, go buy music you do like, whatever.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
When has the music industry not been one giant mess? Wasn't there a payola scandal in radio in the mid-50s or ealy 60s?
I'm dating myself but when I was a kid you could go into record store (yes vinyl records) and right up front see the rack of the Top 40 "45s". Even 10-year-olds could figure out that the ratings weren't exactly based on what other people thought of the songs. For instance how did a song get into the Top 40 to start with? The Top 40 rack was the only source of 45s in the store and the LP containing the songs on the 45 didn't usually make the racks until well after the "hit single" was in heavy rotation on the local radio station. So who was "voting for" or buying the 45s to get them into the Top 40 in the first place? Nobody heard the songs until the 45s appeared in the rack.
Periodically obvious poop made it into the Top 40 temporarily. Nobody and I really mean nobody listened to about a quarter of the 45s in the Top 40.
I've heard that the music industry is totally 0wned by the mob but I'm not too sure about this. If mob-0wnership is the case the situation just won't change.
Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
"So I would expect this to continue until someone with political clout (e.g. Clear Channel) is hurt; at that point there there will be a big brawl in Congress but again the individual consumer will not be at the negotiating table."
Ah yes, welcome to the New America. Of the Corporations, By the Corporations, and For the Corporations. And absolutely no one looking out for us mere "subjects."
That low-level whirring sound you hear from Massachusetts to Georgia is the sound of our Founding Fathers spinning in their graves.
Learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make them all yourself.
Sure, let them run their business anyway they want to.....the second they start paying a fair price for their bandwidth!
Your cell-phone companies have been paying through the nose to get the frequency licenses to provide next-generation services, while the radio stations have huge chunks of bandwidth that they seem to have been granted lifetime free licenses for. The justification for this used to be that they 'provide a public service'....payola is not a public service.
keep in mind that you (assuming you are an American Taxpayer) own the airwaves (IIRC). The radio and TV airwaves are publicly owned by the taxpayers. think about this the next time they are screwing you.
A computer without a Microsoft operating system is like a dog without bricks tied to its head
Cost to a RECORD LABEL: near zero
Internet broadcasters are going to get screwed I'm sure (and I'm one of them so I'm, to say the least, a bit pissed). But record labels can do their own promotion on the Internet if they'd just let go of the past and embrace the new ways of doing business.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Statement of US Senator Russ Feingold on Market Concentration in the Radio, Concert, and Promotion Industries
"Thank you Mr. President. I rise today to voice my concerns about the concentration of ownership in the radio and concert industry and its effect on consumers, artists, local businesses, and ticket prices.
...
In 1996, prior to the passage of the Telecommunications Act, there were 5133 owners of radio stations. Today, for the Contemporary Hit Radio/Top 40 Formats, four radio station groups - Chancellor, Clear Channel, Infinity, and Capstar - control access to 63 percent of the format's 41 million listeners nationwide.
...
Many of the same corporations that own multiple radio stations in a given market wield their power through their ownership of a number of businesses related to the music industry. For example, the Clear Channel Corporation owns over 1200 radio companies, more than 700,000 billboards, various promotion companies, and venues across the United States. Also, just three years ago, in 1999, Clear Channel bought SFX productions, the nation's largest promotion company.
...
Ticket prices have gone up by nearly 50 percentage points more than consumer prices since passage of the Telecommunications Act - and that doesn't even include the facility fees, parking charges, box office charges or food and beverage increases.
...
It isn't just about who's talented, and who deserves to be played. It's about a shakedown, and that's just unacceptable, Mr. President, for the industry, for the artist, and for all of us as who listen."
Travis
Because the airwaves are publically owned and therefore the usage of them needs to be regulated. The spectrum is limited, and the FCC is granting a natural monopoly of sorts to each broadcaster in each region on a specific frequency. As competition is inherently limited, and the airwaves are in the end owned by the people, the FCC damn well better be regulating the market.
Would you want every commercial radio station gathering together and agreeing only to play paid advertisements and no music? Well, they can't do that under law (broadcast TV and radio have max times for advertising breaks... although this is often circumvented with a "You're watching XXX... which will be back shortly" message, that's besides the point) and that's a good thing. Payola should be limited in a similar fashion because I shouldn't be forced to listen to music that a record company wants me to listen to on *my* airwaves.
As for enforcing payola laws, do so only if you do it unilaterally. We don't need to make a 21st century Alan Freed.
-bugg
Since I couldn't get this story submitted (too much Microsoft crap to fight through, apparently), this seems like a good place to pass on the story: Cuban says Yahoo!'s RIAA deal was designed to stifle competition
Mark Cuban:
As originally seen at: http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2002/06.htm l#24-jun-2002, although JWZ seems to have taken down that news post at the moment (?).
P.S. Does anyone else who lost moderator access on the Thread of Doom find that they can't get any stories submitted any more, or is it just me? I'm beginning to cultivate a healthy persecution complex :)
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Hilarious. Payola used to at least buy you a hit. Now all it does is get your foot in the door. For a quarter-mil you buy the chance to have a hit. At least Alan Freed gave you an honest hit for your money.
