"Payola"

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer announced Monday that Sony BMG Music Entertainment will pay $10 million in fines for using "payola," or bribing radio stations with cash, trips and gifts to play specific artists on the air. Having worked for both radio giants, CBS-Infinity and Clear Channel, I was amazed at how obvious and frequent "payola" has been in the industry, and became even more frustrated as we were forced to play the music "consultants" were paid to tell us to play, rather than playing the music that was really on the cutting-edge and climbing up the college and indie charts. Kudos to Spitzer for his efforts on this one.

For more details on "payola" check out this PBS NewsHour report with my friend, Christopher Sterling, one of the leading experts on the history of the radio industry. In Real Audio here.

Paul......