Media & entertainment
Payola: how the hits you grew up on were secretly bought onto the radio
10 min
For decades, labels quietly paid to get songs played, shaping what became popular — the scandals, the laws, and the clever ways the practice never really died.
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Show notes
Nineteenth-century songwriters paid singers to perform specific tracks to drive sheet music sales.
Alan Freed's career ended after he pleaded guilty to commercial bribery for taking secret payments.
Payola is legally permissible if the radio station discloses the payment to its listeners.
Independent promoters used drugs and luxury vacations to bypass federal bribery laws in the seventies.
Sony BMG paid ten million dollars in two thousand five to settle payola investigation claims.
Modern labels fund radio station operational costs and listener prizes to secure airplay for artists.
In this episode
- 1Intro1 min
- 2The Birth of the Song Plugger2 min
- 3The Fall of Alan Freed2 min
- 4The Era of Independent Promoters2 min
- 5The Spitzer Crackdown and Corporate Payola3 min
- 6Outro1 min
Sources
- Payola and Sponsorship Identification | Federal Communications Commission
- How Payola Went Corporate - The New York Times
- Payola: The Beat Goes On : NPR
- In An Ever-Changing Music Industry, Cash For Hits Remains A Constant : NPR
- Payola in the Music Industry: A History, 1880-1991 | Office of Justice Programs
- Sony Settles Payola Investigation
- BBC NEWS | Entertainment | A long history of 'pay-for-play'
- A historical study of payola: advertising and public relations or bribery
- Payola Indictments Name 19, Including 3 Company Heads - The New York Times
- https://scholarship.law.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1315&context=commlaw
- Payola
- Payola - Wikipedia
- Rock ‘n’ Roll Payola: Dick Clark and Alan Freed - In These Times
- Why the man who invented rock and roll died penniless and broken
- Alan Freed and the Radio Payola Scandal
- The Ghost of Alan Freed: An Analysis of the Merit and Purpose of Anti-Payola Laws in Today's Music Industry
- A Brief History of American Payola
- Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular Music - PAYOLA
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