The notorious convention that nearly broke Top 40 radio forever – National | 24CA News
Radio, report folks, 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 people wherever within the nation.
Plenty 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 among many such business occasions that happen world wide. As an everyday 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 Hotel in Miami Beach sixty-five years in the past. Things have been so wild on the Second Annual International Radio Programming and Disk Jockey Convention in May 1959 that Top 40 radio and rock ‘n’ roll have been practically damaged perpetually.
The story of what occurred in Miami Beach started a yr earlier in Kansas City with The Pop Music Disc Jockey Convention and Radio Programming Seminar, the primary such occasion. It attracted the most important names in radio together with reps from a half-dozen or so report labels. One visitor speaker was the rock-hating Mitch Miller of Columbia Records 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 enjoying this music and urged everybody to return to taking part in correct songs by artists reminiscent of Frank Sinatra and Lena Horne. He was an actual downer.
Organizer Todd Storz, one of many inventors of the Top 40 radio format, determined to alter path in 1959. The new venue was the Americana, proper on the seaside alongside 97th Street in Bal Harbor. This second conference was billed as a possibility for folks concerned with the brand new Top 40 rock ’n’ roll radio format to trade concepts and to learn to make their packages 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 seemed like some other business gathering.
Not fairly.
This was a possibility for 19 report labels and dozens of report males to wine and dine DJs — all of whom have been males, by the best way — in hopes of currying favour and affect over what data they performed on their radio exhibits again dwelling. They knew these males have been so highly effective and influential with their audiences that they might make or break songs. The males on the air needed to be onside if anybody hoped to have a success report.
And how did they plan to try this? By exhibiting them the perfect 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. Big singers and wannabe stars have been there to mingle and be interviewed. Everyone bought limo rides from the airport. Upon check-in, everybody was given $1 million in play cash which they have been inspired to gamble on video games fastened so they’d 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 have been supplied numerous liquor and medicines. One occasion hosted by Morris Levy, the infamous head of Roulette Records, went by 2,000 bottles of bourbon. Hookers have been introduced in — even from abroad. Promises of money funds for future concerns have been made. It was an extremely wild occasion that value the labels about US$120,000, which is value greater than US$1.1 million in right this moment’s cash.
Things have been so outrageous that on the final day of the conference (May 31, 1959), The Miami News ran a narrative beneath the headline “For Deejays: Babes, Booze, and Bribes.” DJs, the article stated, “were given the greatest buttering-up since Nero was persuaded he was a fiddle virtuoso. … One promotion man said, ‘You can buy some of them with an air conditioner; some with money, some with a girl.’”
[A typical DJ salary at the time was $50 a week, so any grease was welcome].
The article continued: “‘I would guess,’ said one [promotion man], ‘that the payoffs to the disc jockeys in one form or another run to well over $1,000,000 a year. It’s a lousy situation, but I don’t see how anything can be done about it. As we tell them all the time, without the disc jockeys, we’re dead.’”
This was dangerous — dangerous publicity. Payola — the follow of bribing somebody to play your music on the radio — had been round so long as business radio and wasn’t unlawful. Maybe business leaders didn’t prefer it, however what have 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, Variety, and Cashbox have been writing in regards to 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 Red 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. In the late Fifties, a giant authorities investigation revealed that common sport exhibits like Twenty One have been fastened in favour of sure contestants.
The following yr, there was the “plugola” disaster, the place the general public realized that some celebrities endorsed services 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.
And then, within the wake of duplicitous politicians spewing faux news about commies in Washington, rigged sport exhibits, and the revelation that TV promoting was constructed on lies, Americans realized that each one the music they heard on the radio was purchased and paid for.
Something wanted to be accomplished. And possibly, thought some politicians, church teams, and old-school report folks, the scourge of rock ‘n’ roll may very well be worn out on the identical time.
Throughout 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 worthwhile broadcast licences. Even earlier than the House Special Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight held hearings on the matter in late 1959 and early 1960, DJs throughout the nation have been fired due to their payola practices. Again, whereas unethical was not unlawful, and one thing to which most turned a blind eye.
Some of the most important names in radio have been referred to 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 beneath 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.
Another individual within the sizzling seat was Tommy Smalls, a New York DJ who labored beneath 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 Records and in addition co-founded the National Association of TV and Radio Announcers.
But man who skated probably the most was Dick Clark. As a radio man and host of American Bandstand, he was within the thick of every thing that was taking place in rock ‘n’ roll. He held shares in seven indie labels, six music publishing firms, three report distributers, two expertise companies, a report urgent plant — 33 music-related firms in complete. He was capable of escape any prosecution by promoting off all these pursuits. His clean-cut picture prompted committee chairman Oren Harris to name him “a fine young man.” He went on to grow to be one among 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 a criminal offense punishable by a effective of as much as $10,000 and a yr in jail. The American radio and report business was basically modified. DJs have been now not allowed to pick out what they performed on their exhibits. Management — program administrators and music administrators — now made these selections.
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. Instead of getting to take care of a number of DJs, their level of contact was diminished to only one or two folks — this system director and/or music director — per station. Business continued as ordinary in a way more environment friendly method.
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 report labels and radio stations in 2005 and 2006. My contacts in U.S. radio inform me that variations of payola nonetheless exist right this moment. It’s simply that the primary rule of payola is that you just don’t speak about payola.
I do want to say this. I’ve been within the Canadian radio business 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 enjoying a report. 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.
Either method, 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 Global News.
Subscribe to Alan’s Ongoing History of New Music Podcast now on Apple Podcast or Google Play
