The notorious convention that nearly broke Top 40 radio forever – National

Radio, file individuals, podcasters, performers, and everybody who works behind the scenes are in Toronto for the forty second annual Canadian Music Week, June 2-8. It’s the most important gathering of music business folks anyplace within the nation.

Loads of schmoozing, deal-making, networking, award-giving, and knowledge-gathering will occur over the subsequent few days. CMW, because it’s recognized for brief, is one in all many such business occasions that happen world wide. As a daily attendee, I can inform you that the convention and related music competition are well-organized and orderly.

This, nevertheless, was not the case on the Americana Lodge in Miami Seashore sixty-five years in the past. Issues had been so wild on the Second Annual Worldwide Radio Programming and Disk Jockey Conference in Could 1959 that Prime 40 radio and rock ‘n’ roll had been practically damaged perpetually.

The story of what occurred in Miami Seashore started a yr earlier in Kansas Metropolis with The Pop Music Disc Jockey Conference and Radio Programming Seminar, the primary such occasion. It attracted the largest names in radio together with reps from a half-dozen or so file labels. One visitor speaker was the rock-hating Mitch Miller of Columbia Data who noticed this new rock ‘n’ roll factor as a scourge on tradition, society, and particularly the youth of America. He scolded the assembled group for taking part in this music and urged everybody to return to enjoying correct songs by artists akin to Frank Sinatra and Lena Horne. He was an actual downer.

Organizer Todd Storz, one of many inventors of the Prime 40 radio format, determined to alter course in 1959. The brand new venue was the Americana, proper on the seaside alongside 97th Avenue in Bal Harbor. This second conference was billed as a chance for individuals concerned with the brand new Prime 40 rock ’n’ roll radio format to trade concepts and to learn to make their applications and radio stations higher. There have been audio system, panels, and shows. President Dwight Eisenhower gave a filmed deal with. Robert King, the mayor of Miami, declared it “Disk Jockey Week” within the metropolis. On the floor, the conference regarded like another business gathering.

Not fairly.

This was a chance for 19 file labels and dozens of file males to wine and dine DJs — all of whom had been males, by the best way — in hopes of currying favour and affect over what information they performed on their radio exhibits again residence. They knew these males had been so highly effective and influential with their audiences that they may make or break songs. The boys on the air needed to be onside if anybody hoped to have a success file.

And the way did they plan to do this? By displaying them one of the best and craziest time of their lives.

About 2,500 DJs, about half the quantity working within the U.S., made the all-expenses-paid journey to Miami. Huge singers and wannabe stars had been there to mingle and be interviewed. Everybody bought limo rides from the airport. Upon check-in, everybody was given $1 million in play cash which they had been inspired to gamble on video games mounted so they might win. That cash may then be utilized in an public sale for actual merch like TVs, journeys to Europe, and even a model new Studebaker.

The DJs had been supplied numerous liquor and medicines. One celebration hosted by Morris Levy, the infamous head of Roulette Data, went by way of 2,000 bottles of bourbon. Hookers had been introduced in — even from abroad. Guarantees of money funds for future issues had been made. It was an extremely wild celebration that price the labels about US$120,000, which is value greater than US$1.1 million in as we speak’s cash.

Issues had been so outrageous that on the final day of the conference (Could 31, 1959), The Miami Information ran a narrative below the headline “For Deejays: Babes, Booze, and Bribes.” DJs, the article mentioned, “got the best buttering-up since Nero was persuaded he was a fiddle virtuoso. … One promotion man mentioned, ‘You should buy a few of them with an air conditioner; some with cash, some with a lady.’”

[A typical DJ salary at the time was $50 a week, so any grease was welcome].

The article continued: “‘I’d guess,’ mentioned one [promotion man], ‘that the payoffs to the disc jockeys in a single kind or one other run to nicely over $1,000,000 a yr. It’s a awful scenario, however I don’t see how something will be performed about it. As we inform them on a regular basis, with out the disc jockeys, we’re useless.’”

This was unhealthy — unhealthy publicity. Payola — the apply of bribing somebody to play your track on the radio — had been round so long as business radio and wasn’t unlawful. Perhaps business leaders didn’t prefer it, however what had been they going to do? The scandalous conduct in Miami opened the door to preventing again. It wasn’t lengthy earlier than business publications like Billboard, Selection, and Cashbox had been writing concerning the scourge of payola and the distortions it created within the market.

