The Persistence of Payola

In an interesting story on the persistence of payola, The Washington Times notes that the practice predates radio: To boost sales of sheet music, publishers used to pay bandleaders to play their songs. The story links concerns about payola to outrage over "indecency" and implicitly questions criminalization of unannounced promotional payments to radio stations:

It could be hard to build public support for a payola crackdown. In other industries, the practice is not uncommon, [George Washington University media and public affairs professor Christopher] Sterling said.

For example, food companies often pay retailers to give their products prominent placement on store shelves, he said.

"None of that is illegal. It is all an accepted way of doing business. We can argue whether it is ethical, but it's not illegal," Mr. Sterling said.

Comments

[fyodor]

Wasn’t the only reason payola was considered corrupting was that it was the only way to explain why kids were taking to rock ‘n’ roll?

(If I’m wrong, at least Brian Doherty’s not around these days to tell me!!)

[Dave W.]

There are some serious antitrust issues when producers pay for shelf space. That doesn’t make grocery store shelf payola illegal. It just means that there are no prosecutions.

After a couple decades of no prosecutions, legally unsophisticated folks forget what the law rally is. That is exactly what is going on in the quote in this blog entry.

Its kind of like when sheeple assume that recitation of the pledge in government funded schools is Constitutionally-cool because they have been doing it since 1954. But, of course, this is incorrect way of analyzing the issue.

[Dave W.]

should have been “doesn’t make it legal”

[Captain Spaulding]

Wasn’t the only reason payola was considered corrupting was that it was the only way to explain why kids were taking to rock ‘n’ roll?

Stan Freberg did a song/sketch called “Old Payola Blues” with just that as the premise. It ends with a song celebrating that finally music would be played on the radio.

[mediageek]

Honestly, I’m not even sure why payola is considered to be unethical. So what if Sony pays a rock station to spin System of a Down’s latest attempt to sound like a basket of kittens in a blender?

[David T]

Unfortunately Ronald Coase’s classic *Journal of Law and Economics* article on payola does not seem to be available online but there is a good comment on it at

http://www.theconglomerate.org/2005/08/some_economics_.html

“The fact that payola is an important part of the competitive process did not escape Coase. Coase’s account includes a detailed history of payola tracing back to 1867 when public performers were paid to perform songs from a publisher’s catalog. The most striking feature of the history of payola is the series of unsuccessful attempts, *each initiated by the music industry,* to stop payola on their own (at least one attempt in 1890, 1916-17, 1933, the more well-known attempts to amend the Communications Act in 1960, and the shortlived suspension of independent promoters in 1986 following a 1984 Senate investigation).

“Because radio airtime is a substitute for advertising, it is completely unsurprising that music publishers desired to collude to stop advertising — an important dimension of competition for record sales. Collusion is notoriously difficult to accomplish in the first instance, and even harder to sustain because members of the cartel increase profits by deviating from the collusive agreement. Successful collusion often takes a third party to regulate the agreement and punish defectors. Occasionally, would-be cartel members are able to persuade the government to take the job. It appears that Spitzer may succeed where the recording industry has failed for over a century by stepping up to police the industry restriction on competitive payments for spins.”

[Dave W.]

So what if Sony pays a rock station to spin System of a Down’s latest attempt to sound like a basket of kittens in a blender?

Then the people who want to hear something else can’t. Antitrust law is about consumer choice. Consumer choice on the fm dial suuuuuucks in the era of Clear Channel consolidation. This is a type of problem libertarians would do well to stop ostriching on. Don’t worry. Your boss don’t know you post here!

[thoreau]

I heard a rumor somewhere that people sometimes get ahead in showbiz by making back-room deals or even (gasp!) having sex.

Say it ain’t so!

But, if it is so, I’m sure it’s nothing that a few laws can’t fix.

