Payola rule

The Payola rule forbids radio and television from accepting any money in exchange for airing certain content, playing certain songs, mentioning items, discussing certain candidates, except to the extent that the financial sponsorship is disclosed to listeners and viewers.

As the FCC explains on its website, its rules and the Communications Act require that:

“

When a broadcast licensee has received or been promised payment for the airing of program material, then, at the time of the airing, the station must disclose that fact and identify who paid for or promised to pay for the material. All sponsored material must be explicitly identified at the time of broadcast as paid for and by whom, except when it is clear that the mention of a product or service constitutes sponsorship identification; Any broadcast station employee who has accepted or agreed to accept payment for the airing of program material, and the person making or promising to make the payment, must disclose this information to the station prior to the airing of the program; Any person involved in the supply, production or preparation of a program who receives or agrees to receive, or makes or promises to make payment for the airing of program material, or knows of such arrangements, must disclose this information prior to the airing of the program. Broadcast licensees must make reasonable efforts to obtain from their employees and others they deal with for program material the information necessary to make the required sponsorship identification announcements; The information must be provided up the chain of production and distribution before the time of broadcast, so the station can air the required disclosure; and These rules apply to all kinds of program material aired over broadcast radio and television stations. Some of the rules also may apply to cablecasts.

”

Definitions and history

The History Channel says:

... within the music business, Payola referred specifically to a practice that was nearly as old as the industry itself: manufacturing a popular hit by paying for radio play.

Bob Neira described payola as

the illegal practice of payment or other inducement by record companies for the broadcast of recordings on music radio, in which the song is presented as being part of the normal day's broadcast.

Cliff Doerksen wrote:

Pre-radio, the term "song plugger" was a part of everyday language, and the pay-for-play machinations of Tin Pan Alley were a well-known fact.

Payola has been a constant and universal part of the economy of popular music for about 125 years, and the likelihood that legislators will be able to do anything constructive about it is about as high as the odds of winning the war on drugs. It was old when ragtime was new, and it still will be going strong long after rock 'n' roll has died. Generations of reformers have gone up against payola—and those few who have accomplished anything lasting have succeeded only in making things worse.

The famous payola scandal of 1959 ... had little to do with payola per se and everything to do with rock 'n' roll and its sudden seizure of the ears, hearts, and minds of white middle-class youth.

See also

• song plugging
• quiz-show rigging