Re: Payola

[Donna Halper <dlh@donnahalper.com>]

someone with whom I disagree wrote:
>Preferential treatment for the big guys is not payola, illegal or even
>unethical.  It goes on in every business.  You are going to try to help
>people who can most help you.  It's only illegal if the station is required
>to do something in exchange for the treatment.  I don't think that is
>happening.  The record companies simply think it is in their best interest to
>stay on the good side of the large stations.  That's much different than
>outright bribery.  Alan Freed may not have played songs for the $6000, but
>that was clearly what the record promoters thought he was going to do when
>they gave him the money.  As for the debts and drinking problem, those are
>just excuses.  People commit crimes every day and use those things as excuses
>or say everyone is doing it (like Dick Clark).  It's still wrong.  
>
Auntie Donna never said Alan Freed was right or that he should be nominated
for sainthood.  I just think that there are various degrees of wrong-doing.
I for one think preferential treatment IS wrong-- why should, for example,
WBCN get an exclusive but not WERS?  Why should Kiss 108 get that great
concert and the excellent tickets but not WRBB?  The college stations,
because they don't report to the major trade publications (and many record
companies still calculate a record promoter's bonus by how many major
stations he or she gets to add a record... college stations do not count in
that total) are often left out of the loop when a big star comes to town.
There is often a quid pro quo when a record company gives you an exclusive--
they don't do it just because they are wonderful people...  So, yes taking
that $6000 was wrong.  If there is a hell, perhaps Alan is frying.  But, his
image was his big problem.  He integrated his radio show long before anyone
else.  He had black artists on the air long before segregation had ended.
He was regarded as controversial and he had a bad habit of being tactless in
interviews.  Dick Clark was polite, polished, proper, wore a suit and tie,
had the more conservative black singers on his show now and then but no
black dancers for years, and white kids only danced with other white kids.
He was safe.  The establishment liked him.  Alan Freed was perceived as a
bad influence.  I think that hurt him as much as taking the alleged payola--
and there is lots of evidence that Dick Clark took as much if not more than
Alan Freed did.  I just feel the rules were somewhat selectively enforced--
the so-called 'payment system' had existed in the music industry since the
1890s, but only when ASCAP musicians (white) started losing their jobs to
d.j.'s who played black music did anybody suddenly decide payola had to be
investigated immediately... sigh...     

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