[Xavier]

Unless you’re buying up all the shelf space to keep your competitors out entirely, I don’t see an antitrust problem. Producers are simply paying for more desirable shelf space. You’ve insisted repeatedly that this violates antitrust law, but you haven’t made the slightest attempt to explain why.

BTW, any reasonable theory of the economics of radio suggests that consolidation will actually lead to greater diversity in style. Let’s assume there are three radio stations and three potential radio formats. Format A is preferred by 75% of the population, format B is preferred by 15% of the population and format C is preferred by 5%. If all three radio stations are independently owned, they’ll all adopt format A and split the 75% market leaving the fans of formats B and C with nothing. If all three radio stations are owned by the same company, there is no incentive to provide multiple channels that appeal to the same audience so there will be one station each of formats A, B, and C. Consolidation actually reduces the incentive to homogonize. If radio stations actually have been homogonizing in recent years, I sincerely doubt that consolidation in the radio industry is responsible for it.

[Phil]

Then the people who want to hear something else can’t.

So, there’s only one over-the-air radio station and only one audio option (FM radio) in the world now?

I got news for you: A radio station can only play one song at a time, and that time is going to be taken up by something you might not want to whether the record company greases the wheels or not. It’s not like KXXX or WXXX are going to go digging through the indie/local bins at the local record store, or through small unsigned band websites, for material in any case.

[Shannon Love]

Dave W,

“Then the people who want to hear something else can’t”

I really don’t find that argument convincing. Suppose payola was standard practice. What would be the economic consequences and the impact on consumer choice?

(1) Bidding wars would make cornering the market in airtime prohibitively expensive. Record companies would only spend money on promoting songs that were proven or highly suspected to be popular. In other words, the same system we have now.

(2) Unless payola completely paid for the cost of running a radio station then the need to attract a wide audience for the commercials would still exist. Playing crappy payola songs would back fire on everybody.

(3) The demand for music is highly elastic. The entire point of airplay is to get people to by music directly. People won’t pay for stuff they don’t like no matter how much money is spent on marketing them. Payola would be self-limiting in a freemarket because it has to be paid for from media sales. Unpopular songs won’t pay the payola, so to speak.

In short, the only reason payola works now is that it is an illegal practice. Cheaters can gain an edge with payola, if they pick the right song in the first place, only because others can’t counter. Were we to legalize it, you would see a couple of years were payola would have a big impact on the business but it would soon equalize to a situation very much like the one we have now.

[fyodor]

Then the people who want to hear something else can’t.

Don’t you think that’s just a little bit of an overstatement, Dave? 🙂

Maybe those who want to hear something else will actually have to make an ounce of effort to do so.

[Agammamon]

Even buying up all of the shelf-space in a store for your product isn’t an anti-trust problem. If there’s enough demand for shelf-space, the cost goes up and more players enter the shelf-space market to catch the large profit margins.
The only way this could squeeze out the little guy in the medium and long term is if say, someone with a lot of power stepped in and limited the number of stores that could be built in a market.

This same formula works equally well whether its shelf-space, broadcast time, or gasoline.

[Xavier]

Shannon reminds me of another argument in favor of payola. I think it’s reasonable to assume that the declining marginal benefit of playing a song for the sake of marketing is much steeper than the declining marginal benefit of playing a song for its inherent entertainment value. If you play a song that everyone has heard many times, the marketing benefit is pretty small. The listener is already well aware of the song, and if they liked it, they probably would have bought it already. The marketing benefit of playing a song they’ve never heard before is much higher.

So radio station consolidation and payola are both trends that we should expect to increase the diversity of music on the radio rather than decrease it. To the extent that radio diversity has been declining in recent years, I think it’s because radio marketing has become more sophisticated and precise. In the old days, you had DJs (and record company executives with payola) choosing which songs to play based on their own unscientific evaluations of the market. Today radio stations engage in sophisticated market research to determine audience tastes. To the extent that radio stations today are more accurate in assessing the market’s tastes, it shouldn’t be surprising that they tend to offer the same music. We probably would have seen the same trend even if we didn’t have payola or consolidation.