Objects in the blog are closer then they ap
A fight between the 800 pound gorillas and the public suffers.
/. geek would love this station merely for the technical expertise that Bill Goldsmith pulled off when he set this up.
You could launch a record and get it played on the radio for cheaper but it won't be on Clear Channel. Clear Channel does all kinds of evil stuff besides that, like piping in remote DJs and making you think they are local.
This sort of battle was inevitable when the FCC lifted regulations on radio ownership.
The solution for you, the public might be to try to patronize stations that are not conglomerate owned.
I DO listen to one radio station that is both terrestrial and internet streaming: 97X out of Oxford Ohio. Here's some of the NEW stuff I'm enjoying..
Elvis Costello
Hives
Cornershop
Idelwild
Girls Against Boys
The complete playlist is here
Great music that is bucking the current cock-rock trend of Linkin Park, System of a Down, Korn, etc. being offered by local Washington DC suck ass radio in the form of WHFS and it's "Most Played" list. (It's not Clear Channel, It's CBS, just as bad)
Then there's Radio Paradise.
Any
Just boycott Clear Channel. Turn it off.....
You needn't follow the flock is you refuse to be part of it.
ok, I'm hearing ya. But, I also think there are others like me who use to listen to radio but no longer do because they were able to break through and find much better music on the internet than on the radio.
Sadly one of my favorites is no Longer. www.monkeyradio.org, played all sorts of trip hop, acid jazz type stuff that I took to like flys on shit. Monkeyradio.org had to shut down becuase of the IRAA, he's asking for help to send a list of cd's you have purchased because of monkeyradio.org, to help prove that it helps the industry. So if you are a listner help out! I personaly use a stream ripper to get a lot of the songs I like, and I have purchased over $200 worth of music becuase of monkeyradio.org.
I'm now listing to bassdrive (its linked off of shoutcast under electronic D&B).
My point? I'll will never go back to radio. I hate radio. It seriously sickens me. So I encourage you to break through!
The entire major-label-commercial-radio biz is totally corrupt. You might as well make an effort to support independent bands, stations, and labels because there ain't no way this business is going to get cleaned up any time soon.
314-15-9265
We all know that ClearChannel has over 1200 stations across the country, and that they reach around 60% of the nation's population, but I have a question:
How many radio stations are there, total, in the US/World?
I have been unable to find the answer on the net, does anyone have a source?
Travis
As for real life payola, it has to be the main explanation why so much crappy music gets on the air.
I'd have a personalized plate on my car, but "toxic bachelor" won't fit into 7 letters.
So, if you don't like paying the millions of dollars to get marginal music shoved down peoples throats, Quit paying. Simple. Clear Channel still has to get its music somewhere doesn't it? SFX (the concert arm still needs to fill the venues. "The cream will rise"
Put those so called Indie promoters of of business, and let the market determine the hits, not the pay. Imagine, only good music gets played, (or stays on the charts), the public buys what they like, and your sales go back up.
Imagine, a business where the consumers actually gets to pick what they want to hear....can't be any worse than the 5% success rate you have now...and you can save millions on payola, and maybe even bribes...err campaign donations....
It seems that the the Deal that Yahoo struck with the RIAA a while back has an awful lot to do with the back room shennaniganns that were somewhat implicate in the CARP arrangement.
This deserves major news coverage of it's own.
Kurt Hanson of Save Internet Radio has a letter that he received from Mark Cuban, former owner of audionet.com/broadcast.com/Yahoo! Broadcast on how the Yahoo!-RIAA deal was structured. Read the entire letter here.
Bottom line:
- The voluntary royalty deal between Yahoo! and the RIAA that the Librarian of Congress announced as his template for the entire industry last week was a deal crafted by Yahoo! to shut out small webcasters and decrease competition.
- The villian in this story is not Yahoo! (They were simply being savvy businesspeople!) The villian is the CARP process by which this anti-broadcaster, anti-small-webcaster deal became the template for the industry
- As Mark Cuban says, they didn't want percent-of-revenue pricing art Broadcast.com Why? Because "it meant every "Tom , Dick, and Harry" webcaster could come in and undercut our pricing because we had revenue and they didn't".
End Result? We probably need to start screaming at Congress again."It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I think a while back the tech industry learned the lesson that "push" technlogy was only viable to a certain extent. People didn't mind getting headlines refreshed on their desktops or reminded of "buddies" logging on to IM systems, but they got annoyed pretty quick if they felt like something was getting rammed down their throats and they were getting raped monetarily.
The exact same lesson is getting played out on a much slower time scale in the music and film distribution business.
The payola problem simply highlights the inefficiencies built into the current distribution system. The weight of it creaks and the smell of it reeks.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
But I feel I should have a go at putting some numbers that I was once quoted out there for /.teers to shoot down. Here goes.
The music industry in the US releases about 30,000 albums every year in total. That's about 600 a week. You can verify this figure plenty of ways - including looking on the web. Now here's where the figures start to be pulled out of someone's arse. It's been said to me by people who should know that some number way smaller than 10% of these releases actually make money. This is the missing information that people like Courtney leave out of their diatribes against those bloodsuckers in "the industry".
