Long, potentially boring email, follows... > - David Price probed on playlists, saying he really > didn't understand how playlists worked.
Tift did a great job in showing the passion and frustration of dealing with a crooked industry. When David Price started this questioning I don't think he got a very good answer. Which isn't Tift's fault...she probably just doesn't know. David asked what media consolidation has to do with these generic playlists exactly and how exactly did the payola work. Tift responded talking more about the frustration of dealing with system that didn't base playlists on music quality. She also earlier talked a little about payola (specifically dealing with indie promoters), but didn't have all the details that actually showed the really bad part of that institution. Once again, no fault of her own. Here's the relatively short of it (and I'll be following up with David to help answer some of these questions a little more fully). Feel free to delete if this is boring the you-know-what out of you: In answer to the first question. Media consolidation creates this problem because the more stations a corporation owns the more powerful it is. The more power it has, the more it is able to abuse that power. That abuse of power can come in the way of pulling "favors" out of a record label, whether it is a free concert by a top name artist or whatever. They can also require "time-buys" before they will add a record (a time-buy is a set amount of money that the record label pays to the station, often through an indie promoter, in order to get them to play your record.) The term "time-buy" comes from the idea that the station will run advertisements about your record on the air. So you are not giving them payola money, you are buying advertising. The thing is, though, that you are being forced to buy this advertising and sometimes the ads aren't even aired. This leads to the crooked indie promoter. An indie promoter is someone hired by a record label to call radio for them. That in itself isn't a bad thing, as some indie promoters are perfectly respectable people who offer an actual service - calling radio stations all day long for the label. A radio station music or program director can take a ton of phone calls all day long, from record label people and tons of indie promoters. With the big powerful stations (or corporations) they can issue a statement saying that they will only allow a single indie promoter to call them (eg Indie A). Since they own a lot of stations and since labels want to get their records played on all those stations, the label has to abide by this statement. So if you want to get your music played on Station A, you need to go through Indie A. And to do that you have to pay them. Now, here is where it gets sleazy. Indie A is often paying Station A dearly for that exclusivity. Also, when you pay for an add on a station Indie A will take a cut of that before they pass on the rest to station A. So Indie A pays Station A. Station A says everyone has to go through Indie A. All labels pay Indie A, which in turns gives some more money to Station A. Millions of dollars change hands like this each year in the radio industry. Ok, so let's get back to a new artist, let's call him Elvis Presley. Now let's Elvis records a new song one day and it is terrific. Everyone he plays it for loves it. So he bring it in to the local radio station and asks if they'll play it. Do you think they will? What are his chances? None. Zip. Now, let's assume Elvis signs a record deal with an independent record label. We'll call them Sun Records. So Sun Records calls the local Clear Channel station and asks if they will play that Elvis Presley record they sent. Do you think they will? What are the chances? None. Zip. Now let's say Sun Records hires an indie and delivers them garbage bags full of cash and then asks if they'll play him. Do you think they will? What are the chances? Well, the answer is still probably no. The reason is that he doesn't sound like everyone else on the station and if they play him it would be like changing their format. Sorry Elvis.