The tales of what occurred in Miami solely added to a rising disaster of confidence in America. After having to endure Joseph McCarthy’s Purple Scare earlier within the decade, one thing that shook America’s confidence of their leaders, the nation then needed to take care of the TV quiz present scandal. Within the late Fifties, a giant authorities investigation revealed that widespread recreation exhibits like Twenty One had been mounted in favour of sure contestants.

The next yr, there was the “plugola” disaster, the place the general public realized that some celebrities endorsed services and products which they didn’t use. It was all for the cash. This was branded as false, dishonest, and misleading promoting and wanted to be stopped.

After which, within the wake of duplicitous politicians spewing pretend information about commies in Washington, rigged recreation exhibits, and the revelation that TV promoting was constructed on lies, People realized that each one the music they heard on the radio was purchased and paid for.

One thing wanted to be performed. And perhaps, thought some politicians, church teams, and old-school file individuals, the scourge of rock ‘n’ roll could possibly be worn out on the identical time.

All through the summer season and fall of 1959, stress constructed on radio stations to do one thing about their DJs’ errant methods lest they lose their invaluable broadcast licences. Even earlier than the Home Particular Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight held hearings on the matter in late 1959 and early 1960, DJs throughout the nation had been fired due to their payola practices. Once more, whereas unethical was not unlawful, and one thing to which most turned a blind eye.

Among the largest names in radio had been known as to testify. Alan Freed, the person who gave this new music the title “rock ‘n’ roll” whereas working at WINS in New York, grew to become the sacrificial lamb. He was charged below New York State’s business bribery legal guidelines and fined $300. The conviction ruined his profession, sending him right into a spiral of alcoholism. He died broke in 1965, owing the IRS practically $40,000.

One other particular person within the scorching seat was Tommy Smalls, a New York DJ who labored below the title Dr. Jive. He wasn’t convicted of something, however he was pushed out of radio. He’d later make a comeback as a promotion supervisor with Polydor Data and likewise co-founded the Nationwide Affiliation of TV and Radio Announcers.

However man who skated essentially the most was Dick Clark. As a radio man and host of American Bandstand, he was within the thick of every part that was taking place in rock ‘n’ roll. He held shares in seven indie labels, six music publishing firms, three file distributers, two expertise businesses, a file urgent plant — 33 music-related firms in complete. He was in a position to escape any prosecution by promoting off all these pursuits. His clean-cut picture prompted committee chairman Oren Harris to name him “a effective younger man.” He went on to turn out to be one in all America’s most beloved media personalities. When he died in 2012, his web value was estimated at US$150 million.

After the hearings wrapped up in 1960, payola was formally declared against the law punishable by a effective of as much as $10,000 and a yr in jail. The American radio and file business was basically modified. DJs had been not allowed to pick what they performed on their exhibits. Administration — program administrators and music administrators — now made these choices.

The 1959 DJ conference was Todd Storz’s final such occasion. And the issue of payola was solved, proper? Nope. Loopholes within the new legal guidelines allowed funds to proceed however in much less blatant and extra secretive back-door methods. As an alternative of getting to take care of a number of DJs, their level of contact was decreased to only one or two individuals — this system director and/or music director — per station. Enterprise continued as ordinary in a way more environment friendly approach.

Payola scandals blew up once more in 1974, the late Nineteen Eighties, and the ’90s. New York state settled some excessive profile instances introduced in opposition to file labels and radio stations in 2005 and 2006. My contacts in U.S. radio inform me that variations of payola nonetheless exist as we speak. It’s simply that the primary rule of payola is that you simply don’t speak about payola.

I do want to say this. I’ve been within the Canadian radio enterprise for practically 43 years, working at and working some fairly large radio stations alongside the best way. I’ve by no means, ever been supplied something in trade for taking part in a file. I’ve by no means, ever heard of any existence of American-style payola on this nation. Not as soon as. We’re both super-squeaky clear up right here or I’m extremely naive.

Both approach, I by no means bought my free air conditioner.

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Alan Cross is a broadcaster with Q107 and 102.1 the Edge and a commentator for World Information.

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