So when records go off like a bomb, and record companies sit there raking in the profits, don't forget that these profits go to pay for the other 90% of albums that didn't make any cash.
The record companies are not making that much in total, anyway. Their annual reports are online, so you can check this stuff too.
Basically, I'm just a bit bored with hearing the same old charges raised and accepted without any support
So on to payola. Again, this is essentially a storm in a teacup, with lots of missing information that never seems to get presented. For example, payola is the same story as in the supermarket game.
Did you know that supermarkets make more money from placing the product on their shelves than they do from taking it off their shelves (ie selling it to you and me)? Standard stuff. So it is with payola. The radios make more money playing the music than squeezing in the ads. That's how they can afford to play that "nonstop hour of music" or whatever at lunchtime!
Of course record companies, or anyone, need to pay to get their products placed! I don't know why anyone thinks it is any different! The radios are businesses, and they can play what they like, so they play what is in their shareholders interests to play.
Flame away, but I don't understand the shocked gasps that always follows this kind of "revelation", just like I don't understand how people get away with painting the record companies as ravening beasts, when a simple look at the balance sheet tells you they are out there makin' deals just like every other business since the dawn of time. If they were super-profitable, don't you think everyone would be doing it?
Link - Online Tonight
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
A payola-free system is inherently unstable, it relies on the record companies to simply never offer payola to a radio station. A payola-free system is better for the whole music industry. So why don't we have this better payola-free system?
The incentive is huge to be the first to start offering payola to radio stations in a payola-free system.
That is where legislation might not be a bad thing, it can stabilize a payola-free system by creating strong disincentives to offering payola.
An alternative however might be for labels to forbid stations from playing their music if the station accepts payola... but that takes guts. Still, the labels are not as powerless as the article indicates.
(I don't think the above is a troll, I don't know why it got modded down)
The music industry is really dumb. They shoot their foot one one hand and complain about it with another.
I think their biggest problem, is that they would like to control the entire industry from production to sales. Payola means they cede some of that control to the radio stations.
If they were really against payola, and appreciated that airplay is good, they would not be trying to shaft internet radio stations with ridiculous per song charges.
1. They know that they are unlikely to be able to dictate to Joe Indie what to play on his station, unless they are charging him silly money for the privilege of promoting their songs, and can use these exhorbitant fees as a bargaining tool.
2. With CC, they are finally faced with a bully as big as they are, who can tell them to pay up if they want their song played, or shut up and fsck off.
If the music was good, the whole issue would be moot. At the end of the day, its all about who controls what the public hear and subsequently buy (hard to buy something you haven't heard)
When they lose this control, they lose their ability to extort terms from musicians. In the past, Radio Dons (mafia style) would have been able to make or break a musician. Now Clear_C has that power.
If you are a musician, who do you sign your soul away to huh??
Live today. Tomorrow will cost a lot more!
Would you want every commercial radio station gathering together and agreeing only to play paid advertisements and no music?
Think about what an absurd statement that is. The whole point of advertising is for people to listen. You seem to think they if they could, they would be able to sell all 24 hours of radio time to advertisers. How much do you think they would sell if nobody listened?
Payola should be limited in a similar fashion because I shouldn't be forced to listen to music that a record company wants me to listen to on *my* airwaves.
But you're not "forced" to listen to anything. Maybe I just don't have the correct "entitlement" attitude, but I just don't care what is put on "my" airwaves. If there is something worth listening to, I listen. If there isn't, I don't and do something else.
If people would just stop bitching and turn off the radio when you don't like the music, then all this will stop.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
No, no. You've got it all wrong. Monopolistic practices are supposed to *MAKE* money for the RIAA. If they don't then they're Evil(tm), or Piracy(tm), Unamerican(tm), or illegal.
If it helps the RIAA, then it's a Good Thing(tm).
This lesson brought to you by the number e.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
exec #1: Boy, who would have thought our payola efforts would have come back to haunt us like this?
exec #2: Not me! Sure miss the old days when a smaller amount of our billions bought way more influence.
exec #1: This whole consolidated radio network thing stinks. I wish we could just get rid of radio.
exec #2: But we NEED radio to keep distributing free music so people will want to buy CDs!
exec #1: I know. I just can't get around that. If only there were some other avenue for distributing our music freely so that people could listen to it and decide they want to buy it.
[silence]
exec #2: Well, the good news is that we've managed to successfully shut down Napster and some of its ilk. At least we'll have more money from those sales we would have lost to make the payola!
exec #1: Maybe we could sue Clear Channel, or lobby congress for a new law that would favor us! You're brilliant, #2!
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
I don't think they would if they could. But if they could, they would certainly put more advertising on than they do now- they push the advertising envelope already and most everyone puts up with it- and considering it is difficult to measure how many people are listening, they would continue to sell advertising even if they halved the ratio of content to advertising today.
Maybe I just don't have the correct "entitlement" attitude, but I just don't care what is put on "my" airwaves.
Some of us do. As an amateur part-time radio DX'er, the content of the spectrum matters much to me. If they're going to crowd the bandwith close to home, it better be with something that at least some people enjoy- otherwise they should get off the spectrum and let us attempt to tune in something that is interesting. The spectrum is limited and publically regulated. It should be used in the way that's most beneficial to everyone, not benefical to the few's pocketbook.