Can Dave W offer any evidence or come up with any theory to explain why payola reduces radio diversity or why it’s an antitrust violation?

[mediageek]

Then the people who want to hear something else can’t. Antitrust law is about consumer choice. Consumer choice on the fm dial suuuuuucks in the era of Clear Channel consolidation.

FM radio choices sucked before the era of Clearchannel consolidation, too. FM radio has pretty much always sucked.

In the era of MP3’s, the iPod, car stereos with integrated CD and MP3 support, streaming internet radio, XM, etc. that the argument of payola limiting consumer choice rings pretty hollow.

[mediageek]

er, it should read “the argument that…” instead of “that the argument…”

[ed]

I was going to add my body to the piling-on of Dave W. but I believe the corpse is now quite cold.

Great line though: “Antitrust law is about consumer choice.” HA HA HA!

[mitch]

I find the “problem” of payola literally impossible to understand. If I’m trying to sell candy bars or soda pop I call up a radio station and offer them money to play a recording of a guy saying he loves my candy bars or soda pop. If I am trying to sell a CD of Robert Plant screaming or Robert Smith moaning why can’t I offer the radio station money to play recordings of said screams and moans?

As for the anti-trust argument, “payola means people who don’t want to hear something besides System of A Down can’t,” when did it happen that the radio became the sole means of hearing music? If you don’t want to hear System of A Down listen to a tape, a CD, television, something online, etc. I also find government regulation of radio hard to get because we don’t pay for radio; if I pay for some food and its rotten or I pay for a blue car and I get a red car I didn’t get what I paid for, I have a legitimate gripe that one could argue the government should look into. But I don’t pay for radio, so, if radio sucks, I’m out of luck, right?

[Dave W.]

Fyodor,

The Internet is making this stuff moot.

However, back in 1984 I was 16 yo I lived (without car) in a city with a rather poor selection of record stores. Yeah, it was a big deal to me then that FM sucked. Even though I made efforts back then to escape bad music and find the good, it was a frustratingly slow process. I could walk to the SUNY Binghamton radio station (7 miles or so), but I couldn’t pick it up in my house or my car. And even that station wasn’t that great. When I visit my hometown, I see that things have gotten worse.

Yeah, if you are willing to work at it and make your own songs, you can defeat the radio / records oligopolies that have defined popular music in recent decades. However, only a few ppl have that kind of (lunatic?) commitment. Too few.

I think the music and radio markets could have looked a lot different, more competitive, more viable consumer choices and that the world would have been made a better place by this honest brand of capitalism.

[Dave W.]

Mitch,

How would you recognize an antitrust problem?

Have you ever seen one?

How would you know?

[Xavier]

Dave: What specific antitrust violation are you alleging here? Can you cite a particular section of one of the antitrust statutes or a particular case? Do you have any idea what you’re talking about?

[fyodor]

Dave W,

Well, it sucks to be 16, but no amount of legislation is going to change that! I see you don’t live in that same place anymore…

BTW, I’d say the real lunacy of making one’s own music is trying to get anyone else to hear and appreciate it. To make it just for yourself is pretty easy, wouldn’t you say? At least it can be, unless you’re trying to do a big production or something that makes it more complicated than it needs to be, like when your bandmembers live in different towns and such. 🙂

[Phil]

Yeah, if you are willing to work at it and make your own songs, you can defeat the radio / records oligopolies that have defined popular music in recent decades. However, only a few ppl have that kind of (lunatic?) commitment. Too few.

I’d like to see some cited support for this claim. Neither Apple nor other digital media player makers can keep the things on the shelves these days, very nearly all in-dash CD players and home players provide mp3 and WMA support, mp3 blogs are major traffic builders, satellite radio services are already measuring subscribers in the multiple millions . . . I really need some cites for this “too few” business.

