[Lil' Hannah]

For decades, the major labels have controlled what's on the radio by paying radio stations to play their songs. Pay-for-play radio (aka "payola") means that independent labels can't get their music on mainstream radio and mediocre major label music gets on the radio just because somebody's paying.

Legislative efforts to end the practice have failed consistently. Payola is illegal, but labels simply skirt the law by paying third-party "independent promoters" to pay radio stations. As long as the major labels continue to have huge amounts of money to throw into radio promotion, we'll always have pay-for-play. But we can take the money out of the system. If we stop paying for major label music, we can stop payola.

From downhillbattle.org

A new investigation into the issue of payola in the music industry has been launched by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. In September, each of the four global record labels -- EMI, Warner Music Group, Universal and Sony-BMG -- received subpoenas seeking e-mails, contracts and other correspondence between the labels and independent promoters, the middlemen who labels pay to push singles to radio stations.

From Rolling Stone