-bugg
The ClearChannel station I listen to is The Nerve 95.1 out of Rochester, NY. I don't mind the ads so much, but I can't stand the neverending playing of Guns N' Roses and Pink Floyd. Actually, over 50% of what they play seems to be from bands that aren't together anymore. Is it cheaper to play songs that are from extinct bands?
You're basically arguing that we should be content to give up radio and listen to something else because of the actions of a few companies and the inaction of the government. Hell no. I love radio for the sake of radio- it's a beautiful hobby from the electronics, physics, and practical standpoints. We have total control over what we listen to, but we don't have full control over what we listen to on the radio- and radio is like air.
Analogy: Radio is oxygen. A company is taking all the oxygen out of the atmosphere. You're telling us to go find our own oxygen, because the government shouldn't be regulating commerce. I don't think so.
-bugg
I have an article on the same topic submitted but undecided upon - and from the way I read things, there's some other shady business practices happening in addition to the things you mentioned -- Cuban goes on to state that he had worked with Yahoo to undercut the royalty payout as well by using multicasting and then only paying royalties based on the single stream being broadcast, and forcing those webcasters who needed percentage-of-revenue rates to subsist and were bound and determined to stay on the air to pay fees to Yahoo to have their material broadcast.
This whole mess just reeks of Mafia boss tactics. You pay us a "protection" fee, and we'll make sure your bandwidth doesn't get cut off.
Oh, and for a good read on the whole "media control" thing, check out The Media Monopoly by Ben Bagdikian. It was written in the 80s, but has been updated since to include new mediums of communication. Very interesting read.
--
I should have clarified that I was intending for this to be from the perspective of the record labels, not the artists (since the record labels are the ones paying out these $250L-$1M fees).
I, as a record label set up a webcasting site. I broadcast a number of channels depending on the variety of music I wish to promite. All of the channels would exclusively feature artists on my label, thus costing me zero to broadcast in royalties.
There would certainly be a cost to set up and maintain this service, but if you distribute that cost over the cost of promoting all of those artists, it does provide a substantial cost savings. Perhaps not quite zero but substantially cheaper than the fees that clear channel is wanting.
The problem, of course, for the labels is that this approach is untested and thus risky. The record labels abhore risk.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Hey, Mr. DJ, I Thought You Said We Had a Deal:
I could never sleep my way to the top
'Cause my alarm clock always wakes me right up
And since my options had been whittled away
I struck a bargain with my radio DJ
I said I'd like this song to be number one
He said "I'd really really like to help you my son"
And then I knew that I would have him to thank
Because he asked me how much I had in the bank
He said to think long term investment and
That all the others had forgiven themselves
He said the net reward would justify
The colossal mess they'd made of their lives
He said the record wouldn't have to be hot
And no one ever seemed to care if it's not
It would depend on something else that I've got
And that the other ones who'd given it a shot
Had seen a modest sum grow geometrically
And then they had forgiven themselves
Because the net reward had justified
The colossal mess they'd made of their lives*
Hey Mr. DJ, I thought you said we had a deal
I thought you said, "You scratch my back and I'll scratch your record"
And I thought you said we had a deal
Well, I told you about the world (its address)
I wonder when they're gonna clean up the mess
You know the rabid child is still tuning in
Chess piece face's patience must be wearing thin
Because they haven't played this song on the air
Not that anyone but me even cared
And the Disk Jockey has moved out of town
The district courthouse says he's nowhere to be found
He said to think long term investment and
That all the others had forgiven themselves
He said the net reward would justify
The colossal mess they'd made of their lives
Hey Mr. DJ, I thought you said we had a deal
I thought you said, "You scratch my back and I'll scratch your record"
And I thought you said we had a deal
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
...and improve radio at the same time.
If we got organized and all chipped in the cash, maybe we could PAY the radio stations to stop broadcasting certain crap.
Maybe we could, say, limit classic rock stations to only playing Zeppelin 12 times a day, or possibly even rid the universe of Britney Spears "music" -- then she'd have to be more honest with us and actually launch her porn career.
We could set up a voting system and a paypal account, and utilize micropayments and public opinion to pay the stations not to play this crap.
It could work, I tell you....
Also, 10 years is a LONG time to be guaranteed a nice revenue stream, and the fact that they can renew it (and it doens't go up for auction or they have to compete to keep it) means that it IS, pretty much, a free lifetime license.
Broadcast television frequencies, for example, are worth BILLIONS. But the FCC just sort of gave them away to the networks a long time ago. It's just not right that consumers now have to squeeze their various new electronic devices into just a narrow spectrum.
Would you want every commercial radio station gathering together and agreeing only to play paid advertisements and no music?
Considering what I have heard on any recent time I've listened to the radio:
And this would be different how?
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
how the hell is a market considered free when content producers pay off content distributors to limit (yes, LIMIT) the selection of what they play?
> No one is "owed" access to my ears.
Calling Mr.Stupid. Of course nobody is 'owed' access to your ears. But guess what? You won't stop using them. They are there. And sometimes, you pay money to someone for what they put in there.