Non-label music is generally not going to get played on over-the-air radio, period. Small, unsigned bands just do not have the resources to take advantage of the economies of scale for distribution and promotion that labels have built over nearly a century, and that’s true in a world with or without payola.

[runaroundsue]

It wouldn’t be such a raw deal if DJ’s didn’t claim that the song was popular and being played in response the call-in and email requests.

[Dave W.]

Fyodor,

What you say is correct, but it is a poor substitute for consumer choice. I am concerned that by the time my kid is 16, similar consolidation will have taken place on the Net and his life will be marginally de-enriched the way mine was.

This is especially true in radio because the gov’t hands out the licenses (and their power). To pretend that is a free market allocation is ridiculous. Any solution where less than all the stations in a big metropolitan area are filled is silly, too. Consolidation or no, that can’t be the correct economics. there is a little man behind the curtain.

Someone asked if I knew antitrust law. Somewhat. I have taken no course, but did read Prof Areeda’s casebook when I lived in the desert. It was shocking to see the things that used to be considered illegal (due antitrust)back in 1967!!! As far as what sections of the antitrust law, I would start with Sherman Acts, sections (1) and (2). Probably no need to go to the Clayton Act or the fancier later ones. Sherman Act is still on the books AFAIK.

[mitch]

Dave W,

I would start worrying about trusts when, say, all the bakeries in town agreed to charge the same amount for their goods, and when some upstart rebel baker tried to charge less they broke his legs.

[Dave W.]

Non-label music is generally not going to get played on over-the-air radio, period. Small, unsigned bands just do not have the resources to take advantage of the economies of scale for distribution and promotion that labels have built over nearly a century, and that’s true in a world with or without payola.

Economies of scale are fine. However, if economies of scale means big competitors preventing little competitors from accessing the market, then they must not be as confident in their competive advantages of scale as you seem to be. I will go with their actions over your assurances, Phil. Sorry.

[Dave W.]

I would start worrying about trusts when, say, all the bakeries in town agreed to charge the same amount for their goods, and when some upstart rebel baker tried to charge less they broke his legs.

What do you think they do to pirate radio stations? Well, they don’t break legs, but that is only because they have friends in gov’t with prisons and forfeiture procedures. In a way, that seems worse.

[Phil]

I’m not going to take your assertion that they do so without some kinds of cites from you.

[Eric the .5b]

Then the people who want to hear something else can’t. Antitrust law is about consumer choice. Consumer choice on the fm dial suuuuuucks in the era of Clear Channel consolidation. This is a type of problem libertarians would do well to stop ostriching on. Don’t worry. Your boss don’t know you post here!

Funny, I seem to recall that Motown used payola at first to get their music played on white-bread radio. Frankly, radio could only be improved if people were paying stations to play stuff other than the twenty songs they play a week.

[mitch]

Dave W.,

I’m all for freeing the radio waves from government interference; you are right, prosecuting “pirate” radio is wrong, and similar to enforcing a trust. However, I don’t see how payola is also like enforcing a trust.

[Dave W.]

Funny, I seem to recall that Motown used payola at first to get their music played on white-bread radio. Frankly, radio could only be improved if people were paying stations to play stuff other than the twenty songs they play a week.

And so we re-invent the distinction between per se violations and non-per-se violations. Good legal intuition there!

[ChrisO]

This may be rather obvious, but payola is more about “truth in advertising” than about pay-for-play per se. Payola isn’t illegal, as long as the arrangement is disclosed to the listeners. Whether or not govt. should be involved in such regulation is tied up in the greater argument over the notion of “public” airwaves. Way more than I want to get into here.

Anyway, radio is increasingly a marginal medium, and not just because of the proliferation of other programming media. Fact is, most people only listen to the radio (whether broadcast or satellite) in the car, and that’s mostly for background noise. The advantage of the radio in the car is that it is hassle-free, which is good enough for most folks; otherwise, I imagine even more people would play cds/iPods etc. in the car and not even have a radio.

