FCC payola probe wrap-up...
Reuters reports that the FCC has gotten Clear Channel Communications, Inc., CBS Radio, Entercom Communications Corp. and Citadel Broadcasting Corp. to agree with a consent decree that includes a $12.5 million payment to settle payola allegations raised by the agency which in all probability marks the end of the payola investigations in the foreseeable future. A separate deal between those station groups and the American Association of Independent Music would set aside 8,400 half-hour blocks of time for independent music...
What this means is that free airtime would be provided for any record company not called Sony BMG, Warner, Universal or EMI, do not have a market share larger than 5% and are represented as independent through sales tracking firm Nielsen SoundScan. With that comes a set of "rules of engagement" that will guide how record company reps and radio programmers interact. Under the FCC consent decree, broadcasters would agree to undergo closer scrutiny in their dealings with record companies, including limits on gifts which must be documented. There's even a "payola hotline" for employees to report infractions...
While this sounds good on the surface with more independent music exposure and tighter controls over payola, I have 2 questions: 1) Can payola really be controlled by an honor system or a squealer? and 2) If you have an independent record company, do you have to belong to the American Association of Independent Music to be covered by this new decree and if not a member will you be squeezed out of the deal??? Just asking...
More memories of the birth of WRKO follows and there are 2 video links to be found in the "And that's the way it is" timeline and as a tribute to one of our birthday girls...Correction: Thanks to Norm N. Nite for catching the wrong year of Patsy Cline's death. It was 1963...
Timeline Memories...
"And that's the way it is": 1981] Walter Cronkite does his final 'CBS Evening News' report which started on April 16, 1962. And there's more bad news, Dan Rather (not) will succeed Uncle Walter. Here are the last 2 minutes of Cronkite's final newscast: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vl8wQFMs3pQ ...
"Remember the Alamo": 1836] The Alamo in San Antonio (TX) falls to Mexican forces after a 13-day siege...
"Sorry, I have a headache": 1899] Aspirin is patented by German researchers Felix Hoffman and Hermann Dreser...
TV dinners without the TV: 1930] Clarence Birdseye develops a method for quick freezing food (mmm!)...
Recorded on this date: 1959] "There Goes My Baby" - Drifters...
Released on this date: 1976] "Rhiannon" - Fleetwood Mac...
#1 on this date: 1966] "Ballad of the Green Berets" - S/Sgt. Barry Sadler...
A special special: 1977] "An Evening with Diana Ross" airs on NBC-TV...
Wedding Bells: 1964] Elizabeth Taylor steals Eddie Fisher away from wife Debbie Reynolds. Liz and Eddie last 5 years together...
Mr. Hustler survives: 1978] Hustler publisher Larry Flynt is shot and paralyzed permanently by a sniper in Georgia who objected to an interracial couple appearing in the magazine...
Trouble brews in 'Nam: 1960] The U.S. announces that it will send 3,500 troops to Vietnam...
Free at last: 1967] Stalin's daughter Svetlana Allilujeva asks for and is granted asylum in the U.S...
Gang-rape horror: 1993] A woman is gang-raped on a pool table in a New Bedford (MA) tavern. 4 men are later convicted in a case that rocks the nation...
Precinct horror: 2000] 3 white NYPD officers are convicted of a cover-up in a police station attack on Haitian immigrant Abner Louima...
[To ensure accuracy of dates and content, multiple reference sources are used in each timeline]...
Remembering the day WRKO was born, March 13, 1967
"For me the lasting friendships, you among them certainly, have been the best part of this adventure. In my mind's eye, I was the luckiest of the lot inasmuch as WRKO led to KHJ that led to KFRC and on to corporate. Without you, Perry and Bob, who knows where my career might have gone? Perry told me 'in two years I don't want you here. It's NY or LA' and he was true to his word. Best of course has to be the 'Casino Royale' promotion (the remake DVD is now being released). 50,000 people out in trenchcoats at 6am on a drizzly morning at the Sack Savoy theatre responding to a few promos from an upstart Top 40 station barely a month old to see a crappy James Bond movie with Woody Allen as 007! Remarkable -- I get goose bumps just writing this e-mail. Happy birthday WRKO and God Bless all who sailed on her"...Harvey Mednick (Harvey was our promotion director, one of the best, who wound up as corporate VP of Promotion)...
"Mel, as you know I have a million lasting memories but probably the greatest was while working at stodgy old WHDH and reading a story about Arnie the Woo (Ginsburg) signing with the new WRKO. I remember listening to the debut of WRKO but little did I know that about a month later I'd be working there after calling Perry Ury and sending a resume. I got a call back from you and we interviewed and a few weeks later I was hired and it was the greatest experience of my life...Paul Power (who was hired as Music Director, handled production and would become assistant Program Director). Paul was an invaluable part of the start up of WRKO...
"Happy Birthday...happy birthday":
Shaquille O'Neal (35), Tom Arnold (48), Kiki Dee (60), Hugh Grundy (Zombies) (62), Rob Reiner (62), Mary Wilson (63), Former singer Sylvia Robinson (70) ("Mickey & Sylvia" & solo also co-founder of Sugarhill Records) (here's a clip of Sylvia singing 'Pillow Talk' on Don Cornelius' "Soul Train" from 1973: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kTGiOgPo0w&mode=related&search=) Alan Greenspan (81) and Ed McMahon (84)...
Timeline Countdown: 15 days until spring and 26 days until Opening Day...
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