Under The Table
On the Media
WNYC Studios
4.6 • 8.7K Ratings
🗓️ 4 August 2022
⏱️ 15 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week’s podcast extra is about podcasts, but this story has its roots in the early days of rock 'n' roll. Alan Freed was a celebrity DJ on WINS in New York, famous for helping popularize the nascent genre through the 1950s. But, unbeknownst to his listeners, record promoters were secretly bribing Freed and other popular disc jockeys across the country for extra air time for their artists — in a rampant practice known as “payola,” which eventually caught the eye of regulators. In 1960, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) outlawed payola, requiring broadcasters to disclose any payments received. However, members of the music industry would continue to blow the whistle on similar behavior in the decades that followed.
According to Bloomberg reporter Ashley Carman, a similar culture of pay-to-play is taking hold in the world of podcasting. Her latest piece is titled, “Podcast Guests Are Paying Up to $50,000 to Appear on Popular Shows.”
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey podcast listeners, it's OTM correspondent Michael Onger. Brooksback, she's hosting the big show. |
| 0:06.5 | This week's podcast extra is about podcasts, but I want to start in the early days of Rock and Roll. |
| 0:13.5 | Hello everybody, how are y'all? This is yours, Julie Allen Freed. Get your dance and shoes on and |
| 0:17.3 | welcome to the Rock and Roll Dance Party! Allen Freed was a celebrity DJ on radio station called W-I-N-S in |
| 0:24.4 | New York, famous for helping popularize the nascent genre through the 1950s. Though members of the |
| 0:31.9 | music industry would continue to blow the whistle on similar behavior in the decades that followed, |
| 0:36.9 | and according to Bloomberg reporter Ashley Carmen, a culture of pay to play is taking hold now in the |
| 0:43.6 | world of podcasting. Her latest piece is titled, Podcast Guests Are Paying Up To 50,000 Dollars to |
| 0:50.3 | appear on popular shows. Ashley, welcome to On the Media. Thanks so much for having me. |
| 0:55.9 | I want to start with the Payola scandal, the original one, when this term and this notion of |
| 1:02.0 | corruption sort of first entered into our lexicon. Payola was a practice, particularly popular in |
| 1:08.6 | the record industry, where DJs accepted money to play records, and it really went on for a while |
| 1:14.8 | until the late 50s and 1960s when regulators scrutinized the practice. The Federal Communications |
| 1:21.2 | Commission, the FCC, outlawed the practice. Payola requiring broadcasters to disclose any payments |
| 1:28.5 | that they received from a client, like say, a record label. This is kind of like a bit of obscure |
| 1:34.7 | history. It is actually something that public radio stations like WNYC, the one that I work for, |
| 1:40.0 | drill into your head when you start working here. You have to sign paperwork as a new employee |
| 1:45.6 | saying that you will not participate in Payola. At least in modern journalistic |
| 1:50.9 | podcasting and public radio, there's a clear ethical standard that does not allow for this kind |
| 1:56.2 | of behavior. Yeah. And according to your recent reporting, this ethical standard isn't necessarily |
| 2:02.7 | shared by all the podcasters out there. Certain podcasts ask their guests to pay money in order to be |
| 2:13.2 | interviewed on the show or to kind of do a full takeover of the show in that there's no other ads |
... |
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