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Over at the Tunecore blog, former Rykodisc President George Howard has a post up explaining how payola works today in the world of major labels and radio stationsAnd even though the labels keep getting dinged every decade or so for payola, the process never seems to change much, other than greater efforts to separate out the transactions so that the record labels can pretend that they're not bribing radio station employees, even though everyone knows that's exactly what's happening.Getting a song “added” to a station’s playlist to get a certain number of plays per week involves independent promoters (“indies”). These “indies” are first paid by the label. It’s important to note that the money the indies receive isn’t necessarily compensation paid directly to them for getting Program Directors to get a song played. Rather, they work more like an intermediary to pass the label’s money to the radio station. These indies, with the money paid to them from the labels, pay the radio station money for various listener give-aways, bumper stickers and so on. To top it off, these very same indies are often also paid a second time by the stations themselves as a consultant to advise the stations on what songs they should play. The majors are coming every week with money and new artists. Who would you prioritize if you were in the indie/radio station’s shoes?
