Radio Pushes Bands for Freebies

Raising the specter of a new form of payola, hundreds of radio stations around the country are pressuring rock bands to perform free at charity concerts that bolster the broadcasters’ ratings and advertising revenue.

Artist managers contend that the stations coerce bands by refusing to air their latest releases unless they commit to perform in concert. Many artists now view it as little more than a shakedown that is broadly undermining the live concert business.

“It’s like a subtle new form of payola--and it’s causing big problems for bands,” says Creative Artists Agency’s Tom Ross, who represents such acts as Eric Clapton, Smashmouth and KISS.

“The fact is, the labels are afraid to say no to the radio stations. It’s not just airplay for that band’s song that they risk losing. The implication is that it might hurt airplay for the next act coming down the pike.”

Sources say the stations offer to play a song for several weeks before the show but often drop it immediately after the concert.

Charity Show Concept Took Off

If a band does consent to play at one station’s event, competing broadcasters retaliate by pulling the act’s song from their playlists. Some radio programmers have gone so far as to threaten to ban all of a record label’s upcoming releases if the company can’t persuade a desired artist on its roster to appear, sources say.

When KROQ-FM launched its acoustic concert series nine years ago at Universal Amphitheatre, rock acts Social Distortion and Dramarama jumped at the chance to donate their services and perform at the high-profile charity event.

In the beginning, it seemed like a win-win situation for everybody. The station got a ratings boost that stimulated advertising. Artists got exposure that bolstered record sales. And fans got to see their favorite acts for a fair price, with the proceeds going to a good cause.

The concept worked so well that now about 200 broadcasters, primarily rock or alternative rock stations, now stage their own shows once or twice a year. Those stations are in both large and small markets across the country, and the charity radio show phenomenon has lost its philanthropic luster.

Radio airplay is the most powerful promotional tool for record companies. Many people buy records based solely on what they hear on the radio, believing that those songs are the best available.

Federal law prohibits radio stations from taking money or anything of value in exchange for playing songs without disclosing the payment to listeners.

“If a broadcaster is getting something valuable, like an artist performing at the station’s concert, in exchange for playing the artist’s song and they don’t identify the sponsor of the record, then they are in violation of the law,” said Charles Kelly, chief of the enforcement division in the mass media bureau of the Federal Communications Commission.

“If we get evidence that this practice is going on, sanctions could be imposed against the violating station.”

Two Big Stations Deny Pay-for-Play

The nation’s two most powerful rock stations--KROQ in Los Angeles and New York’s Z-100--deny ever offering to play an act’s songs in exchange for an appearance at their concerts. Executives at both broadcast outlets, however, say they have heard about other stations around the country holding up artists and record labels for airplay.

“As more and more stations started doing concerts, the business practices just became more and more questionable--but that’s not representative of what we do at KROQ,” said Kevin Weatherly, vice president of programming at the CBS-owned station. “We only look for bands to play our shows whose records we already currently support.”

Program Director Tom Poleman at Z-100 said: “Although it is sort of implied that the station will play the single, it is a song we would have aired anyway. What we do is come up with a campaign that gets the song more familiar on the air--but it isn’t pay-for-play.”

Record companies have long tried to influence the programmers who decide which of more than 5,000 songs offered each year will be played in the roughly 250 new slots per station in each year. In the past, companies have been accused of trying to bribe deejays with cash--a practice that has triggered a number of payola investigations, including an ongoing probe launched earlier this year involving Spanish-language music broadcasters and Fonovisa Records.

Companies still pay millions of dollars annually to independent consultants and industry tip sheets they believe can help their promotion departments obtain airplay for new songs. So initially, most record executives were eager to underwrite the involvement of artists in radio shows in order to obtain airplay for new songs.

But more than a dozen record executives and artist managers interviewed by The Times said they were fed up with the hardball tactics employed by broadcasters regarding radio shows. Most declined to be identified, fearing retaliation against their artists.

Matchbox 20 manager Michael Lippman says he willingly booked the rock quartet to perform for free at dozens of radio benefits during the beginning of their career because he felt it would help raise the band’s profile.

“You have to start with the premise that without radio, an artist cannot be successful--and the understanding is that if you perform at their show, the station will add your record to their playlist,” Lippman said. “It’s a tit for a tat, but I think it can be positive in terms of gaining exposure when an artist is just starting out.

“The problem is that the bigger you get, everybody wants an exclusive, and some stations get really mad and penalize you for performing at a competing station’s show by refusing to air your record at all,” he said. “‘That certainly has happened to us.”

Critics Say Young Artists Undermined

Record company executives contend that these spikes in airplay can be verified in reports by Broadcast Data Systems, a firm that electronically samples airplay on an hourly basis from almost 200 U.S. rock stations and sells the data to music corporations. The BDS reports could not be obtained by The Times.

Lippman and other managers say radio shows not only take money out of artists’ pockets, they undermine the ability of young performers to develop as touring acts. Radio shows feature as many as a dozen acts performing brief sets of hit songs in front of giant crowds.

Charity concerts represent a small percentage of the overall live concert business, but they have an out-sized impact because of the number of acts that perform per show. In Los Angeles, half a dozen stations sponsor a total of 12 to 14 shows each year.

Critics say the concerts foster one-hit wonders and rob young bands of the opportunity to polish material in front of small club audiences--a path followed by nearly every successful touring act, from the Rolling Stones to Jimmy Buffett.

Moreover, critics contend that radio benefits undercut the entire concert business by cutting into the revenue of the managers, agents and promoters who play a key role in developing the careers of successful touring acts.

Entertainers say they are forced to scratch cities in which they performed radio concerts off their own tour itinerary because young fans are reluctant to pay twice in one year to see the same act. Artists also sometimes avoid scheduling tour dates in cities where stations are battling for them to appear at competing shows in order to side-step airplay disputes.

So far, most of the disputes have played city by city and station by station. But a sweeping consolidation of the radio industry and of the live concert business could change that.

There is growing concern in the industry that broadcast chains may be starting to consider concert promotion as a potential profit center.

Broadcasters generally have donated proceeds from their concerts to charity, relying on the events to bolster only ratings, which in turn helps generate additional advertising income. But sources say several giant broadcasters have recently entered into talks with concert business consolidator SFX Entertainment to become partners in a national for-profit radio show tour expected to get off the ground by next spring.

Under the plan, SFX, which has spent the last two years acquiring a string of concert venues, promoters and management companies across the U.S., will produce and promote a radio show tour package with plans to stop in as many as 25 radio markets nationwide. The tour would be sponsored by a national advertiser and booked primarily into SFX-owned venues. Some acts might be paid nominal fees to perform.

Radio stations that participate in the tour could take in at least $100,000 per show from their cut of sponsorship revenue and ticket sales, according to SFX.

“We think we are going to be able to do things in this area that have never even been considered before,” said Ted Utz, senior vice president of SFX’s Media Marketing division.

“We think broadcast corporations could shoot for one show per quarter in each format--rock, country, R&B; and pop,” he said. “I can tell you this: Interest from radio stations is pouring in fast and furious.”