Also, radio broadcasts seem to be about half advertising now, anyway. To radio companies, the stuff between the ads is just the ‘filler’ to try and get you to stay on that frequency long enough to listen to the next set of ads.

[Dave W.]

Let me try a slightly different angle of attack. During the 2004 election, I watched some of the television coverage. A lot more tv than is usual for me. I saw the Libertarian Party candidate (Badnarik?) on exactly one channel ever in the many hours of election coverage I watched.

That tv station was the local PBS (read: gov’t funded station). What’s worse: I think the show where they let the LP candidate talk was locally produced by the Buffalo affiliate and may not have been shown on the other PBS affiliates at all.

Can you see the “consumer” choice issue inhering in these circumstances? How bout the irony?

[John]

I really should be upset about this. Payola should not be illegal. Its just marketing and the free market at work. My mind knows that. But then every once in a while, I have the misfortune of having to listen to the typical morning DJ on corporate radio and I can’t help but get a distinct guilty pleasure at the thought of everyone associated with the recording and radio industry going to jail. Its wrong but I just can’t help it. GO DOJ!!!

[Eric the .5b]

And so we re-invent the distinction between per se violations and non-per-se violations. Good legal intuition there!

That’s almost like an argument…but not.

[thoreau]

Announcement of Gathering in the DC Area
This is a thread-jack. If you do not cooperate we will unleash the wrath of Allah on your server!….oh, wait, never mind.

Anyway, in light of how successful the other gatherings have been, Mr. Nice Guy and I are looking to have a gathering in the DC area, any weekend from Oct. 28 through mid-December.

Here’s how it works:
-If you’re interested, contact me. The address is real if you remove the part about spam.
-Let me know which weekends you can meet in the DC area. If you aren’t sure of your schedule but want to be on the mailing list for the event, just send me an email and I’ll keep you in the loop.
-Most popular weekend wins.
-I’m fairly new to the area, so if you have a suggested venue, preferably near a Metro stop, let me know that too.

I’m thinking an evening, preferably a Saturday, but whatever time works for the most people is what we’ll do. Mr. Nice Guy and I will try to organize a trip to the shooting range (in Maryland, not DC, obviously) in the afternoon before the event for those who are interested. Both of us live near Metro stations and can probably take in somebody who wants to crash.

Also, Smacky is coming to DC for a wedding Oct. 14-16. I’m busy that weekend, her schedule with the wedding is kind of busy, and I figure that the shorter notice might not work for those wanting to come from out of town, but if somebody is interested in putting something together, you might want to get in touch with her and see who else is interested.

[fyodor]

Dave W,

Sure it’s ironic, but that doesn’t mean that coercive measures are the answer. The world is full of people willing to violate other people’s rights because they don’t like the outcomes of freedom. Aren’t you glad libertarians would stick to our principles even if it meant cutting off funding to the only stations that would show our candidate?

Well, I shoud hasten to point out that I’m being tongue-in-cheek when I say “our” candidate. You’ll find as much disagreement over the value of the LP here as you do over just about any issue other than the legitimacy of property rights! 🙂

[Jesse Walker]

Dave: The original payola crackdown is one of the reasons why radio got so dull. To keep DJs from taking bribes, many stations revoked the jocks’ right to choose their own records. One effect was to make programming more boring, more predictable, and less open. Another effect, interestingly, was to institutionalize payola: When they were no longer able to bribe a DJ to add a song to his show, the record companies instead started bribing program directors to add the song to the whole station’s playlist.

[ChrisO]

Don’t forget, also, that the record business and radio business have evolved in tandem. Back in the Alan Fried era, even the big record labels were comparatively small-time outfits run by the predictable gaggle of hucksters, con-men, and bored millionaires. Not unlike the radio business back then, actually. Now both are divisions of media conglomerates run by soulless corporate bureaucrats. At least when the con artists ran the show, there was a minute chance that something creative might happen on the air or on vinyl–but the corporate bean counters have pretty much taken care of that on both ends.

