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Labels Find New Method of Payola
rhadamanthus writes "The Houston Chronicle is reporting on the newest 'legal' payola tactic put forth by the record industry: playing the song as an advertisement. It seems that while it is illegal to pay a radio station to play a song, it is not illegal to play a song as an ad. Quoth the article, 'The practice is legal as long as the station makes an on-air disclosure of the label's sponsorship -- typically with an introduction such as "And now, Avril Lavigne's Don't Tell Me, presented by Arista Records."' Incidentally, that song was played 109 times in one week by Nashville station WQZQ-FM."
"You think I care about the pea-brained yokels of this town. I can't stand those sniveling maggots! They make me want to puke. But there is one good thing about broadcasting to a town full of mindless sheep: I always know I've got them exactly where I want them."
- R.J. Fletcher, "UHF"
Yes, some people still do. I run a show out of the local university here, and we've plenty of listeners, because we a) make our own playlists and our own decisions, b) actually consider playing what people want to hear, and c) generally play nothing but good music--no corporate bullshit.
I do agree with your sentiments to some extent that before I discovered indie/nonprofit radio stations such as my own and a few under the Pacifica banner, I hated all radio and preferred the noise of my car engine to anything they were playing over the airwaves.
But once you've started listening to public radio, my friends, you'll never look back.
Fair enough... but do you understand how cheap radio ads are during off-peak hours? We're talking like $5-10 per minute or less.
Heck... you can even get ads played on major cable networks-- CNN, Spike, etc. during off hours for prices in the $5 range...
Here's an article about it.
jrjBlog