All that is well and good, but its not much of a free market unless I have a moderately fair opporunity to get near your ears. As it stands, large companies are bribing other large companies to make sure that when your ears are being "accessed" (you dont have to make the concious effort to open them up - they tend to work 24/7, while you're at work, in the store, etc, etc) by pre-selected goods.
This is the opposite of a free market. The way you talk, nothing on this planet is unfair, because clearly "the market" (or "God", as some people like to think of it as) would fix it if it were. What a broken and apathetic way of looking at things.
"Old man yells at systemd"
..I understand our interest(as a comunity) with the RIAA and how they go after copying, p2p, etc.. but does this article really belong on /.?
,in the past, /. has struck a nice ballance between technology, and the political aspects of technology. This article has nothing to do with technology at all.
/. to become another 2600.
yeah, I know I don't have to read it, but I thing that
I just don't want
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
So the RIAA complains at how much if costs to get Radio stations to play a song, yet they want to force internet broadcasters to pay THEM to promote their songs?
Before they may have been able to let internet radio provide them with free promotion of a single or even pay them a small tithe to ensure their song got played. Yet instead they attack their last hope against the radio stations and antagonize them. So now even if they stopped trying to push the fees, I doubt any of these stations would be willing to help them out anymore.
The RIAA, by effectively removing themselves from the competition on internet radio, ensure now that non RIAA artists will only be played on the internet now. See my sig for a really cool station which plays only non RIAA music. They are gladly thumbing their noses at the RIAA and the labels they are working with are more than happy to allow them to play for free because they know it promotes their CD sales without them having to go through the RIAA or Clear Channel. That is the future of music. The RIAA dug their own hole here and then made it so deep they can't hope to climb back out of it. I hope they have fun rotting in it.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
From the Salon article:
Clear Channel programmers deny they would ever tamper with what goes out over the airwaves in order to make a buck.
That strikes me as odd. I always thought the purpose of setting up play lists was to provide a mix of music the audience would like so you could make a buck.
But aparently, play lists don't mean much in the grand scheme of things, when you have a near monopoly in a market that does'nt easily allow new entrys.
The Internet is generally stupid
...why don't you people observe that while radio *ownership* was deregulated, radio *broadcasting* is as tightly controlled as ever.
Setting up a local FM radio station has been cheaper for the last 15 years than most internet-based radio today. I broadcasted pirate FM radio in junior high-school using a rig that cost me less than $100.
Why can four companies control 60% of the radio market? Because the FCC has established extremely high barriers to entry. So new radio stations require investments of millions of dollars. Withour regulation on ownership, but with high barriers to entry, oligopoly is inevitable. It's microeconomics 102.
'Net radio and sat radio are good paths out, but we could also see significant improvements in radio diversity by simply allowing localized homesteading of frequencies without "broadcast purchase" policies taken by the FCC now.
Imagine an open-ended cooperative of home-based rebroadcast stations on an FM frequency that relayed an internet radio station. Imagine being able to tune your home broadcast station to a 'net radio source for 20 hours a day, then come home and do your own show.
Before people start screaming for "trust-busting" of Clear Channel, how about screaming for deregulation of frequency allocation? I'd love to see how long the payola scheme would last in a world of nerds with $100 FM broadcast stations doing a relay of Radio Free Slashdot.
I think the quote should be "Government of the People, by the Corporations, for the Corporations must perish from the earth."
development.lombardi.com
from M4 Radio: all indie music all the time
Q: What is Indie Music?
A: Any band or a style of music that is either not yet signed to a major music company or if they are signed to a small independent label.
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
That annoying sound-maker box which, (on all the stations where this might be an issue), spews the following percentages:
35% Irritating as hell advertising.
25% Irritating as hell DJ chatter and monster truck promotions.
10% Music, (if you're lucky).
30% Over-produced, dumb-ass noise, (best suited for attention-deficit hampster people who are permanently wrapped up in an artificial state of love-related angst.)
--And nearly all of which is mind-programming nonsense anyway, designed to fill people with misery-inducing behavior patterns. And these days it's so obvious. "Hit me baby, one more time." --I mean, for crying out loud!
With a very few exceptions, most stations which run on the commercial system are pretty crumby. Those stations which don't suck are run by sensible people who don't play the payola game. Canada's CBC Radio 1 kicks major ass, has NO advertising, and won't melt your brain. Actual, "I laughed, I cried, I was informed and entertained," content. Try it, and you'll realize just how fried your brain was on that other shit.
People don't realize McDonnald's food and the rest of the consumer crap they inhale is actually of extremely poor quality until they treat themselves to something good for a few weeks. --The other day, out of a desperation for fluids, I drank some Coke for the first time in over two years and was dumbfounded by just how awful it tasted. And I'm not just saying that; The stuff actually left a powerful petro-chemical after-taste in my mouth for half an hour. I couldn't believe that I used to consider the stuff a treat when I was younger. Honestly; have the changed the formula, or something?
-Fantastic Lad
Well, if 30% of all humans are supporting the payola-type of radio (and the rest have tuned out), fuck those 30 percent. 70 percent are ready to have their air waves back.
