(excerpts from a Reuters article, see link below for full article)

Clear Channel Communications Inc. said on Wednesday it would sever ties to promoters paid by record labels to pitch songs after critics in Congress questioned whether the practice amounted to selling airplay.

Clear Channel, which owns some 1,200 radio stations, has been a lightning rod for criticism that promoters were using payments to influence what songs were played, in a throwback to the "payola" scandals of the 1950s and 1960s.

The federal payola statute was enacted about 40 years ago, prohibiting radio stations from accepting money for playing songs without disclosing that information to listeners. In an effort to side-step the anti-payola law, record companies began hiring and paying so-called "independent" promoters who pay broadcasters annual fees they say are not tied to airplay of specific songs.

The practice has flourished since the 1980s, but labels had recently complained about inflated promotion fees and weakened influence. Radio consolidation also enabled companies like Clear Channel to narrow the practice to a few promoters. In January, San Antonio-based Clear Channel executives defended the company's ties to independent promoters, telling a U.S. Senate committee its radio playlists were driven by listener tastes and audience research.

Hilary Rosen, chairman and chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of America, said the move was a win for music fans, artists, radio stations and record labels. "This issue has been a sore spot for artists and record labels for quite some time. It is great to see that Clear Channel is exercising leadership in a positive direction and that they recognize there is a better formula for industry partnerships that deliver new music to fans," she said.

Others praised the move, saying it could diversify radio play and lower expenses for record companies and artists.

"You had these third parties controlling to a degree the destiny of the artists and the record labels," said Jay Cooper, an entertainment lawyer. "This should eliminate a big expense that is charged back to the artists," he said.

The fact that Clear Channel is distancing itself from independent promoters sends an important message that something is wrong with the current system, said Michael Bracy, spokesman with the Future of Music Coalition, a Washington-based nonprofit focused on the music industry.

"This entire system is rife with corruption and needs to be overhauled," Bracy said.
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Editors note: On Jan 30, 2003 Lowry Mays, the CEO of Clear Channel, testified in front of the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee Chaired by Sen. John McCain, that Clear Channel did not accept payment for promotion or to add songs to playlists. So now they agree to stop doing what they say they never did. Also interesting is that the lobbyist for Clear Channel says it will cost them about $15 million a year in income, but yet the RIAA says it will save the recording industry $100 million a year. Where is that other $85 Million? Another question that begs to be answered, that has gone totally ignored by the mainstream press, is "How the hell are you going to stop the labels from paying?" All they had to do was stop paying. It's all "Smoke and Mirrors" folks. They created the situation, to stop it all they had to do was to stop paying, but CHOSE NOT TO. If you think that this will stop the practice of "Payola by Proxy", I have some swamp land and a bridge for sale, really, really cheap...
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Read the Entire Article at Reuters
Listen to the Jan 30th hearing on boycott-riaa.com

This what i call a Monopoly or a Trust the same thing Bill Gates was punished for. (1200 radio stations)

"This entire system is rife with corruption and needs to be overhauled," Bracy said

...

dunt think therez much more u really need to add to that...

I concur.

Hilary steps up and tries to take the credit and she apparently brought the Really Incompetent Accountants Association with her to illustrate more record label math.

Don Henley had to violate his contract to testify.

No wonder there were no payola hearings. Someone evidently beat a confession out of Clear Channel.

**Don Henley had to violate his contract to testify.**

Geez, was THAT why Rod Stewart, when he was tagging along whith Clive Davis at the time the latter made the rounds of the TV shows talking about slumping CD sales, didn't say a word? Because to speak about the issue would've violated HIS contract?

Part of almost every major label contract is that they can not discuss or show their royalty statment to anyone or disclose it's contents to anyone other than their immediate business requirements. (Managers, lawyers, accountants)

Bill Gates was punished?

Playlists are determined by listener tastes? That's the biggest load of crap I've heard since Clinton said he didn't have an affair. I know for a fact that playlists are not determined by listener tastes at either Clear Channel or independent stations. I used to call in to my local independent station 'cause I knew the DJ and he'd let me listen in and people would call in with all kinds of requests and he'd say "Ok" but laugh after hanging up saying they couldn't play those songs. And one night he did a "Make it or Break it" deal with Bon Jovi's "It's My Life" and it lost by one vote, mainly due to another friend of mine (I never let her forget it either when the album went sold tons) but they ended up playing it anyway. But, it could be said that they do listen to their audience because now the station only plays kiddie crap and rap music. That's why I was forced to switch to the Clear Channel station.

