Radio, file folks, podcasters, performers, and everybody who works behind the scenes are in Toronto for the forty second annual Canadian Music Week, June 2-8. It’s the most important gathering of music business people anyplace within the nation.
Loads of schmoozing, deal-making, networking, award-giving, and knowledge-gathering will occur over the subsequent few days. CMW, because it’s identified for brief, is one in all many such business occasions that happen all over the world. As a daily attendee, I can let you know that the convention and related music competition are well-organized and orderly.
This, nevertheless, was not the case on the Americana Lodge in Miami Seaside sixty-five years in the past. Issues had been so wild on the Second Annual Worldwide Radio Programming and Disk Jockey Conference in Might 1959 that Prime 40 radio and rock ‘n’ roll had been practically damaged eternally.
The story of what occurred in Miami Seaside started a 12 months earlier in Kansas Metropolis with The Pop Music Disc Jockey Conference and Radio Programming Seminar, the primary such occasion. It attracted the largest names in radio together with reps from a half-dozen or so file labels. One visitor speaker was the rock-hating Mitch Miller of Columbia Information who noticed this new rock ‘n’ roll factor as a scourge on tradition, society, and particularly the youth of America. He scolded the assembled group for enjoying this music and urged everybody to return to enjoying correct songs by artists similar to Frank Sinatra and Lena Horne. He was an actual downer.
Organizer Todd Storz, one of many inventors of the Prime 40 radio format, determined to vary course in 1959. The brand new venue was the Americana, proper on the seashore alongside 97th Road in Bal Harbor. This second conference was billed as a possibility for folks concerned with the brand new Prime 40 rock ’n’ roll radio format to change concepts and to discover ways to make their applications and radio stations higher. There have been audio system, panels, and displays. President Dwight Eisenhower gave a filmed deal with. Robert King, the mayor of Miami, declared it “Disk Jockey Week” within the metropolis. On the floor, the conference seemed like another business gathering.
Not fairly.
This was a possibility for 19 file labels and dozens of file males to wine and dine DJs — all of whom had been males, by the way in which — in hopes of currying favour and affect over what data they performed on their radio exhibits again residence. They knew these males had been so highly effective and influential with their audiences that they may make or break songs. The boys on the air needed to be onside if anybody hoped to have successful file.
And the way did they plan to do this? By displaying them the perfect and craziest time of their lives.
About 2,500 DJs, about half the quantity working within the U.S., made the all-expenses-paid journey to Miami. Huge singers and wannabe stars had been there to mingle and be interviewed. Everybody bought limo rides from the airport. Upon check-in, everybody was given $1 million in play cash which they had been inspired to gamble on video games fastened so they’d win. That cash may then be utilized in an public sale for actual merch like TVs, journeys to Europe, and even a model new Studebaker.
The DJs had been provided a lot of liquor and medicines. One celebration hosted by Morris Levy, the infamous head of Roulette Information, went by means of 2,000 bottles of bourbon. Hookers had been introduced in — even from abroad. Guarantees of money funds for future concerns had been made. It was an extremely wild celebration that value the labels about US$120,000, which is value greater than US$1.1 million in right this moment’s cash.
Issues had been so outrageous that on the final day of the conference (Might 31, 1959), The Miami Information ran a narrative underneath the headline “For Deejays: Babes, Booze, and Bribes.” DJs, the article mentioned, “got the best buttering-up since Nero was persuaded he was a fiddle virtuoso. … One promotion man mentioned, ‘You should purchase a few of them with an air conditioner; some with cash, some with a woman.’”
[A typical DJ salary at the time was $50 a week, so any grease was welcome].
The article continued: “‘I might guess,’ mentioned one [promotion man], ‘that the payoffs to the disc jockeys in a single type or one other run to nicely over $1,000,000 a 12 months. It’s a awful state of affairs, however I don’t see how something will be performed about it. As we inform them on a regular basis, with out the disc jockeys, we’re lifeless.’”
This was dangerous — dangerous publicity. Payola — the apply of bribing somebody to play your tune on the radio — had been round so long as business radio and wasn’t unlawful. Perhaps business leaders didn’t prefer it, however what had been they going to do? The scandalous habits in Miami opened the door to combating again. It wasn’t lengthy earlier than business publications like Billboard, Selection, and Cashbox had been writing in regards to the scourge of payola and the distortions it created within the market.