.. you go after your heavy users, or in the case of radio, consumers that you can cross-market to other mediums ... ) Radio companies could give less than a fuck about meeting the needs of 'the market' - if I tune out, I'm not a lost customer, I'm just a guy who wouldn't have made them much money had I been listening anyways .. cause I'm capable of making my own decisions and thinking for myself, certainly not the demographic you're after in a payola-pre-packaged culture market.
Your erroneous assumption is that its more profitable for the company to cater to the majority of consumers rather than a small percentage. WRONG! (Ask any marketer - the crowd you wish to please is usually quite small out of the potential customers
Considering that the air waves are public, and that we like the _concept_ of radio (the technology), but not whats being played on it, I absolutely support getting the government to break the control these large entities have in catering to a small percentage of the population that makes their little cartel economically profitable.
"Old man yells at systemd"
That was a much better radio station before ClearChannel bought them, which if i remember was 98. The station actually had its own 'personality' and didn't sound like every other station in the country.
Plus, it seemed like they actually cared about the commercials they played, in that there were no loud ones, or ones with some guy screaming at the top of his lungs to sell you a car.
Of course the best part was they played mostly the rock that college people listened to (which i was when i was living in rochester).
In the UK the top 40 is based on sales of singles. The more popular the single the higher it gets in the charts. Of course the catch is that if your favourite tune is not represented by a single then it has no way of getting into the charts. This is where the album charts come in, though it is hard to tell which tracks encouraged its sale. While singles might cost a third of a price, it usually has the advantage of containing some remixes ( an evolution of the B side from vinyles ), which aren't availble on the album, and in a few cases the video version in mpeg or quicktime format.
I am not sure whether singles would really work in north America, since a) there currently isn't much of a culture built around them and b) they are half the price of an album.
Does anyone else know how the singles charts are caclulated in other places in the world?
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
I think people latched on to his rather shaky use of the word 'market' - listening to some people, a market is transparent regardless of who's got what power, who's paying what, who owns how much, etc. Posts like his sound like a round about way of saying:
... but come home spewing over simplifications about the complexity and difficulty of being an astute and well informed consumer. I know how to choose something off the menu, thank you very much .. I am just not cool with that menu being selected by a single party with vested economic interests with respect to my familliarity with my choices.
"A market is free until you hold a gun to a consumers head."
If I had infinate time, infinate capability to travel, to read, to research, etc, I might (*maybe*) start to agree. As it stands, "buyer beware" is fair to a point, but at some point we consumers have to start thinking about ourselves as that - consumers! Many of us go to work and dream up ways of fooling or influcing ourselves (or consumers like us) into acting this way or that (otherwise we wouldn't have a marketing dept, no?)
"Old man yells at systemd"
Clear Channel will probably buy their own record label and cut out the middlemen entirely. They already own concert venues, so they're into creating content now. So expect "Recorded Live at the Clear Channel Pavillion...".
Yes, the RIAA screws the hell out of broadcasters but, in turn, as the article points out, the broadcasters, via the indies, are screwing the hell, and then some, out of the RIAA members. The end result is that you pay x to be allowed to play a song and get y (where y is vastly greater than x) to get it heard.
So, if the net broadcasters had known how the game was played, the answer would be to sign up with indies and get paid handsomely for doing it.
What about all the independant music? The net broadcasters want to play their own stuff, not corporate playlist crud? That's cool. The independant labels are complaining they can't get airtime. So, easy answer, both sides get out of the incestuous mess... The independants tell the RIAA where to stick their "representation" and release their music under a license that allows it to be played for free by the independant stations.
Yeah, the music industry is a mess. Yes, everyone's getting screwed and, you know what, they're screwing other people back again to recoup those costs. The only apparent reason the net broadcasters and the independant labels is because they're playing the existing game badly and not making up their own ones.
While it is messy, that's how the game is played. You either play the game, make up your own one with others who'd like to play it your new way, or go out of business. It's a shame that the net broadcasters have chosen to go out of business rather than invent their own game and tell the RIAA where to stick it.
You know, a guy called Linus didn't like the monopoly in another field. Fortunately, he tried to change it, rather than [just] bitch.
wouldn't the broadcaster still being paying all those rights to ASCAP, BMI etc? That'd be the back breaker for me. IF you're going to do the "pirate" radio (we have one here) I guess you're not paying the fees, but I guarantee that Powell won't let anybody on the air without paying mucho bucks to somebody.
Of course, doing so would allow consumers to make independent judgements on what they like, and why certain songs are being played. So I guess we can't have that!
sPh
So if you're a webcaster you have to pay the RIAA if you want to play their songs, but if you're a radio station the RIAA pays you??
Oh. And after working to shut down webcasters, NOW the RIAA is bitching about having to pay radio stations to get their songs out because it's the only medium?
Cry me a fucking river.
Like we need another keiretsu (-:
We have a corporation similar to Clearchannel up here in Canada. The CHUM group pretty much controls pop culture here. Picture ClearChannel owning MTV.
S
The general sentiment regarding FM radio these days seems to be: it sucks.
