Corruption in the music industry

NY Times: Radio Payoffs Are Described as Sony Settles.

To disguise a payoff to a radio programmer at KHTS in San Diego, Epic Records called a flat-screen television a "contest giveaway." Epic, part of Sony BMG Music Entertainment, used the same tactic in delivering a laptop computer to the program director of WRHT in Greenville, N.C. - who also received PlayStation 2 games and an out-of-town trip with his girlfriend.

In another example, a Sony BMG executive considered a plan to promote the song "A.D.I.D.A.S." by Killer Mike by sending radio disc jockeys one Adidas sneaker, with the promise of the second one when they had played the song 10 times.

The gifts, described in a $10 million settlement with Sony BMG that was announced yesterday by New York's attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, exemplify what Mr. Spitzer called a broad effort by the recording industry to curry favor with radio station programmers in exchange for their promises to play specific songs.

The focus of Mr. Spitzer's inquiry is now expected to shift to the other three major record companies - Vivendi Universal, the Warner Music Group and the EMI Group - and the radio companies whose employees have accepted gifts in exchange for playing songs. Mr. Spitzer's investigators have served subpoenas on several radio companies, including Clear Channel Communications and Emmis Communications.

"This is not a pretty picture; what we see is that payola is pervasive," Mr. Spitzer said, using a term from the radio scandals of the 1950's in describing e-mail messages and corporate documents that his office obtained during a yearlong investigation. "It is omnipresent. It is driving the industry and it is wrong."

As part of the deal, Sony BMG acknowledged "that various employees pursued some radio promotion practices on behalf of the company that were wrong and improper, and apologizes for such conduct."

Oh, please. This behavior is endemic, it's epidemic, it's a scandal, and it's been happening for decades.