[Dave W.]

Yup. That’s why I am so vociferously arguing antitrust enforcement here (with payola being a non-per-se violation), rather than attacking payola as a problem per se as Feingold and his 50s era predecessors did. Fortunately, antitrust law has pre-existing rules that allow for this type of economic-context-driven flexibility on payola issues.

Like I said above, atomized payola doesn’t bother me. However, when you shrink down the number of players (whether we are talking Clear Channel, WalMart or the big 5 record co.’s), the payola in this kind of consolidated world quickly becomes a tool used to reduce consumer choice.

Like everybody keeps saying, we can go to the Internet and alternative sources now, but that is still no reason to see the fm/cd cartel of the 80s & 90s as a good example of free markets, free minds or free asses. Things may have been worse in Soviet Russia, but I like to set the bar a bit higher cause I am kind of a consumer choice fanatic, I guess.

[Dave W.]

Aren’t you glad libertarians would stick to our principles even if it meant cutting off funding to the only stations that would show our candidate?

I wasn’t arguing that we should continue PBS. My solution is enforcing antitrust. This may be coercive, but, unlike PBS, it is: (1) content-neutral coercion (that’s important!); (2) how Adam Smith would solve the problem; and (3) not taxpayer dollar intensive.

I think it would be nice if the aggregate of people’s choices led to markets with lots of consumers and lots of independent suppliers. That is what capitalism requires, both in theory and practice. However, that is not what happens in reality. In reality monopolies and oligopolies form and competition is reduced from a robust action-driving thing to a cokeversuspepsi sham. Relying on gov’t to prevent these oligopoly problems is a bad solution, but it is still better than the others.

[Eric the .5b]

So, in other words, we have to have massive anti-trust monitoring of all markets, as they’re all diving towards oligopoly. And without vigorous anti-trust enforcement, a market will become an oligopoly or monopoly.

Then why are there so many markets not following this trajectory?

[Phil]

I think maybe you, and a lot of other consumers, just don’t work hard enough to take advantage of the wealth of alternate choices out there, Dave. Just because you’re too lazy to find a bottle that doesn’t say “Coke” or “Pepsi” on the label, don’t blame the other suppliers for not breaking into your home and pouring their sodas down your throat.

By the way, if your PBS/Badnarik example is supposed to be illustrative of something, it isn’t the thing you think it is. There have been third-, fourth- and n-thparty candidates since the dawn of time, and they didn’t get any more television time in the Golden Pre-Consolidation Era than they do now, unless they were per se newsworthy (John Anderson, and I doubt he got much time either) or otherwise colorful and influential (Perot). It has nothing to do with media consolidation; it has to do with political party consolidation.

[Dave W.]

Then why are there so many markets not following this trajectory?

They are. Oil is. Healthcare is. Agribusiness is.

[Jennifer]

Oil is. Healthcare is. Agribusiness is.

Even if so, it’s one thing to worry that Bad Guys have complete control of our energy, medicine and food; it’s another thing to worry because Bad Guys can play System of a Down over and over and over again on some station with a name like Hot Z-107.

[Dave W.]

Phil,

In television there is no such thing as the preconsolidation period. There was a time in television’s history when it was small enough that three or four competitors was a reasonable number. The number of competitors hasn’t kept up with the increased use of television by consumers, nor with increased technological possibilities. In other words, because television developed so recently, television never really had to “consolidate” in order to achieve its oligopoly. They merely had to make sure that the FCC didn’t give out too many broadcast licenses to non-big-3-network affiliates, even as viewer hours grew greatly. (It was nice to see FOX finally get in there and make the best TV show ever, but, really, too little, too late).

