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The Attorney General's sweeping agreement with Sony records on alleged "payola"
New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has announced an agreement to halt pervasive "pay-for-play" in the music industry, with Sony BMG Music Entertainment acknowledging problems in promotion practices and agreeing to sweeping reforms. Under the agreement, Sony BMG has agreed to stop making payments and providing expensive gifts to radio stations and their employees in return for "airplay" of the company's songs.
"Our investigation shows that, contrary to listener expectations that songs are selected for airplay based on artistic merit and popularity, air time is often determined by undisclosed payoffs to radio stations and their employees," Spitzer said. "This agreement is a model for breaking the pervasive influence of bribes in the industry."
After receiving tips from industry insiders, Spitzer's office conducted a year-long investigation and determined that Sony BMG and its record labels had offered a series of inducements to radio stations and their employees to obtain airplay for the recordings by the company's artists.
The inducements for airplay, a.k.a. "payola," took several forms including: Outright bribes to radio programmers, including expensive vacation packages, electronics and other valuable items; contest giveaways for stations' listening audiences; payments to radio stations to cover operational expenses; retention of middlemen, known as independent promoters, as conduits for illegal payments to radio stations; and payments for "spin programs," airplay under the guise of advertising.
At end of article:
Spitzer also noted that his office continues its broad investigation of pay-for-play practices in the recorded music industry.
Some of the e-mail correspondence obtained during the investigation shows that company executives were well aware of the payoffs and made sure that the company got sufficient airplay to justify these expenditures. In discussing a bribe given to a radio programmer in Buffalo, one promotion executive at Sony BMG's Epic Records wrote to a colleague at Epic: "Two weeks ago, it cost us over 4000.00 to get Franz [Ferdinand] on WKSE. That is what the four trips to Miami and hotel cost . . . At the end of the day, [David] Universal added GC [Good Charlotte] and Gretchen Wilson and hit Alex up for another grand and they settled for $750.00. So almost $5000.00 in two weeks for overnight airplay. He told me that Tommy really wanted him to do it so he cut the deal."
Another Epic employee who was trying to promote the group Audioslave to a Clear Channel programmer asked in an email: "WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO GET AUDIOSLAVE ON WKSS THIS WEEK?!!? Whatever you can dream up, I can make it happen."
A promotion employee unhappy with the times assigned for spins of the song "I Drove All Night" by Celine Dion wrote this internal email: "OK, HERE IT IS IN BLACK AND WHITE AND IT'S SERIOUS: IF A RADIO STATION GOT A FLYAWAY TO A CELINE [DION] SHOW IN LAS VEGAS FOR THE ADD, AND THEY'RE PLAYING THE SONG ALL IN OVERNIGHTS, THEY ARE NOT GETTING THE FLYAWAY. PLEASE FIX THE OVERNIGHT ROTATIONS IMMEDIATELY."
New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has announced an agreement to halt pervasive "pay-for-play" in the music industry, with Sony BMG Music Entertainment acknowledging problems in promotion practices and agreeing to sweeping reforms. Under the agreement, Sony BMG has agreed to stop making payments and providing expensive gifts to radio stations and their employees in return for "airplay" of the company's songs.
"Our investigation shows that, contrary to listener expectations that songs are selected for airplay based on artistic merit and popularity, air time is often determined by undisclosed payoffs to radio stations and their employees," Spitzer said. "This agreement is a model for breaking the pervasive influence of bribes in the industry."
After receiving tips from industry insiders, Spitzer's office conducted a year-long investigation and determined that Sony BMG and its record labels had offered a series of inducements to radio stations and their employees to obtain airplay for the recordings by the company's artists.
The inducements for airplay, a.k.a. "payola," took several forms including: Outright bribes to radio programmers, including expensive vacation packages, electronics and other valuable items; contest giveaways for stations' listening audiences; payments to radio stations to cover operational expenses; retention of middlemen, known as independent promoters, as conduits for illegal payments to radio stations; and payments for "spin programs," airplay under the guise of advertising.
At end of article:
Spitzer also noted that his office continues its broad investigation of pay-for-play practices in the recorded music industry.
Some of the e-mail correspondence obtained during the investigation shows that company executives were well aware of the payoffs and made sure that the company got sufficient airplay to justify these expenditures. In discussing a bribe given to a radio programmer in Buffalo, one promotion executive at Sony BMG's Epic Records wrote to a colleague at Epic: "Two weeks ago, it cost us over 4000.00 to get Franz [Ferdinand] on WKSE. That is what the four trips to Miami and hotel cost . . . At the end of the day, [David] Universal added GC [Good Charlotte] and Gretchen Wilson and hit Alex up for another grand and they settled for $750.00. So almost $5000.00 in two weeks for overnight airplay. He told me that Tommy really wanted him to do it so he cut the deal."
Another Epic employee who was trying to promote the group Audioslave to a Clear Channel programmer asked in an email: "WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO GET AUDIOSLAVE ON WKSS THIS WEEK?!!? Whatever you can dream up, I can make it happen."
A promotion employee unhappy with the times assigned for spins of the song "I Drove All Night" by Celine Dion wrote this internal email: "OK, HERE IT IS IN BLACK AND WHITE AND IT'S SERIOUS: IF A RADIO STATION GOT A FLYAWAY TO A CELINE [DION] SHOW IN LAS VEGAS FOR THE ADD, AND THEY'RE PLAYING THE SONG ALL IN OVERNIGHTS, THEY ARE NOT GETTING THE FLYAWAY. PLEASE FIX THE OVERNIGHT ROTATIONS IMMEDIATELY."
