Tradeouts

["Dan Strassberg" <dan.strassberg@att.net>]

On a local message board a discussion has been raging about a local station,
which I will not name, that allegedly accepted merchandise in trade for
airing spots and then sold the merchandise to listeners over the air using
spots that the advertiser did not purchase (either through cash or trade).
The merchandise was something other than basic foodstuffs, gasoline, heating
oil, or phone service. In other words, it was not something that the station
could have distributed to employees in lieu of part of their salary.

Posters on the message board are incensed about the station's allegedly
unethical conduct. I'm trying to figure out what could be wrong with what
the station allegedly did. If the merchandise could not be used as a
substitute for cash salary to employees, all I can figure that the station
might have done was to give it to listeners as contest prizes (thus
depriving the advertiser of part of the market for his goods) or give the
merchandise as part payment to companies that provided business services to
the station.

Can somebody please explain to me what was unethical or even illegal about
what the station allegedly did?

--
Dan Strassberg, dan.strassberg@att.net
617-558-4205, eFax 707-215-6367