JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum Legitimizing Pay-for-Play

Artistpreneur,

It's all about context. The actual definition of Payola is paying money for the broadcast of music on radio. The illegal issue occurs if they don't announce that it's paid for each time it's played. Perhaps your internet radio station announces that before each song plays (wow, that must be a wondeful listening experience eh?) and if so, then they'd also have to make sure they did not report that airplay to the PRO's for royalty consideration. If they don't do those things, it's illegal payola. I don't know what their set up is and frankly it doesn't matter. Whether they follow those rules to make it legal or not, it's an entirely bad idea. And if they've found some loophole to get away with it and it's reported as valid airplay, it won't be for long. The PRO's do not tolerate fraudulent reporting nor does the government when it is exposed. And "paid for" airplay would be just that. Because I don't know exactly how they are doing it (since no one has discussed specifics here), I can't determine whether they follow the law or not. Neither can you unless you are inside their company and have all those facts. At best you have a theory. And your theory supports a really bad idea. So right or wrong about the legality issues, you're still supporting a bad thing.

But that's all kind of beside the point isn't it? Paying for airplay, even if it was 100% legal, is a losing issue. It lost many millions for the labels when they did it. They actually helped kill the system they created and fessed up to help put it to an end because they couldn't afford it any longer. (By the way, it still goes on, just in a different form than before but that's another discussion). We (myself and JPF along with our partners at the FOMC) were directly involved in the negotiations for the payola agreement which we co-authored and the labels all signed. We've been involved with this topic for a long time.

If large multinational corps. can't afford to pay money to see benefits in return for the expense of paying for play (legal or otherise), why would an indie artist? It's a completely absurd rip off tactic by scam artists who see a desperate sucker coming and shake them down while feeding their ego that they are getting "airplay" that at best is probably going out to a tiny audience who won't listen long when they realize that any moron willing to pay for it can get played. Who in their right mind would want to listen to a station where the playlist was made based on who paid the most on an internet radio station? At least with Label payola there's already a reasonable level of quality control to start off with. If Billy Joe Bob sold his waterbed and bought some airplay for his horrendously bad music, what possible benefit will he get? The answer is none. Nor will the listener likely ever come back after being subjected to something that sucks. There's too much access to too much great music. Why would anyone waste a second of their time?

Now let's get to some of your other statements.

#2: Companies are selling a product or service that will make them profits that significantly exceed the cost of advertising in a realiable manner. They don't run 1 ad 1 time to a small audience which is undefined and unreliable at best. They run relentless ads to a carefully researched audience with a long proven track record of return on investment. To compare commercial advertising with pay for play music is not a credible stretch. Though I am sure that many scam artists would love for people to believe it.

Music isn't a very profitable item by itself anymore and it takes gigantic sales numbers and economy of scale to really do well. Most retailers (of the few who even bother to sell music any more) see it as a loss leader and even that benefit has fallen by the way side. Major artists have to incorporate related goods (t-shirts, DVD's, concert tickets, fan clubs etc.) to try and make it. Indie artists are NOT going to get significant sales from getting pay for play airplay on internet radio because they could never afford to buy enough airplay to reach enough listeners to buy enough product to even break even. It's completely unrealistic. Joe Smith, indie artist, isn't Proctor and Gamble. Not even on a microscopic level. And the truth is that unless the music you make is so totally amazing that someone surfing through some lame ass internet rip off station that will play any piece of crap for money as long as someone pays, they will never even consider buying it in the first place. Even if they LOVED it, they'll quickly just go get it somewhere free, assuming they remember it 30 seconds later.

Few artists are so compelling that on a single listen people seek them out to purchase. It takes massive repeated listenings to break through or a large interested buying public. What are the odds you wouldn't run out of money long before that ever could happen? Again.. the economics behind your concept are ridiculous. I know people who have performed live on Letterman and Leno and didn't even see more than a tiny blip of sales afterwards. They got far more benefit from being able to tell venues they wanted to play that they performed on a nationally known TV show. But all those millions of people who saw them didn't run out to buy a CD because that's not what people do anymore, if they ever really did. And the bar is pretty high to get to play on those shows. I doubt very much that the average schmuck paying for internet radio play will be in their league. But they'll be able to get sales or the attention of a label exec? Really? Which leads us to.....

#3. Do you have any understanding how labels actually work? Record labels have a long list of artists they are considering based on a long list of business criterias, target markets, quarterly profits and losses and other factors that have zero to do with music. When they identify an artist that fits and serves those goals in the first place, it comes with a vetting process to determine many factors such as current success, local and regional audience marketshare (i.e. do you fill up concert venues in your area regularly), how large your built in fan base already is, what your age, gender and appearance is, etc. If you aren't showing up on the local Soundscan numbers, it's unlikely they'd even bother to research anything else about you. How many people paying for airplay are selling consistently around town via legit soundscan sources? Not many if any. All of these issues also have little to do with the actual music either. If you suck but you sell a lot on regional soundscan reports, they are going to be interested in you. If you are amazing but have no history or buzz, they will pass and wait until you do. All of those things must be satisfied. And guess what? They already have a backlog of artists they'd LOVE to sign if they ever had the freedom to do it. But they don't. Bean counters and attorney's give the majority of the green lights. And bean counters and attorney's aren't trolling third rate internet radio stations on the chance they might hear something good mixed in with all the crap. And we're not even talking about all the artists that come from trusted sources that they have to consider every week. It's neve ending. You actually think legit industry is listening to pay for play internet radio?

Only a tiny handful of mega powerful figures can even sign an artist without jumping through a myriad of legal and business hoops. And most of those folks jump through those hoops anyway, because they are hard core business people and those hoops help protect their investments (and do a poor job of it, but that's the reality). There is no such thing as an A&R person hearing a song on some backwards pay for play radio station and being so blown away that they will risk their entire career to even pitch that artist to their bosses. You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. It is as if you live in some parallel dream world of how you wish the industry worked. Your odds are far better with the lottery than your scenario ever happening. And a lottery ticket costs a buck. How much does the pay to play cost?

#4: People can play pretend music business all they want.. until they already have something of value to offer in the way of their music it's all just playland and theories and self delusions. Even if you do everything 100% right the odds are still very slim of significant commercial success. You have to be the right age, race, sex, nationality, genre, appearance and many other things to make it big time. Massive talent is simply the initial ticket to qualify for the game. And not many people have really serious talent in the first place, the kind that makes people stop what they are doing to listen or watch. Either that or you have to be the gimmick of the month like the various YouTube phenoms. Figuring that out would be a far better tactic and business plan than buying airplay.

Rational people will hunker down and make some great music or at least the best music they can make. That's the point after all isn't it? The commerce side is a secondary thing at best. If it isn't a secondary thing to you, then you need to go find a new hobby. We've spent a lot of time educating folks on rational and sane things to do and stupid scams to avoid. Paying for radio play of ANY kind, legal or otherwise, is a stupid scam you should avoid.

And finally, if you're going question my fitness to run this organization, you're going to have to come out from hiding and take responsibility for your words directly like an adult. It's one thing for you to be wrong, it's another to launch into an attack on my credibility while hiding behind a curtain so that your shortcomings don't stick when exposed. If you believe what you say, put your name behind it. Otherwise you're no different than just another annoying teenager playing dress up with the adults.

Brian