Fine. My point is this. If anyone is paying them (with the possible exception of their owners) and they aren't logging and reporting it as commercial content, I believe it is illegal.

In the case you note in both links, the pay for play situation was clearly noted as such.

"Last February, KUFO accepted payment from Interscope Records to play "Counterfeit" in a federally approved pay-for-play arrangement that requires the station to run a disclaimer before or after the song that makes note of the track's sponsor."

As I said, there is a subtle, but very distinct difference. I took your original post to mean that all radio stations are being paid for playing a lot of their music. This appears to be a single situation which was done above board.

OK that's good. Well in that case y'all enjoy your salsa and that enrique inglesias stuff.

-Rudey

I'm pretty shocked about this too. I wonder if El Zol is going to do any better than HFS did. All I know is that I won't be listening to it!

I tried to sign the online petition, but it says you have to be a Maryland resident... I'm a VA resident. Oh well. I'm not sure I believe a petition is going to do any good anyway.

Commercial radio is a "for profit" business. If the station didn't have the "numbers" (broadcastspeak for ratings), no amount of signatures on a petition will help.

Ratings = Dollars.

ETA that reading the trade magazines, Hispanic (Spanish) stations are probably the fastest growing formats at this point in time.

I don't think it will, sadly. They've had poor ratings for several years...

Hence, large labels paying third-party marketing agencies for airtime for singles as well as trading airtime for appearances at shows and festivals. This has all happened "above-board" for years, and you know it.

It's a joke, but it's not technically illegal, so we watch it ruin radio. Delt, you can't even fake that this doesn't happen.

Yeah, that's what I hear. But I had no idea they were doing that badly, what with the turnout they always get at HFStival. I've never been, and now I guess I never will.

I feel really bad for the employees though. I don't think it was fair not to give them any warning. I hear that the excuse is that Infinity didn't want it to leak that the station was changing its format... but why did it need to be a secret anyway? I think it actually would have been nice to give the public a warning too. It was probably weird as hell for people listening to the morning show yesterday to hear an abrupt change to Latin music at 10am. I mean that is why everybody thought it was a joke at first... because it just completely blindsided everybody.

The following is from the Federal Communications Commission website, explaining the Communications Act of 1934 as amended by the Communications Act of 1996.

I could not get this to copy, so please excuse any typos.

"Section 317 of the Communications Act, as amended, requires broadcasters to disclose that matter has been broadcast in exchange for money, service or other valuable consideration. the announcement must be made when the subject matter is broadcast. The Commission has adopted a rule, which sets forth the broadcasters' responsibilities for sponsorship identification.

Section 507 of the Communications Act, as amended, requires that when anyone pays someone to include program matter in a brodcast, the fact of payment must be disclosed in advance of the broadcast to the station over which the matter is to be carried. Both the person making the payment and the recipient are obligated to disclose the payment so that the station may make the sponsorship identification announcement required by Section 317 of the Act. Failure to disclose such payments is commonly referred to as "payola" and is punishable by a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than one year or both. These criminal penalties bring violations within the purview of the Department of Justice.

Thus, for example, if record companies or their agents pay broadcasters to play records on the air, those payments are legitimate if the required sponsorship identification message is aired. If it is not aired as required by the Communications Act and the Commission's rules, the broadcast station will be subject to enforcement action.

If record companies, or their agents, are paying persons other than the licensee to have records aired, and not disclosing that fact to the licensee, the person making such payments, and the recipient, are subject to fine, imprisonment or both."

To reiterate my comments above, if this is being done, it's illegal.

El Zol is horrible. It has this grainy miserable sound to it. HFS had huge bandwidth, and there's no reason for the music to sound that terrible......


I have read several articles that mention that promotors (including the owner of 9:30 who partially put on HFStival last year) are looking into keeping the event if there is enough interest. I was there in 96 and 97 and it was an amazing time, at RFK in the sunshine. But that was back before they made all these crazy rules about no bringing anything into the stadiums and what have you. I can't imagine I would have any fun today between that and the fact that the only people who go to HFStival anymore have an average age of 18.


Good times, good times. I wish Infinity had allowed for the station to leave a better legacy and have a more classy exit. It would have been nice to know/say good-bye. HFS = high school for me.



eta = my boyfriend just sent me this:

http://www.hfstival.com/

Fox News reported that there is a protest being planned for Saturday at the Asylum studio in DC at 819 7th Street @ 11am - I have no further information on this.

http://www.petitiononline.com/991hfs/petition.html

He was on HFS at one point, though. As was the Greaseman.

They were both on DC101, not HFS.

Rudey
Don't be too relieved because Howard is going off the air next year and going to Sirius Satelite Radio. You will have to pay for the service to hear him. It really sucks because I love listening to Howard.

You're right.