The Payola Scandal

Before getting into the Payola scandal and explaining what happened, it is important to know what payola is first. In the music industry, payola is 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 of the normal day’s broadcast (Neira). A radio station can play a certain song in exchange for money, but the radio station must disclose this on the air as being sponsored airtime. The playing of the tune ought not to be considered as a “regular play” song. The term payola is the combination of “pay” and “-ola” a common suffix of product names in the early 20th century (“Payola”). It is more specifically a commercial bribe. The FCC, Federal Communications Commission, characterizes “payola” as an infringement of the sponsorship indetification rule that in 2005-2006 brought
Hit radio was a danger to the wages of “song-pluggers” (“Payola”). Radio hits likewise undermined old income streams. By the mid 1940s, seventy five percent of the records created in the USA went into jukeboxes (“Payola”). Free record organizations or music distributers regularly utilized payola to advance shake and move on American radio in the 1950s. It advanced social assorted qualities and DJs were less disposed to enjoy their own and racial predispositions (“Payola”). The Payola Scandal started in 1958 with the gameshow scandal. It all started when federal investigators uncovered that the popular NBC show “Twenty-One” and “$64,000 Question” were fixed (Neira). This problem ended up leading to investigating similar practices in radio. In January of 1960, the National Association of Broadcasters recommended that disc jockeys receiving payments from record labels for playing certain songs would be charged with a fine of $500 and spend a year in jail