No Rock And Roll Fun

THE WORLD IS TURNING ON? YEAH, RIGHT...: Interesting piece in The LA Times over the payola scandal starting to bite Clear Channel on the butt in the US. Of course, its not payola straight; the 21st century version is a little more complicated. Independent Promoters plug records to the stations. At the same time, they buy "research" from the same stations. Of course, it's all unconnected - it's not like Clear Channel's stations are going to play records from the companies buying valueless research at top prices from them, is it? Clear Channel boss Mark Mays is a man you can trust:"We didn't think this up ourselves. They came to us and said, "Hey, listen. We want to buy research from you, buy all these different things and represent you to the record companies, and we'll pay you this amount of money." We said, "Well, sure, there's nothing wrong with that. It has nothing to do with any of our playlists." As a fiduciary obligation to our shareholders, we said it's a sound business practice; we will take the money." In fact, Clear Channel would much rather it didn't keep being given tonnes and tonnes of cash - about $13million - or so Mays says: "We've encouraged the record companies not to make these payments. I told them, "Please, don't make the payments." Why they continue to make the payments, I have no idea. But you know what? If we don't take that money the way that we're taking it, it scares me to death what they're going to pay and how they're going to try to influence people. We want the record companies to stop trying to influence and make payments to independent promoters. We're going to take the money as long as they're willing to pay it." See? They're doing a public service by taking that money, to save the nasty men from doing even nastier things.
Interestingly, one of the defences May makes - We've got a massive turnover, why would someone in our position take a risk for such a small sum of money? - is identical to the defence Richard 'Killman' Hillman made on last night's Coronation Street while he was holding Norris hostage. Also like Hillman, Clear Channel has a lot of money tied up and unreachable in property, and is bumping along atop a pile of almost overwhelming debt.
Is there anything we agree with Mays on? Mmmmmmaybe: "And then they [The record labels] scream about radio consolidation. Here's a business--radio--where the top 10 companies account for 44% of radio revenue. The top five companies in the record business, 85%. They scream about consolidation. That's the pot calling the kettle black.