As far as how much coverage the LP candidate has gotten in each election over the decades would be an interesting study. Unlike you, I am not convinced that this number would be constant (even if adjusted for the fact that the LP candidate is more popular some elections than others).

[Dave W.]

Even if so, it’s one thing to worry that Bad Guys have complete control of our energy, medicine and food; it’s another thing to worry because Bad Guys can play System of a Down over and over and over again on some station with a name like Hot Z-107.

So true. However, antitrust problems are quite abstract, diffuse and hidden (purposely) from view. It helps to have a familiar example that you can relate to before you start making these uncomfortable paradigm shifts I now propose.

[Dave W.]

Just because you’re too lazy to find a bottle that doesn’t say “Coke” or “Pepsi” on the label

No. What I have wanted for years is a bottle that doesn’t say “fructose” on the label. Because that causes diabetes. Corn business, meet soda business. Consumers: ready your insulin!

[Phil]

Dave, I don’t have statistics at hand, but I’m fairly certain that for quite some period of time, there were more unaffiliated or partial-affiliate stations than there were Big Three affiliates; even today, when there are about 1,400 over-the-air commercial TV broadcasters, fully a third of them are unaffiliated; and some of the rest are double-affiliate stations for the four and five networks. I know consolidation is your hobbyhorse, but the number of programming options has done nothing but increase in recent years.

I am 36 years old, and can remember the last six presidential elections; and I can tell you that the only two third-party candidates I have ever seen in network television coverage or in the debates were John Anderson and Ross Perot. And in the case of the former, Jimmy Carter skipped the debate that Anderson was allowed to be involved in. Again, the lack of coverage of lesser-party candidates is not a function of media concentration or oligopoply; it’s the fact that the Big Two cry like babies when the media even dreams about covering them, then threatens them with some FCC something-or-other to keep them in line.

[Dave W.]

consolidation is your hobbyhorse

Close. My hobbyhorse is “markets” that have too many consumers relative to the number of suppliers. “Consolidation” doesn’t really cover the locus or point to the focus here. Neither does “antitrust,” but that is the one-word-monniker that comes closest to capturing my hh.

[GarthStrait]

It wouldn’t be such a raw deal if DJ’s didn’t claim that the song was popular and being played in response the call-in and email requests.

Comment by: runaroundsue at September 20, 2005 01:31 PM

You have no idea how much your radio lies to you.

People have this romantic image of the DJ sitting in a studio with a couple of CD players and a stack of the latest albums, picking and choosing as he/she goes. That ain’t how it works.

In most places DJ’s have playlists that they have to follow. These are usually computer generated to arcane formulae based on what class of song (hit, recurrent, legacy, etc.) is to play where, based on what the PD, consultants, suits, and audience research say should be played and when. The selection of music is too important to be left up to mere DJs (who are usually underpaid fat guys who like indoor work but have few talents beyond a smooth voice.)

Station PD’s have tons of CDs sent to them by aspiring artists every day hoping that their home made production will become a hit. PD’s throw these in the trash, usually without listening to them. If it’s not from a major label it won’t make the air — and if it’s not from a major it probably sucks or they’d be signed by a label, right? Instant quality control.

DJ’s lie about requests all the time. In fact, they lie about a lot of things. They may hate the music or the format but still talk up how great the songs are to sound enthusiastic and hip because the boss will fire them if they even hint they think the music sucks. These days, that voice you hear may even be coming from a sattelite (with pre-recorded liners added here and there to mention the station call letters and give it a local sound) and they aren’t even located in your town. Or you’re actually listening to pre-recorded voice liners somebody recorded in a digital automation system days ago — the DJ isn’t really there or live, but they can set it up to segue songs and talk over intros and outtros to sound just like they’re in the studio because the systems are that good. These types are especially prone to lie about requests in an effort to sound live.

