On edit: Lounge music with radio and Rock and Roll history

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13. radio history, not yet edited...

Last edited Tue Oct 29, 2019, 06:58 PM - Edit history (2)

EARLY COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT

Unlike the telephone, which was quickly adopted for business and home use, it took many years before radio's financial returns would match its great potential. In the United States, this resulted in a series of companies which sold stock at vastly inflated prices, backed mostly by vastly inflated visions of the companies' profits. Industry Comments appearing in 1901 issues of Western Electrician warned that the radio "field is still so uncertain that investors, remembering the liquid-air fiasco, should relinquish their money only after assuring themselves that display advertisements and glowing prospectuses are based on sound common sense". Wireless Telegraphy Stock, in the November 30, 1901 Electrical Review, noted the high prices already being paid for stock in companies with minimal assets and limited prospects, and opined that "The American public is to-day very much the same as it was when the late illustrious P. T. Barnum made his discovery that it liked to be fooled." In the November, 1904 issue of The Electrical Age, Wireless Telegraph Earnings warned that, even though "alluring" advertisements promoting stock sales continued to appear in the daily newspapers, there still was no reason to believe that the operations of any of the U.S. radio companies were even remotely profitable.
https://earlyradiohistory.us/sec006.htm

Live musicians were so terrified of recording their music FDR had to step in
They even went on strike against radio stations

For the music industry, the advent of recorded sound was an abstract, shocking technological development that looked like an existential threat. Live musicians were suddenly not necessary for the experience of music. Once the same thing, the music industry and recording industry were now competitors. Musicians were not happy about it.

In 1906, the famous conductor John Philip Sousa wrote a scathing critique of recorded music in Appleton's Magazine titled “The Menace of Mechanical Music,” in which he painted a bleak future for the art. The illustrations that accompanied the piece underscored his techno-dystopian vision.


Sousa foretold the death of the love song and military bands being replaced with “a huge phonograph, mounted on a 100 H. P. automobile” playing his Stars and Stripe Forever. He even lamented that “when a mother can turn on the phonograph with the same ease that she applies to the electric light, will she croon her baby to slumber with sweet lullabies, or will the infant be put to sleep by machinery?”

e then wondered if children would become human phonographs “without soul or expression.” Sousa also argued recorded music would be the death of the amateur musician, arguing, “When music can be heard in the homes without the labor of study and close application, and without the slow process of acquiring a technic, it will be simply a question of time when the amateur disappears entirely.”

Turns out the opposite was true, as research by musicologist Mark Katz showed, the number of amateur musicians and music teachers actually went up in the early years of recorded music.

He then wondered if children would become human phonographs “without soul or expression.” Sousa also argued recorded music would be the death of the amateur musician, arguing, “When music can be heard in the homes without the labor of study and close application, and without the slow process of acquiring a technic, it will be simply a question of time when the amateur disappears entirely.”

Turns out the opposite was true, as research by musicologist Mark Katz showed, the number of amateur musicians and music teachers actually went up in the early years of recorded music.

Further, the rise of “talking pictures” threatened movie theater bands. And an advertising effort was put together, in which the AFM called the phenomenon an “abject surrender to the cold commercialism of the present age” and “a serious menace to cultural growth.”

After taking on theaters, AFM moved on to radio stations and juke boxes. On August 1st, 1942, the organization got a new president: the same James Petrillo who authored “The Menace of Mechanical Music.” On his first day, he announced a musicians’ strike that prevented its 138,000 members from recording any more of their performances.

The Department of Justice called the union’s orders “unjust both to labor and the public,” and in 1943, the chairman of the FCC said the strike was drying up music on the radio. A year later, President Roosevelt announced he would begin a study of whether there was any legal action that can be taken to compel James C. Petrillo to end the ban. The president also telegrammed Petrillo, telling him, “What you regard as your loss will certainly be your country’s gain.”

The strike lasted two years, with the record labels finally giving in when their stockpiles of recordings ran out. The AFM would strike again a few years later when an anti-union law stopped them imposing some of the terms agreed to with the record companies, but by that time recorded sound was thought of as synonymous with the music industry, rather than a competitor.

Other means of reproducing sound eventually emerged, and they became the new enemy. The magnetic recording age was coming, and home recording on cassette tapes was the next crisis on the horizon.
https://timeline.com/live-musicians-were-so-terrified-of-recording-their-music-fdr-had-to-step-in-c03b6af16944

Payola
The term "payola" was coined by Variety in 1938 to refer to gifts, favors or cash surreptitiously dispensed by record companies to get orchestra leaders and disc jockeys to play their songs.Payola - The paying of cash or gifts in exchange for airplay.

"Payola" is a contraction of the words "pay" and"Victrola" (LP record player), and entered the English language via the record business.

