Payola Tengo

Payola has always been sort of illegal and sort of not, a distinction that has never particularly mattered because payola has never stopped happening. But for anyone who needs an update, Billboard’s ELIAS LEIGHT has asked around and discovered that the current price for a label to add a song to the rotation of a single radio station in a small Northeastern US market is in the $3,000 range. A serious campaign to get on an alternative radio chart can run from $40,000 to $60,000, Leight reports, while the airplay to hit top 40 or R&B/hip-hop charts is more likely to cost in the six figures.

The real news here, to me anyway, is that the music industry’s biggest trade magazine is reporting this not as an investigative scoop but as a simple matter of fact. Leight notes pay-to-play’s sordid history (along with a few fruitless attempt to lessen its impact; hashtag the FCC, FREDRIC DANNEN and ELIOT SPITZER), and then, quoting a number of label promotion execs, documents exactly how it continues to work. His angle isn’t that this is shocking, but that it’s become a big problem for indie labels, who can’t keep up with the rising costs of what’s quaintly called promotion and therefore aren’t getting their songs on the radio. “There are certain formats,” a source tells him, “that indie labels don't venture into because they just can't afford it.” In case you’re wondering why major labels have a significantly bigger share of radio airplay than they do of the rest of the business.

The money, of course, isn’t going entirely into the coffers of those radio stations. Between 20% and 40%, apparently, goes to the indie promoters who control the radio pipelines. One wonders how many artists and songwriters, given the choice, would prefer that their labels just give the money to them and forget about radio. It’s 2022 and there are other ways to get a song heard, aren't there?

Etc Etc Etc

In the UK, meanwhile, indie radio stations have found themselves the victim of a better publicized form of inflation: fast-rising rents and energy costs. The Guardian's Will Pritchard reports on why GILLES PETERSON's WORLDWIDE FM and other online radio outlets have cut back their programming or stopped altogether... Outgoing YOUTUBE chief business officer ROBERT KYNCL is the leading candidate to replace STEVE COOPER as CEO of WARNER MUSIC GROUP next year, according to Bloomberg. Internal candidates also under consideration, per Bloomberg and Music Business Worldwide, include MAX LOUSADA, chief of Warner’s recorded music division, and OANA RUXANDRA, the company’s chief digital officer... As the cost of living in Austin skies ever upward, could Dallas and Fort Worth be replacing it as Texas’ live music capital? JOHNNY AUPING reports for Rolling Stone on the “prolific, accessible, and diverse artistic community” that’s bloomed between the Fort Worth Stockyards and Dallas’ Deep Ellum... PIERRE KWENDERS wins Canada’s POLARIS MUSIC PRIZE for his album JOSÉ LOUIS AND THE PARADOX OF LOVE.

Rest in Peace

Violinist JORJA FLEEZANIS, best known as the longtime concertmaster of the Minnesota Orchestra. She was the second woman ever to hold that position at a major American orchestra... PAUL SARTIN, violinist/oboist for UK folk band Bellowhead... MURDOCH RILEY, co-founder of the pioneering New Zealand indie label Viking Records... Nine Guatemalan fans killed in a crowd crush Thursday at an all-day concert celebrating the country’s Independence Day. Rock band Bohemia Suburbana was closing the show when the tragedy happened.