Quote:
Originally posted by Lil' Hannah
These huge media congomerates are horrible for radio because they're playing whatever record labels pay them to play, not what they think is good.
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If you can prove that, you can cause some big trouble. That's illegal. Unless they announce that they've been paid and log the music as a commercial.
There were "payola" scandals during the 50's and 60's because DJ's were being paid to "hype" certain records.
What is true is that some media conglomerates like Clear Channel and Infinity own other types of entertainment entities and may try to influence their owned stations to feature them.
That's a subtle, but distinct, difference -- but probably not illegal. It's kind of like ABC playing a lot of Disney product or UPN playing a lot of Paramount movies and shows because of their ownership.
Please don't misunderstand -- centralization of media control is not something I'm defending. I don't like it much. But to claim that record companies are paying stations (if they don't own them) is a pretty serious accusation.