Requests don’t reflect the majority taste of the audience, anyway. Most listeners are too busy living their lives to call and request a song — requests come from shut-ins who need an excuse to talk to somebody, kids who want to hear their voice on the radio, and people who have a need to have some sort of effect on the world to give themeslves a feeling of power in an otherwise powerless life. In many cases these people ask for whatever they think will actually get played (whatever’s hot at the moment), not a song they give a crap about because the music isn’t the point.

Those liners that sound like real people talking about the station in their promos, all that “they play such great music” and crap — station I work for gets ours from a company in Nashville on CD.

Oh, and all those CDs they have lying around to pick their music off of… sorry, no choice there — the labels decide what the next singles will be and send those out as singles. DJs rarely even have entire albums to work from. They’re probably limited to what’s digitized in their automation system, anyway. Older songs may come off of a “Hit Disc” — these are CDs with only the hits on them packaged by a company like TM Century that services radio stations with music. If it wasn’t a “hit” it’s not wasting space around the studio and will never be played. Can’t play what you don’t have.

The ONLY reason a station plays the music it does is to attract an audience they can sell to an advertiser. Radio stations don’t exist primarily to serve the listener — that’s the biggest lie of all they like to sell — they exist to serve the people buying the ads, who are the real customers. It doesn’t matter if you think they suck, it only matters if enough people tune in and aren’t driven away by something they hate. Safe, secure, middle of the road, and bland keeps the largest number of people on your station the longest time. Most people are in the middle of the bell curve, not on the cutting edge. And if their taste in music sucks, radio is more than happy to suck along with ’em.

[Eric the .5b]

No. What I have wanted for years is a bottle that doesn’t say “fructose” on the label.

That’s never been a challenge for me. What makes it so hard for you to find that?

[Eric the .5b]

They are. Oil is. Healthcare is. Agribusiness is.

And you’re going to describe the states of those industries as the end results of unchecked free markets?

Seriously?

[Dave W.]

There were a lot more oil companies (and refineries!) when I was younger. Doctors were not micro-managed by administrators in far-off cities. There were a lot more independent farmers, too.

This consolidation has been allowed because antitrust stopped being enforced. I wouldn’t necessarily characterize the markets as unchecked. If they were unchecked, then I think we would have a single corporation in each of those sectors, instead of an oligopoly situation. Nor am I excluding the possibility that gov’t intervention has given companies independent, add’l incentive to consolidate. Nor am I excluding the possibility that larger companies systematically lobby the gov’t to intervene in their markets in ways that have given companies independent, add’l incentive to consolidate (think Halliburton if I lost you on that last one).

So, to answer your question: seriously, jr. The world wasn’t always like it is now.

[Dave W.]

I should have said: a soda that says sucrose on the label and does not say fructose on the label. That’s more of a challenge.

[Eric the .5b]

I should have said: a soda that says sucrose on the label and does not say fructose on the label. That’s more of a challenge.

Thanks to certain *gasp* subsidies, that’s a bit harder, yes. Cricket Cola and similar drinks or (if you’re in the right areas) Coca Cola bottled in Mexico will do the trick.

[Eric the .5b]

This consolidation has been allowed because antitrust stopped being enforced…Nor am I excluding the possibility that gov’t intervention has given companies independent, add’l incentive to consolidate…Nor am I excluding the possibility that larger companies systematically lobby the gov’t…

In other words, you’re going to straight-facedly tell me “yes” while trying to say you’re cognizant of all the reasons why the answer is actually “no”.

OK.

Back to hurricane-proofing…

[Dave W.]

In other words, you’re going to straight-facedly tell me “yes” while trying to say you’re cognizant of all the reasons why the answer is actually “no”.

Wrong. I am saying that there is more than one (interrelated) cause for the oligopolization and that one of these causes is the observed tendency toward monopolization in free, or even partially free, markets.

Ya know, they passed the Sherman Act in 1890, Eric. Do you remember the freewheeling fun us businesspeople used to have in 1890?