Radio, document 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 biggest gathering of music trade 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 recognized for brief, is considered one of many such trade occasions that happen all over the world. As a daily attendee, I can inform you that the convention and related music pageant 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 have been so wild on the Second Annual Worldwide Radio Programming and Disk Jockey Conference in Might 1959 that High 40 radio and rock ‘n’ roll have been almost damaged without end.
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 most important names in radio together with reps from a half-dozen or so document labels. One visitor speaker was the rock-hating Mitch Miller of Columbia Data 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 taking part in this music and urged everybody to return to enjoying correct songs by artists comparable to Frank Sinatra and Lena Horne. He was an actual downer.
Organizer Todd Storz, one of many inventors of the High 40 radio format, determined to alter route 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 chance for folks concerned with the brand new High 40 rock ’n’ roll radio format to alternate concepts and to learn 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 regarded like some other trade gathering.
Not fairly.
This was a chance for 19 document labels and dozens of document males to wine and dine DJs — all of whom have been males, by the best way — in hopes of currying favour and affect over what data they performed on their radio exhibits again residence. They knew these males have been so highly effective and influential with their audiences that they may make or break songs. The lads on the air needed to be onside if anybody hoped to have a success document.
And the way did they plan to do this? By exhibiting them the very best 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. Massive singers and wannabe stars have 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 have 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 have been supplied numerous liquor and medicines. One celebration hosted by Morris Levy, the infamous head of Roulette Data, went by way of 2,000 bottles of bourbon. Hookers have been introduced in — even from abroad. Guarantees of money funds for future concerns have 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.
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Issues have been so outrageous that on the final day of the conference (Might 31, 1959), The Miami Information ran a narrative below 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 kind 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 might be accomplished about it. As we inform them on a regular basis, with out the disc jockeys, we’re useless.’”
This was dangerous — dangerous publicity. Payola — the observe of bribing somebody to play your music on the radio — had been round so long as business radio and wasn’t unlawful. Perhaps trade leaders didn’t prefer it, however what have been they going to do? The scandalous conduct in Miami opened the door to combating again. It wasn’t lengthy earlier than trade publications like Billboard, Selection, and Cashbox have been writing concerning 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 Purple 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, a giant authorities investigation revealed that widespread sport exhibits like Twenty One have been fastened in favour of sure contestants.
The next 12 months, there was the “plugola” disaster, the place the general public discovered that some celebrities endorsed services 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 sport exhibits, and the revelation that TV promoting was constructed on lies, Individuals discovered that every one the music they heard on the radio was purchased and paid for.
One thing wanted to be accomplished. And perhaps, thought some politicians, church teams, and old-school document folks, the scourge of rock ‘n’ roll could possibly be worn out on the similar time.
All through the summer time and fall of 1959, strain constructed on radio stations to do one thing about their DJs’ errant methods lest they lose their beneficial 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 have 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 largest names in radio have 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 below 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 almost $40,000.
One other particular person within the scorching seat was Tommy Smalls, a New York DJ who labored below 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 Data and in addition co-founded the Nationwide Affiliation of TV and Radio Announcers.
However man who skated essentially the most was Dick Clark. As a radio man and host of American Bandstand, he was within the thick of all the pieces that was occurring in rock ‘n’ roll. He held shares in seven indie labels, six music publishing corporations, three document distributers, two expertise companies, a document 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 change into considered one of America’s most beloved media personalities. When he died in 2012, his internet 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 document trade was basically modified. DJs have been now not allowed to pick what they performed on their exhibits. Administration — program administrators and music administrators — now made these choices.
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 normal in a way more environment friendly method.
Payola scandals blew up once more in 1974, the late Nineteen Eighties, and the ’90s. New York state settled some excessive profile circumstances introduced towards document 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 simply don’t discuss payola.
I do want to say this. I’ve been within the Canadian radio enterprise for almost 43 years, working at and working some fairly huge radio stations alongside the best way. I’ve by no means, ever been supplied something in alternate for taking part in a document. 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 method, 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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