(Poor & famous book)

EVERY artiste’s wish worldwide is to have their music on rotation on radio. Although new multi-media technology has provided us with other avenues on which to play music, public radio’s power has never diminished. You still need to have your music played on the radio. There is still no better way for a marketer to market music than to get it heard.

A very common question is: who decides what plays on the radio? Well, every radio station has its own modus operandi. For radio stations in Zimbabwe, producers are in charge of the playlist. They decide what the DJ will play, but the vast majority of the DJs are their own producers. They are called producer/presenters so they decide what to play but they have to write down the playlist (what they call a compilation sheet) and present it to the chief or executive producer for verification. It is the same sheet that will be presented to Zimbabwe Music Rights Association (ZIMURA), which is the collecting society for composers’ royalties in Zimbabwe.

In the western world, they have a slightly different way of doing things. The majority of radio presenters do not make decisions on what to play and this has been the case for many years. It is the duty of program directors (PDs) that create playlists and direct the presenter on what to play and when to play it. The presenter’s duty would be creating the narratives accompanying the music, but not choosing what to play and when to play it. Some of the program directors choose music to put on their playlists based on mainstream media and social media hype. A song might be picked because it is creating a lot of buzz on the internet, it has gathered thousands of hits on YouTube, it is being requested a lot by listeners on the radio or it is being frequently shared on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social networking sites.

In the case of Zimbabwe, it could be the most requested song in the public transport system. When Zimdancehall came along, it was massively advertised in public transport vehicles known as kombis. At first, the passengers would complain until they got used to it. That was how it became popular and people started requesting the music on the radio.

Payola

Payola is the act of paying media outlets money or other compensation to get airplay and media coverage. Payola is a contraction of “pay” and “Victrola” (a kind of gramophone used particularly in the 1920s and 1930s). Payola has been around as long as the record business. It has long been an accepted, open secret. In the USA, they say the concept is woven into the very fabric of American pop culture. From the time radio started operating, there have been stories of record labels paying radio DJs or whoever was in charge of the playlists money so that their products received more airplay. Payola does not come in monetary form only. It is said that in the USA in the 1950s, DJs were either paid cash bribes or presented with fur coats (gifts for their wives) and in the 1970s and 1980s, station directors were supplied with drugs and prostitutes.

One of the earliest stories was centered on rock & roll music and it fingered out the man responsible for the very name of the music — Alan Freed. He was the top dog for a white radio station who was said to have been paid to promote Chuck Berry’s music on his station, propelling Chuck Berry to stardom and making rock music acceptable to white audiences. It is said he accepted payola payments.

Payola was, however, officially outlawed in 1960 and Freed was charged with 26 counts of commercial bribery. He was fined, given a suspended sentence, and lost his television show. His radio show was canceled and he was rendered unemployable because no one wanted to be associated with him after the scandal. He died at 43 on January 20, 1965. It is said he died penniless and alone.

Although it is illegal, it is believed major record labels worldwide are involved in these dealings. In the USA, it is believed that this is the reason why artists that are not signed to major record labels find it hard to succeed no matter how good their music is, but since the deals are illegal, it is difficult to verify or to get evidence. But over the past decade alone, Sony BMG, Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group, and other companies have reportedly paid millions of dollars in fines for breaching payola regulations.

There are cases when a type of payola is accepted, for example when Canadian Pop rocker Avril Lavigne released the song, Don’t Tell Me, it was given massive airplay on Nashville radio station, WQZQ-FM, and other stations because Arista Records paid the stations to play the song as an advertisement. It is legal to do so as long as the station mentions the label’s sponsorship on air, with an introduction such as “And now, Avril Lavigne’s Don’t Tell Me,’ presented by Arista Records.”

In Zimbabwe, our big record labels used to buy prime time on radio to promote new music, but paying a radio presenter or doing so for his own personal use for the purpose of airplay is illegal although very difficult to control.

In most western countries the power to choose what to play was removed from DJs and given to program directors, but that made payola simpler in that, instead of paying many DJs it was easier to pay program directors because at times it is a single PD who has the final say on the playlist of the whole station. Authors Fredrick Dannem and Marc Eliot wrote the books Hitmen: Power Brokers and Fast Money Inside the Music Industry and Rocknomic respectively in which they reveal the hidden secrets behind payola in the western world.

Payola in Zimbabwe

In Zimbabwe, during the era of major record labels, there were many stories and theories too. In Zimbabwe radio presenters are not issued playlists, they are the ones who decide what to play, so it is rumored that some of them received payouts from major record companies during that era, some theories say a few of them who were deemed very influential and popular were privately put off the record label wage lists, so they received salaries. As a result, the record labels dictated to them what to play and what not to play, how the top ten or top twenty charts were supposed to be run, and also to speak favorably of their musicians. It is also alleged that in the 1990s some of the most influential popular DJs were presented with flashy sports cars, and when color televisions came around, they were also given TVs as payola. It is also alleged that some rich musicians also get involved in payola deals with DJs.

While the common payola is paid for the favorable airplay of one’s music, there is a different type of payola too, where it is alleged certain artists can also pay so that their rivals do not get favorable airplay and reviews. Again it is an allegation you will hear of the whole world over, but very difficult to obtain evidence. Although in many developed countries there have been arrests, payola remains very difficult to investigate so the bulk of the stories remains theories and accusations without proof. Unlike in the USA, South Africa and other countries, no such cases have ever resulted in legal proceedings or convictions in Zimbabwe, but payola is alive and well.

Payola in South Africa

In South Africa, like everywhere else in the world, they also have a payola problem. In 2016, a program called Checkpoint on the eNCA News channel conducted an investigation and established that artists in South Africa offer to play for free at radio station events and offer money and gifts in return for airplay but the most wanted gift is money. They discovered that some DJs demand from R500 to R3000. A music promoter who spoke on anonymity said it was difficult to promote artists who do not pay payola to DJs. He said payola becomes cheaper once the artiste has established a good working relationship with the DJs. Checkpoint then created a fake artiste who they called DJ Phantom and asked a producer to create a song for them and visited Irvin Kekana at Ikwekwezi Fm. He was not happy with the R500 payment he was offered and said he usually charged R3000. He accepted the money and the song was played a week later on September 18, 2016. When the story was broadcast, Kekana resigned. Eugene Mtetwa from the South African Music Industry Council said artists who do not pay payola are also very unlikely to be nominated for awards because their music will not get exposure. He said it was the reason why some not very talented artists are given awards in South Africa. So, proof or no proof, the truth of the matter is that payola is there, will always be there and it will always be difficult to control.

From the book Poor & Famous chapter 17.

Author: Clive”Mono” Mukundu, Edited by Philip Chidavaenzi & Bernadette Mari-Deve

Monolio publications, Harare, Zimbabwe 2018