DUI

[dj_niceshot]

Someone asked me this earlier this week and I began to wonder.
What about all of those awards from Billboard awarded to Dave Universal for "Program Director of the Year" and such?

On a related story, what about payola in Canada?:
http://www.cartt.ca/news/FullStory....c9f5826e4-A130B9CC-044C-7B78-247E4952AB4B5801

 

[OldNumber7]

Re: Payola in Canada

This passage in the news story shows the writer has NO CLUE how payola works in the modern era, and the programmer she interviewed isn't volunteering anything that contradicts the preconceived notion.

>"It makes it near impossible for individual DJs to deviate from the playlist, no matter how tempting it may be to boost their often meagre paycheques. “We would notice if somebody started sticking some stuff in because we have to do logger configurations sometimes twice a day so we know when people aren’t sticking to the formula,” says Cross, program director for The Edge. “It’s very difficult in this day and age when things are so tightly controlled and so tightly monitored from a regulatory point of view and from a ratings point of view. It’s very difficult for anybody to bring in a record and start championing it on their own.”<

That's NOT what modern payola is about. It's about giving an extra push to records likely to become hits anyway. It's about getting a big first week so the song makes a big splash and gets noticed by anybody who didn't already add it. It's about payoffs for the very managers that the writer assumes are the guardians of the gate.
Stations that are monitored by the leading trade publications in either country, including Canadian stations monitored in the U.S., are susceptible to this sort of influence. I'm not saying the PDs/MDs are all on the take -- I'm just saying that (whether they realize it or not) they have it in their power to demand consideration in exchange for first-week adds.

 

[wired]

> Someone asked me this earlier this week and I began to
> wonder.
> What about all of those awards from Billboard awarded to
> Dave Universal for "Program Director of the Year" and such?

I Often thought of that...*AS* it was happening...how tough
was it to decide to play the Marcena, the Spicegirls
or -the B.S.Boys, *Or any song by either puffy/or biggie in 1996 ??
-
OR, play Chumbawamba "Tubthumping , in 1997 ?
..etc,etc..

seriously, during his reign of 'terror' he didnt exactly
find diamonds..in the rough -- wasn't like big-dave
ever touched..wesley willis; Flaming Lips; chemical brothers; prodigy;
dido(then---before becoming a star)..incubus,etc..etc ...
he played it safe, and played 'THE HITs' !!

-well, played it safe, until he was [alledgly] caught..

 

[Desi_Bell]

Re: Payola in Canada

Why on earth did the writer of that article interview Alan Cross? The Edge is hardly and arbitor of pop music taste.
Back in the day, by the way, CFNY used to lead the market by weeks and sometimes months on tracks played...and many of the songs were future top 40 hits in addition to those songs that became album radio fodder. The labels hated the fact that 'NY would play singles months in advance of their release dates because the tracks would be in recurrent or even gold rotation when the labels finally got around to putting them out.
IF the labels had indulged in payola, what would they have done: given gifts to DJs NOT to play their music (back then the DJs did in fact pick the tracks they would play)? The record companies tried to get the station to hold off on adding future singles, but that's not what 'NY was about. Nor was payola ever a factor as I understand it because in the days when indie promoters ruled in the U.S., there were virtually NONE in Canada.
Back on topic, though, it makes no sense for the article to focus on a station that only influences a handful of other stations in Canada, so you're entuirely right, Number 7, the writer of that piece has no clue...