Slashdot Mirror
Major Broadcasters Hit With $12M Payola Fine
Gr8Apes writes with a just-breaking AP story reporting that the FCC is wrapping up a settlement in which four major broadcast companies would pay the government $12.5 million and provide 8,400 half-hour segments of free airtime for independent record labels and local artists. The finish line is near after a 3-year investigation. An indie promoter is quoted: "It's absolutely the most historic agreement that the independent community has had with radio. Without a doubt, nothing else comes close."
Why aren't the Music Labels who are offering the payola being fined as well? If the police see a drug deal, both the buyer and the seller will be arrested. How is this any different?
Screw fining them. Revoke their broadcast licenses. The spectrum "belongs" to the public. They're granted exclusive use of little slices of the spectrum in exchange for playing by our rules (well, the FCC's rules, anyway). Break the rules, and your spectrum goes to somebody who will make better use of it.
Simple. They'll do one of two things (or probably both):
1. These half-hour blocks will be aired somewhere between midnight and six a.m.
2. They won't say that this is something they're required to do. They'll crow about how cutting edge and forward thinking they are.
"We shall grapple with the ineffable, and see if we may not eff it after all." - Douglas Adams
Some time ago, this was a valid remedy for substandard programming. The biggest reason being that FCC regulations prohibited an entity from owning more than one station in a market area. That has since changed. Now you have large broadcast conglomerates that own several stations in a market. Sure, they don't want to compete against themselves, so they typify each station with one of their "researched" genre formats (i.e. A.C./Top40, Country, Urban/Rap, Alternative, 70's/80's etc.).
Of course, each one of these formats are based upon listenership tuned in, on average, 20 minutes at a time. So what happens? They put a handful of "popular songs" into heavy rotation so that there's a good chance that it will play during some 20 minute window. And, of course if the research works in one market, then why not apply it to all of the conglomerate's markets. The result, any particular format is pretty much homogeneous across their span of coverage. Stations begin to lack individuality (outside of their personalities and callsign sweeper).
So what about the independents? Well, if they grow enough listenership in a market, they become ripe for a buyout by "big radio". One would think that new independent stations would come in to replace them, but you need to remember that "licenseable" spectrum is finite. At some point, there are no free channels left to assign, and this has already been the case for a long time in larger markets.
The FCC is just patting themselves on the back for letting the big four broadcasters off the hook and making a little cash as a sideline. It's a bunch of garbage. They will commit airtime to 'independent' acts, wait for some cream to rise and mine them as best they're able. People who listen to commercial music radio get exactly what they're asking for: 20 minutes of ads to 40 minutes of recycled singles from the 80s, 90s, and beyond! Radio will stay the same. The music industry has been aware for some time that the only way to get the common slob to keep buying the same rehashed "new sensation" garbage is to bribe the broadcasters to beam it directly into the cars that they're slavishly dependent upon. Radio stations will continue to broadcast feeds from 1,500 miles away on autopilot, 24 hours a day, with some fresh indie flavor thrown in for the rebellious young americans. They will continue to bombard you with ads for auto glass repair and continue to not serve the communities they're located in. Switch it off, it's a setup.
So long, and thanks for all the fish
Don't get too high on the hype. If the people I know are any indicator there are two types of music listeners, and one is about 10x more popular than the other:
Leaving generalities behind, I honestly think that people will not necessarily change what they like simply because a popular radio station has to play some alternative music. In fact, I think you'll find that people actually do prefer Britney Spears squealing out a couple of crappy songs to anything alternative in some cases. The truth is that for far too many people, music isn't music for music's sake. It's a means to a goal, it's an end in some form. They have a stake in it other than the enjoyment of it itself.
Every now and then you'll get a band like The Beatles or Led Zeppelin that can innovate and still remain popular, however, it's not usually the case. In most cases the public gets exactly what it craves: bland repeat crap from the same five artists because they can't wrap their brains around anything new or different. At least this public, this generation. Maybe I'm just too cynical and the people I hang around are dullards that don't appreciate different music. But it sure seems like that's the majority of people from my angle.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.