With radio stations having to pay an increasingly large fee for each song on the playlist, it's no wonder that they play a much smaller selection of songs than they used to (say, back in the 80s).
Clear Channel claims (paraphrasing) "We're just playing what people want to hear". However, there are several really interesting side-results of these shrinking playlists.
First, we have to lay down some facts. The first is that fewer people are listening to the radio, period. The second is that for those who do listen to the radio, they are listening for shorter and shorter periods.
Now let's assume you're a casual radio listener as most people are. What kinds of songs are you going to request most? Probably the ones you've been hearing recently that you like. No diversity in songplay equals everybody requesting the same thing, and everybody requesting the same thing means radio stations play the same crap over and over again (which is fine by them, since they don't have to pay out extra cash for more songs on their playlist). In a sense, it's cyclic: people request what they know, and stations play what they request.
From one perspective, Clear Channel is correct when they say they are playing what people want to hear. But that's taking a small picture view, because when taken in a larger context the statistics really are supporting the fact that people don't want to hear the radio at all! Ask any radio listener what the biggest problem with radio today and he'll tell you lack of variety. Thus, the sucking. And the more sucking there is, the fewer people will listen.
Here's another interesting thing that I haven't seen discussed: How this affects CD sales. Let's consider 2 scenarios. In scenario A, the radio station is playing 60 tunes in regular rotation and a few classics, and replace songs in rotation at the rate of 10 per week. In scenario B, the radio station is playing 30 tunes in regular rotation, plus a few classics and replace songs in the rotation at the rate of 2 per week. Which station is going to generate more CD sales?
Let's assume (for the sake of simplicity) that each station has exactly 1000 listeners. Each listener has a 1/10 chance of liking a song enough to buy a CD. Each listener is also going to listen for 120 songs in week 1, and 120 songs in week 2.
The people listening to station B hear each song 4 times during each week. They are exposed to 32 songs (30 from week 1, plus the extra 2 rotated in during week 2), and buy an average of 3.2 CDs due to this. 3.2 * 1000 = 3200 CDs sold.
The people listening to station A hear each song twice during each week. They are exposed to 70 songs, and buy an average of 7 CDs due to this. 7 * 1000 = 7000 CDs sold.
This, of course, is a very simplified case, as it doesn't take into account disposable income, but neither does it take into account song burnout (when you like a song but are so sick of it you never want to hear it again), but I think it makes it's point. Oh, and in case you didn't get it, radio stations today are like station B.
As a result the music labels complain that people aren't buying music and point their fingers at Napster, I don't buy it as the sole reason. I point my finger at station B and say "people are listening to the radio less than ever and being exposed to less music than ever. What did you expect!?"
There is a simple way to discourage payola. [... draconian punishment]
There is a simple way to discourage jaywalking: If you are convicted of it, then you are put to death.
I think a lot of you people need to get a little more balance in your lives. Got news for you: what songs radio stations play is just not that important in the scheme of things.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
So, don't go. Don't listen to those stations. -shrug- You, as the consumer, make choices that affect that business.
If you weren't willing to pay that much to go to a concert, they wouldn't be charging that much. If nobody goes, they won't make any money. But, they know that people love to whine about these things, but in reality, you'll keep listening to the station,and you'll keep buying tickets.
"No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
--James Madison
2. SomaFM and others MUST write contracts for their indie and unsigned artists to distribute their music at reasonable or zero royalties. I understand that he has a day job - maybe he can find a pro bono lawyer to develop a standard contract for the various labels who, like him, would like nothing better than to fuck the RIAA with a rusty spike.
sulli
RTFJ.
My current favorite band, Gov't Mule, can hardly buy airplay, yet they've been pretty successful. It helps that they let people record their shows & trade the recordings online.
Here in Minneapolis, there's a thriving local music scene. The only airplay most of the local acts get is on a few weekly, hour long shows on some stations that showcase local music.
Yes, but at a venue where the concessions are vastly overpriced, parking sucks, and where THEY WONT LET YOU BRING IN YOUR OWN WATER.
August, 2001. Willie Nelson picnic. 102F outside, and they were allowing each person to bring in ONE 16oz bottle of water. Otherwise, you were free to buy their bottled water, or refill from the ONE water fountain that is available to the public. Hmmm. Seems CC is finding other "Alternative Revenue Streams" in their live performance venue as well.
I have to give a shout out to Seattle's KEXP , the University of Washington college station. KEXP (was KCMU) is an excellent college music station with a huge variety of music, but lots of indie rock and some techno/beats at night. They are 90.3 FM in Seattle, but they also stream live on the internet. They support MP3, RealAudio, and WMA. They even have an uncompressed, CD-quality (better than FM quality) audio stream.
cpeterso
Basically, as long as its legal, the Top 40 will be bought and sold. Not that the abolishment of the practice will get good artists like Liquid Tension Experiment on the chart; the radio demands a certain format to pay for itself.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
Too bad it's indie music broadcast in a non-open format. (Windows media) It doesn't seem to work very well on my indie os.
My inductive proof is better than your inductive proof, eh?
The amount of money wasted increases exponentially in proportion to the size of the company's revenues.
