[BC] Look for a very old Public Notice - 1975

[Donna Halper]

At 05:37 PM 2/3/2009, it was asked:
>>Might someone have or know where to find an electronic version of 
>>the FCC Public Notice released September 3, 1975 setting forth the 
>>Commission's 36 interpretations of Section 317 and Rule Section 
>>73.1212.  It deals with PAYOLA.

If you recall what station was accused, I can check my files.  I 
absolutely do recall how that game was played, since I was a music 
director back then and saw first-hand how record promoters worked 
with certain key top-40 stations to get records added.  I wasn't 
working at any top-40 stations at that time, but I knew many people 
who were involved, and I certainly saw how business was 
conducted.   Promoters got something called a "spiff" (a bonus) for 
every one of the key top-40 stations that added the record and 
reported it to Radio & Records.  Some of the music and program 
directors would not really add the song (a procedure called a "paper 
add"-- it was reported to R&R but never played) and they would split 
the bonus with the record promoter, or in some cases, the currency 
wasn't money-- it was cocaine or in one case, the record company made 
the PD's mortgage payment.

The losers in all of this were the artists from the smaller labels-- 
they suffered because the smaller labels couldn't buy their way onto 
the R&R charts or bribe PDs to give their songs a chance, whereas 
some of the big-name labels were able to easily manipulate their 
chart position due to this collusion between dishonest promoters and 
dishonest PDs. The honest PDs and MDs who only wanted to add records 
they believed in also were put at a disadvantage.  It was a very 
shady time in the record biz and in radio as well...