The Payola Scandals of the 1950s and 1960s

The payola scandals of the 1950s and 1960s spurred new federal regulations including Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules that deemed undisclosed pay or promise to pay for airplay illegal. Despite the fact that the practice of "pay for play" was not illegal and predates the existence of commercial radio altogether, the term payola, a portmanteau, from the words pay and Victrola was coined during these scandals and held a negative connotation. Albeit illegal now, payola has not been eradicated and corruption is still rampant in the music industries despite the new federal regulations that were put in place in the 1960s,

Pay for play came about as a method of increasing music sales after the enactment of the copyright laws of 1909 in which royalties were established for the sheet music and record industries. Shortly after the establishment of these laws, publishers began to pay Tin Pan Alley singers to promote new songs by performing them during public appearances. During this time, famous Vaudeville performers were given new songs to perform for free and were often paid to perform them while the lesser known performers paid for the right to perform the same songs. The publishers involved in this practice saw it as an advertising strategy knowing full well that when famous singers and musicians played their songs, music sales would increase. Paying for play became so common place that people turned song-plugging into a profession. Song-pluggers were originally pianists who worked in music stores to advertise new sheet music. Soon the profession would expand to include singers and other performers who were hired by publishers to travel around and perform their newest songs. Being an accepted and legal custom, pay for play became an integral part of the music industry and continued throughout the 1950s.

During the post-war era, payola hit an all time high. Not only was the tradition of pay for play an everyday occurrence; it became an expected way of doing business by both the record companies and the radio stations. The payola boom is attributed to many factors during the postwar era including "the emergence of rock 'n' roll, the introduction of the inexpensive 45 RPM single, radio's shift to Top 40 music once television commandeered drama, postwar prosperity, and the arrival of teenagers as an economic force" (Neira). With the emergence of affordable records, live performances lost out to recordings as the customary way to hear and promote music. Recording magnates were well aware that teenagers listened to the radio , loved Rock n' Roll and were a largely untapped group who possessed a great deal of disposable income, and they immediately turned their focus to giving them what they wanted(Neira).

While the old-line music publisher ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) ignored independent labels and small radio stations, a new upstart publisher, BMI (Broadcast Music Incorporated) hit the scene and began to use payola as a way to promote and distribute R&B, Blues and Country Music (Cowen, pp. 165-166). Even though ASCAP's music accounted for 70% of all music played on the radio, in 1953 they filed an antitrust suit against BMI claiming that they were trying to monopolize the airwaves by keeping ASCAP music from being played through the practice of payola (Cowen, p. 166). BMI avoided prosecution in this suit, but ASCAP began a campaign to turn the public at large against BMI in labeling their music as lewd, unskilled and a threat to Western values and they promised to restore the "good music of the past" (Cowen, 166). Independent record labels caught on to BMI's use of payola and used this practice to promote their own artists. These labels were signing and publishing the music of both black and white, R&B and Rock n' Roll performers who were completely unknown and in desperate need of exposure. With BMI and ASCAP controlling the airwaves, and having little influence of their own, independent labels had no other choice than to adopt the use of payola; it was simply the only way many of their artists would ever be heard. This practice elevated disc jockeys to position of the new middle men of music marketing and in exchange for spinning records on the air, these men received gifts, trips and large sums of cash.

The disc jockey personality grew in status with the emergence of Rock n' Roll in the 1950s. It was the R&B disc jockey, Allen Freed, who began to play this new music and subsequently coined the term Rock n' Roll. Freed is credited with the success of many new Rock n' Roll performers including Chuck Berry. In exchange for playing, thus promoting Berry's song "Maybellene" on the air, Freed received partial song writing credits to the song for which his estate continues to collect royalties to this day (Cowen, p. 167). During this time, 100 singles per week were being released and with a fixed amount of air time, Freed along with other disc jockeys cashed in promoting this new music. According to the Miami Herald, in May of 1959, almost fifty record labels spent an exorbitant $250,000 on a four-day convention where an estimated 2,000 disc jockeys were plied with "Booze, Broads and Bribes" (FFRC). With this convention taking place fresh on the heels of the quiz-show scandals, members of ASCAP convinced members of the Legislative Oversight Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives' Commerce Committee to launch an investigation into payola in the music industry. This investigation which only focused on payola for Rock n' Roll, R&B and Soul Music was part of ASCAP's campaign against BMI and those disc jockeys who promoted their music (Mazaheri). It was the downfall of some of the times most famous disc jockeys.

Payola, being legal at the time, was not the charge that brought down the iconic disk jockeys such as Alan Freed and Tommy Smalls rather it was the charge of commercial bribery. In 1960, these men were arrested, charged and convicted in the payola scandal which ultimately ended their careers as disc jockeys. Because these men promoted "black" music, they were prosecuted much more aggressively than their white counterparts, which was made quite clear by the fact that Dick Clark, whose infringements were much more conspicuous, was left unscathed