Because noone will listen to radio.
Clear channel declared, like every one else that anti monopoly restrictions keep them from truly serving their customers.
Now that they have a virtual monopoly radio sucks really badly, and fewer and fewer people listen.
I am sure clear channel execs are blaming internet filesharing for all of this as we speak.
so how is this gonna work?
If they give complete deregulation all the signals will destroy each other, and clear channel would make sure theirs are the strongest.
Ifthey still somwhow sold licences clear channel would buy them all.
Maybe they can institute some kind of bandwidth sharing, but that usually requires modified radio recievers. So every one will have to buy a new car radio.
file sharing is not a perfect alternative of radio because there the record companies cannot controlwhat you hear.
They can makeit avilable, yes but it is your choice to dl it and lsiten to it, they cant force it on you.
Yeah, but the deal is the airwaves are owned by the public, and licensees of said airwaves should be serving the public good. If you take the radio stations out of the equation, then who the hell cares. However, they are very much part of the equation.
sigs are a waste of space
that 90% of records dont make money claimis complete bs.
How expensive is to manufacture a damn music cd anyways. Its pretty cheap considering its being made by a huge volume repeat player.
And those cds are being sold at costs 20 - 40 times their value.
Then how do all those albums fail to make money after selling thousands of copies? Well its easy - its what economists call rent seekers - various execs, agents, promoters, advertising execs, etc that have secured nice little chokepoints in the distribution chain and demand payment whenever something passes trough them.
So there you have it. The whole distribution chain is due for a shakeup. Hopefully the internetwill help with that.
What would be so bad about that? Advertising is a self-propagating wave.
A solution to the problem with music today
However, if you would like to know more about how content providers calculate "profit" the best place to start is Art Buchwald's Coming to America case. Terms of the settlement were never disclosed, but for a movie studio to even offer a settlement says a lot.
sPh
"Stop being a consumer because it's all crap."
How does such a conclusion imply the use of critical thinking? What value would such a course of action serve? If you choose to stop being a consumer, your just going to be classified as a kook and ignored. You will be effectively giving the industry over to the Robber Barons while minimizing the effect of your own buying power.
While it's nice to be arrogant enough to think that your prefered product will be able to plod along successfully without any reasonable chance at good promotion. Such assumptions are naieve and ultimately counterproductive.
How do you expect quality product to remain on the market when all of the best promotion venues are choked off in one way or another?
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Hardly. Socialism and Trusts are logically equivalent. A little bit of the former is by no stretch of the imagination worse than the latter.
It doesn't matter if it's a beaurocrat or a bean counter: a command economy is a command economy.
We should pit different powers against each other and weaken them both in the struggle.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
So what?
Why do you care?
We aren't even talking "real people" here.
We are talking about legal constructs created specifically to SCREW YOU and avoid all responsibility for the consequences. You should really have no sympathy for artificial persons.
The corporate death sentence might be a bit extreme for the first offense of corporate bribery, but such a situtation would hardly be comparable to executing a person for jaywalking.
What merchants put on their shelves is of considerable importance in the scheme of things. In capitalism, it is of paramount importance for all of us. Trivialize that diversity, ignore it, and you will end up with something dreadfully similar to communism.
I believe that you can still emmmigrate to Albania if you want that kind of economy.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Not everyone NEEDS to.
The only thing that is really relevant is what models work as better, or nearly as well as the old models. The fact that a particular author is losing sleep at night because he now knows that people are consuming his work without paying is simply irrelevant.
Even in old media, there are plenty of methods to avoid payment for consumption. Infact, we're discussing one right now.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
"I've heard that the music industry is totally 0wned by the mob but I'm not too sure about this. If mob-0wnership is the case the situation just won't change."
:) )
Actually, I think mob ownership of the music industry would improve things. The mob cares enough about their customers to want to break their kneecaps. Corporations don't give a damn one way or the other, they're too busy licking the boots of the investors.
(No, I didn't plan on making references to my journal entry, it just came out that way.
On the one hand, you say...
We are talking about legal constructs created specifically to SCREW YOU and avoid all responsibility for the consequences. You should really have no sympathy for artificial persons.
This whole anti-corporation thing is just a straw-man. A corporation is just a container owned by REAL PEOPLE. You aren't just hurting an "artificial person".
Then on the other hand, you say...
and you will end up with something dreadfully similar to communism.
You do realize we are talking about the government seizure of assets, right? REAL PEOPLE own corporations. Sending management to jail (who might not even be shareholders) is a completely different issue from the government destroying the value of the corporation.
If you're pro-capitalism (as you seem to claim), then you should be pro-corporation. Corporations are VITAL to a healthy capitalistic society.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Is one of the more clueful senators around ... I'm glad that I'm from wisconsin so I can continue to vote for him in elections. He was also against the patriot act being the only senator to vote against it, at least he managed to get an amendment to limit it to 5 years (I believe) at least.
Ahhh responding to trolls. There is nothing quite as enjoyable.
By the way, my friend, the word is spelled "l-o-s-e-r", only one o. Unless you really do think I am one who "looses" things.
Keep up the good work!
"More organs means more human." - Zim