Im just curious how this works!
I realize the days of payola are gone, BUT how does it work when a station decides to play a single first that no other stations are playing???
Lets say a PD feels really strong about a song and wants to start playing it, BUT no other station in the country is playing it.
Can he just throw it on and start playing it.??? I remember KUFO was the first station in the country to play LIMP BIZKIT( too bad it was such a crappy band) but regardless, they stepped out on a limb and started playing them on the radio when nobody was.
Suddenly every rock station in the country started playing Limp Bizkit and they became famous. How much freedom does a music director really have??? ANd Im not talking about Clear Channel stations.

Limp Bizkit on KUFO was the result of payola.

http://wweek.com/___ALL_OLD_HTML/cover041598.html

Present the song. Wrap it around hits. Create a buzz about the song.

That was a really interesting article, the whole payola thing is insane. I love this comment.There are two reasons Numme has become, in some circles, radio's answer to Dennis Rodman. First is the widespread belief that Numme picked a song that's so bad, his only incentive could have been cash ("You Gotta Have Faith," page 23). Second, Numme openly breached the unwritten rule that radio stations should play what listeners want to hear, not something that a record company was desperate enough to pay for.

Thats interesting about Limp Bizkit, So you could acquire Dave Numme to their success. WIthout KUFO Limp Bizkit never would have broken out to the mainstream.

More important is that they quoted the payola king of PDX, Constantine. What a joke.

I like this quote from Mr. Numme.

Numme explains. "It's about the record guy pulling up to the back of the station and unloading a bunch of cash or a hooker and some blow and giving it to a DJ at night and having them play the record.

HMMMM Some Blow, and a hooker for the night, JUST FOR PLAYING some tracks off a new album?
Talk about some interesting times to be in radio.
I wonder how many artists from the 60's and 70's became famous from Payola??? And I wonder how many pregnancies came out of those late night payola deals.

One of the easiest ways to ID payola/plugola hits to see which songs research out later as very unpopular or unfamiliar. If a record was top 10 by a relatively unknown/one-hit artist, and repeatedly tests horribly with the appropriate demo across multiple markets and years -- it becomes obvious that it wasn't a hit because the listeners liked it.

I notice the date of this article. Ancient history, 1998. I will say that I know of a "situation " that involved an OPS mgr/PD at a then Clear Channel property about 1999 or 2000. There was a termination of two principles, the OPS person first and eventually the GM over similar activity described at KUFO.

The "payoff" was exotic vacation destinations and concert passes. CC put a screetching halt to this, obviously. I wonder if this activity has been curtailed or discouraged in a similar manner by other ownerships lately ?

Yes, Tdanner, BUT isn't it true that most people will almost always HATE a new unfamiliar song the first time they hear it, BECAUSE it is unfamilair.???? Im sure songs that were given VERY little airplay test horrible because nobody remembers them or wants to hear them. BUT lets say that same song got a lot of airplay, Im sure it would have tested better.