FCC to now look at Payola

[fccfight]

Amazing - The Track Gals in The Boston Herald isolate a few Boston radio stations from Spitzer's investigation - and now the FCC is awaking from its slumber.

I've been watching this board for weeks waiting for people to come up to the plate and say what they know. Amazing.

What is really going to be intriguing is how the FCC and the regional attorneys general, in each respective state, start grilling those who turned a blind eye to the payola.

My question today is - will the Music Directors and On-Air personalities who knew about drugs, payoffs, trips to Southeast Asia, South America, etc. and
what one local promotion person told me was (in her opinion) "legal payola",
three VCRs I saw sitting in her office in Winchester (turns out that the hardware is not "legal" after all, but seems to be part of Spitzer's investigation), will those who watched and said nothing (for fear of losing their job) actually speak when Tom Reilly puts their hand on the Bible.

And why has Tom Reilly been so silent when the whole thing showed up in
The Track Gals column, showing Boston is probably part of this scandal.

The Catholic Priests got away with it for years too. The parallels between the Catholic Church and Payola in Radio are pretty shocking.

 

[jockitch]

> Amazing - The Track Gals in The Boston Herald isolate a few
> Boston radio stations from Spitzer's investigation - and now
> the FCC is awaking from its slumber.
>
> I've been watching this board for weeks waiting for people
> to come up to the plate and say what they know. Amazing.

The thread about the Haitian pirate got more response but that's understandable. I think you'll get more commenting after the fact here if there even is a fact. It's doesn't seem to be a topic people are going to be too open about outside of Buffalo.

 

[Joseph_Gallant]

A historical note to consider:

It should be noted that at the time of the late 1950's payola scandals, payola was legal.

It was only outlawed as a result of those scandals.

 

[dumber than a box of hair]

> A historical note to consider:
>
> It should be noted that at the time of the late 1950's
> payola scandals, payola was legal.
>
> It was only outlawed as a result of those scandals.
>

It should be noted that you are wrong.

Payola was never illegal. What was and is illegal is payola *without disclosure on the air.* Taking some form of compensation for airplay is considered sponsorship, and the sponsorship identification clause of the Communications Act requires on-air identification of the sponsor, just the same as a commercial.

That's the sad part of it. All the radio stations had to do was run an announcement saying something like, "consideration was received from Sony/BMG for playing this new one by whomever," and none of this excrement would be hitting the proverbial fan.