The tales of what occurred in Miami solely added to a rising disaster of confidence in America. After having to endure Joseph McCarthy’s Crimson Scare earlier within the decade, one thing that shook America’s confidence of their leaders, the nation then needed to cope with the TV quiz present scandal. Within the late Fifties, an enormous authorities investigation revealed that standard recreation exhibits like Twenty One had been fastened in favour of sure contestants.
The next 12 months, there was the “plugola” disaster, the place the general public realized that some celebrities endorsed services and products which they didn’t use. It was all for the cash. This was branded as false, dishonest, and misleading promoting and wanted to be stopped.
After which, within the wake of duplicitous politicians spewing faux information about commies in Washington, rigged recreation exhibits, and the revelation that TV promoting was constructed on lies, People realized that every one the music they heard on the radio was purchased and paid for.
One thing wanted to be performed. And possibly, thought some politicians, church teams, and old-school file folks, the scourge of rock ‘n’ roll might be worn out on the similar time.
All through the summer season and fall of 1959, strain constructed on radio stations to do one thing about their DJs’ errant methods lest they lose their precious broadcast licences. Even earlier than the Home Particular Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight held hearings on the matter in late 1959 and early 1960, DJs throughout the nation had been fired due to their payola practices. Once more, whereas unethical was not unlawful, and one thing to which most turned a blind eye.
A number of the greatest names in radio had been known as to testify. Alan Freed, the person who gave this new music the identify “rock ‘n’ roll” whereas working at WINS in New York, grew to become the sacrificial lamb. He was charged underneath New York State’s business bribery legal guidelines and fined $300. The conviction ruined his profession, sending him right into a spiral of alcoholism. He died broke in 1965, owing the IRS practically $40,000.
One other particular person within the scorching seat was Tommy Smalls, a New York DJ who labored underneath the identify Dr. Jive. He wasn’t convicted of something, however he was pushed out of radio. He’d later make a comeback as a promotion supervisor with Polydor Information and likewise co-founded the Nationwide Affiliation of TV and Radio Announcers.
However man who skated probably the most was Dick Clark. As a radio man and host of American Bandstand, he was within the thick of every part that was occurring in rock ‘n’ roll. He held shares in seven indie labels, six music publishing corporations, three file distributers, two expertise businesses, a file urgent plant — 33 music-related corporations in complete. He was capable of escape any prosecution by promoting off all these pursuits. His clean-cut picture prompted committee chairman Oren Harris to name him “a effective younger man.” He went on to turn into one in all America’s most beloved media personalities. When he died in 2012, his web value was estimated at US$150 million.
After the hearings wrapped up in 1960, payola was formally declared a criminal offense punishable by a effective of as much as $10,000 and a 12 months in jail. The American radio and file business was essentially modified. DJs had been not allowed to pick what they performed on their exhibits. Administration — program administrators and music administrators — now made these selections.
The 1959 DJ conference was Todd Storz’s final such occasion. And the issue of payola was solved, proper? Nope. Loopholes within the new legal guidelines allowed funds to proceed however in much less blatant and extra secretive back-door methods. As a substitute of getting to cope with a number of DJs, their level of contact was decreased to only one or two folks — this system director and/or music director — per station. Enterprise continued as regular in a way more environment friendly manner.
Payola scandals blew up once more in 1974, the late Eighties, and the ’90s. New York state settled some excessive profile circumstances introduced towards file labels and radio stations in 2005 and 2006. My contacts in U.S. radio inform me that variations of payola nonetheless exist right this moment. It’s simply that the primary rule of payola is that you just don’t speak about payola.
I do want to say this. I’ve been within the Canadian radio enterprise for practically 43 years, working at and operating some fairly large radio stations alongside the way in which. I’ve by no means, ever been provided something in change for enjoying a file. I’ve by no means, ever heard of any existence of American-style payola on this nation. Not as soon as. We’re both super-squeaky clear up right here or I’m extremely naive.
Both manner, I by no means bought my free air conditioner.
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Alan Cross is a broadcaster with Q107 and 102.1 the Edge and a commentator for International Information.
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