Another beef I have with Clear Channel is that when their rock format was on another station, they used to have a program called "Mandatory Metallica" every night at 10 (ok, shoot me, I like Metallica despite their stance on downloading), but when Clear Channel bought out the local independent Country station, they moved the rock format to that station and shipped "Mandatory Metallica" off to a Virginia station that I can't even pick up unless I'm in a certain area. The old rock station is now used as a "Classic" station. They did play classic country at first, but now they play classic rap (didn't know there was such a thing)

It's true about how ridiculous it is how many stations Clear Channel owns. Five stations alone in my market are Clear Channel, plus another 2 or three in Charlotte that I can pick up. And similar formats are not the same. My local rock station plays mostly classic rock, and a few new things, but the Charlotte station plays mostly new stuff with a smattering of classic rock. That's just ridiculous. I shouldn't have to listen to a station in another city, that's not always easy to tune in to listen to what I want to. I say down with Clear Channel and return to the old days when there were no playlists just a real DJ and a request line.

clear channel cutting all ties with independant promoters? pbhht.. i don't buy it.

thumbtack, Is Clear Channel's owner named Lowry Mays or Mark Mays? The Reuters story says Mark Mays. Your quote says Lowry Mays. I've seen it both ways in the press.

Is one of them an evil twin?

clear channel owns practically every rock station that i have listened to in florida...to tell if what your listening to is owned by clear channel....just wait for mandatory metallica....if the station is owned by clear channel then they play it

thumbtack did answer my question, but he missed it here.

Lowry Mays is the Chairman and CEO. Mark Mays is his son and heads Clear Channel radio.

Clear channel can just pass the blame to the stations. The DVDCCA used a similar trick to avoid blame for putting unskippable adverts into DVDs - "What, us? Sure, we included it in the DVD standard, but its the studios that have to enable the feature".

i smell something coming from the barn, near the bulls... oh that's right, it's A LOAD OF B.S.! there's a motive to this, and it's not to get more listeners to their music (if you can call it that)... i'll bet it's to fend off of defend themselves against a much larger inquiry coming their way...

question for haydenswall or thumbtack (or anyone else that might have an idea)... if clear channel corp. says 'we'll stop taking money from indie promoters', can the ***individual stations*** take money? if so, how long would it be until a few hundred of them banded together to create a group able to demand money from indie promoters as before?

Yea That's what I call it he sure wasn't prosecuted.(Bill Gates)his punishment was to supply all school in the USA with computers now that is chump change for Bill.

Go to any Major radio station and they will tell you and i quote "Our music comes pre-packaged we don't have any control over the music" Now that's what they told me. And i said "You know that is illegal don't you!"and the sob just shrugged his shoulder. I say we start blowing up fucking radio stations!

You can tell that the radio stations don't pick the music. Why else would they play the same music over and over and over and over again. When Brittany Spears or N-Suck comes out with a new song it got played every hour on the hour. No one in their right mind would do that. It actually overkills the song and makes me NOT want to buy the cd in fear that it will never go away! We had an independant station come up here where I live and people started listning to it (they played club/rap/techno music) and people liked it. They even played local artists.. Then they all the sudden dissapeared! The radio stations dont make all that money from commercials and visits do you know that to have them come to your buisness can cost you $800 or more!?! anyways.. Only the record labels would be dumb enough to cram songs down our throats every hour of the day (try switching stations.. the same song will be on sometimes!) And youd have to pay me big time to push the crap these puppets are singing now-a-days... whatever happend to the long-haired rock band days! I think the music industry has SOLD OUT! and im fed up.. pit farting on a snare drum is more entertaining than listning to this overrated so called "pop" music.

Barockhill, I understand completely how you feel. I actually remember one time when one of the local Clear Channel stations played the same song back to back! I kid you not, I heard it play and then as soon as it finished, they played it again! I was like "What the Hell?" I actually timed the station once and they would play one song every 30 minutes. One day when I was younger, I'd take my radio outside when I'd shoot some hoops and actually heard one song three times while I played. And I only played for about an hour. And it was a Bonnie Raitt song.

These days, all the independent station plays are songs that feature Ja Rule in the background. It's like every song they played featured him somehow. And Britney, Justin or Christina are always on there singing about getting laid so I finally said "Forget this" and switched the station. I mean, c'mon, the station caters to mostly 12 year olds and they're putting songs on there talking about sex. No wonder my 12 year old neice is already sexually active. And disrespectful (no thanks to Eminem).

I actually had an idea of starting a real station. All it really takes is an FCC license to make it legal. Since we know radio stations don't pay royalties it would be really easy. Someone said let's blow up the radio stations? Why not do like they did in the movie "Airheads" and take over the flippin' stations and play what we want. And if everyone everywhere could manage to do this at the same time, taking over every format, the RIAA would be powerless. Naturally they'd try to brand us all as 'pirates' but then the station owners themselves would most likely speak up and say "Well, hey, we don't have to pay to play the music so shouldn't you brand us 'pirates' as well?"

It's a good plan, but would require a ton of organizing. Timetables and such. Any ideas?

Yeah interrupt their Broadcasting ways kind of like a cable channel that is local.Remember Wayne's World I know it sound funny but it can be easily done and you know what they don't own Air waves. They would think that their crap is going out and it would be a different signal.And guess what there is nothing they can do about it either! It is just a frequency kind of like short wave radio. The Public owns the airwaves not clear channel