The use of financial and other illegal inducements went all the way back to 1880s. They were used by publishers to entice popular singers to perform their songs. It soon became part of the plugging game. Over the years some controls were instituted, but none were effective, since those expressing outrage were mist often responsible for and dependent on it.

The term payola first used in 1916 by Variety in a front page editorial condemning the practice calling it "direct payment evil."

Billboard stated payola was rampant during vaudeville of the 20s, and the big band era of the 1930s and 1940s. "The cancer of payola cannot be pinned on rock and roll."
Billboard Magazine.

In at least two instances there was record of ASCAP"s direct involvement in payola. During the thirties Harry Richman and Paul Whiteman both received financial tribute from ASCAP to pay certain songs. in 1938, the Federal Trade Commission notified ASCAP that payola was a form of bribery and was unethical. the FCC pressured ASCAP to come out publicly against payola and advise its members to stop. ASCAP told its members to stop, but had no effect.

Payola had a long history in music, predating both rock and roll and independent record companies. Legislative Hearings. Perfected by the big publishing companies, payola was widely accepted as a more or less legitimate form of promotion. ASCAP protested BMI's sponsoring disc jockey publishing ventures as a refined form of payola.

1940s Variety and Billboard pop charts were used as a measure of successful music promotion. their seeming objectively was laden with controls that made them tools of large publishers and record companies. They were made up of not just sales, but of subjective reports from sampling stores, radio stations and jukebox operators. Music producers used incentives ranging from discounts to bribes to entice retailers to over-report sales and plays to achieve higher chart position. Using these techniques were called vote gathering. With higher chart positions other broadcasters began playing records, consumers bought the record resulting in hits. When disc jockeys became key record companies wooed them by any means

Increased competition tempted many to resort to bribery to access the market. In 1942 Music Publisher's Contact Employees Association wanted to end this. Offered a $500 War Bond for information on anyone offering or accepting payola. When no charges were made Music Publishers Contact Employees Association president Johnny O'Connor declared payola dead, ignoring the fact that the incentive to perform greater than report. Two years later wrote stricter rules to check growth this too had little effect more charges and useless responses.

National Association of Broadcasters tried to deal with the problem by limiting the number of songs individual publishers could have performed on the air and bandleaders, singers and programmers could play. No more than fifteen per hundred performances with the remaining eighty-five from at least seventy other publishers. It never went into effect. In 1944 Warner Brothers threatened to sue against the sponsor of Your Hit Parade, charging the method of selecting songs was illegitimate, arbitrary and often discriminatory. Since performance increased demand for sheet music and records it was very important in breaking hits. If a was quickly dropped cancellation of orders poured. The producers claim the selections based on popularity, determined from record and sheet music sales and network radio play. Warner's suit ended up going nowhere.

In the early 50s music industry publications warned record companies and radio stations that if they did not clean house they would face a crisis of public confidence and possible government regulation. Variety said payola was a 'Frankenstein" rampant in rhythm and blues and country music. a normal operating expense for independents, payola forced the majors to make deals with disc jockeys "to unload their merchandise." cash boc called for a moratorium and prosecution for anyone that betrayed the public trust.

A few stations took steps to restrict payola. In 1952 WMFS distributed a booklet to its employees calling payola a "monster" and promising any disk jockey who took it would be fired. Also DJs were not to mention names of record companies of the records or expressing their opinions about them: "the audience is not interested whether it is Capitol, Decca, Columbia or Victor release. It is interested in the selection and the artist."

Efforts to eliminate payola were half-hearted and ineffective. Record companies came to accept it as a cost of doing business. many saw it as a victimless crime having having little or no impact on consumer choice.

After the U.S. House Oversight Oversight Committee ended the committee wrote a bill making payola a federal offense, prohibited quiz frauds and set fines of up to $10,000, imprisonment for up to one year, or both for broadcasters who "willfully or repeatedly" violated the Communications Statute or FCC rules. The FTC outlawed payola as unfair competition and the IRS declared that the companies that engaged in payola had committed bribery and the payments weren't deductible as business expenses. The bill was signed into law in September.

“Pay-for-play,” in which airtime is bought but the payments are disclosed, is still around. In January 1998, Flip/Interscope Records paid a Portland, Oregon radio station $5,000 to play one Limp Bizkit song 50 times over a five-week period. The band was able to generate enough interest to play a successful concert there. Other stations showed interest in their music, and Limp Bizkit broke into the music biz in a big way–a great argument for free enterprise if you’re a Limp Bizkit fan. However, the argument against pay-for-play, even if the parties are upfront about it, is that it allows big labels to buy their artists’ way onto the charts. It’s not common now, and with so many radio stations owned by conglomerates, there’s less opportunity for the local market dealmaking that was so prevalent in payola’s heyday.
https://www.history-of-rock.com/payola.htm