ARE THE AIRWAVES CLEANER UP HERE? LOOKING FOR CANADIAN RADIO PAYOLA Laurel Hyatt – CARTT Remember the 1980s Canadian new wave band called The Payola$? Their American record company felt they weren’t getting enough airplay stateside. Their name, the label felt, was scaring off radio programmers still chilled by the payola scandals decades earlier where jocks were caught taking kickbacks for playing certain artists.
The band, like good little Canadians, did what they were told and changed their name to Paul Hyde and the Payolas.
It seems that others in the Canadian music biz have since been equally chaste, resisting the temptation to offer and accept money and gifts to programmers and jocks to add a certain artist or increase their frequency in the rotation.
Could it be, to echo the beer commercials, that the airwaves are just a little cleaner up here?
With the recent news that Sony BMG Music Entertainment was fined US$10 million for paying stations in the U.S. to play their records, through money, gifts, and trips, and will halt its “pay for play” practices, it begs the question: is it happening in the Great (pure) White North?
“I can state unequivocally that in 25 years, nobody has even suggested anything remotely close to what people would call payola. Compared to what we see in the United States, Canada is pretty lily white,” says one of Canada’s most respected music programmers, Alan Cross of Corus’ The Edge in Toronto. “Honest to God, in 25 years of doing this, no one has ever offered me anything.”
Also nada from the artists’ point of view, even those desperate to get airplay. “I hear a lot of scuttlebutt. We speak to over 350 Canadian independent recording artists a day in this office and we’re pretty well-connected with the scene and we have not heard anything that resembles anything close to what we would consider inappropriate payola,” says Gregg Terrence, president of Indie Pool, the Toronto-based service that promotes independent Canadian artists.
Two solitudes There are probably two crucial differences in the Canadian and American radio music systems that preclude payola here: the lack of independent music promoters (a main catalyst in the United States for greasing the radio wheels, since they often have sales quotas to fill) and the presence of Canadian content regulations, which require close monitoring of what’s played.
It makes it near impossible for individual DJs to deviate from the playlist, no matter how tempting it may be to boost their often meagre paycheques. “We would notice if somebody started sticking some stuff in because we have to do logger configurations sometimes twice a day so we know when people aren’t sticking to the formula,” says Cross, program director for The Edge. “It’s very difficult in this day and age when things are so tightly controlled and so tightly monitored from a regulatory point of view and from a ratings point of view. It’s very difficult for anybody to bring in a record and start championing it on their own.”
Most big labels here have representatives in major cities that deal directly with broadcasters. “There’s really a non-story in Canada because we don’t have the independent record promoters. All the record companies that I deal with, and I deal with all of them, are above board,” Cross says.
At stations across North America, rotations are largely the domain of the managers, who keep a tight rein on things. “99% of all records that make it to air are controlled by the music director and the program director and there is no opportunity for an individual DJ to circumnavigate the system because we know what’s played,” Cross points out.
Besides, there are higher powers at play. “We’ve only got so much space on our playlist and we have a commitment to our listeners, our superiors, and our shareholders to do what’s in the best interest of the radio station from an artistic, legal, ethical, and moral point of view. Maybe I’m just the most naïve guy on the planet,” Cross ponders, “but it has never occurred to any of us to circumnavigate the system in any way.”
Corus has an added incentive for its employees to keep on the straight and narrow: a business code of conduct that would kick someone out the door in “20 seconds” if they were caught taking a bribe, Cross says.
Cozy relationship Still, no one’s a choirboy in the Canadian radio music biz. There is still a cozy relationship — Cross prefers to call it “symbiotic” and a “partnership” — between programmers and record labels. They need each other to succeed. And that can lead to some dicey arrangements.
“I think most people are comfortable with creative promotions and relationship building. I think that has to happen to a certain degree and there’s no way you can eliminate it,” says Terrence. “We hope it doesn’t go too far but we understand also that relationships are built between people and we can’t stop that from happening.”
It’s common practice, Cross says, for record labels to set up junkets for DJs, music journalists, and record retailers to fly to major cities to interview artists. “When they do pick up the tab, there is no obligation on our part to do anything. We can refuse to go, which we often do, because it doesn’t fit into our schedule or it does not suit our needs,” he says.
Many factors contribute to what gets played on air, including what consultants recommend, what others are playing, what consumers recognize, and, importantly, what artists are selling records. “Even if an artist is selling out [concerts in] 500-seat venues across Canada or the United States, if they are not selling [recordings], they will not receive airplay,” Terrence contends.
Post-Sony climate Even if there is no evidence of payola in Canada, record companies and broadcasters are still watching the Sony case with interest, and will likely proceed with their partnerships with some trepidation.
“What we’re going to probably see, and this is my guess, is that whenever we do the junkets, there will have to be a waiver saying, ‘We’re doing this as a business transaction, there is no obligation on the part of either party to do blah, blah, blah,’ just to sort of protect yourselves,” Cross surmises. “Right now it has been an unspoken thing. There has never in my experience been any problem and I have been on lots of them. I think what we’re just going to have to do is… put some policies and procedures into place so that if the auditors ever came along, we could have a paper trail or we could have documentation saying, ‘Look, this is above board and it was done with purely ethical business practices.’” |