In late 2002, an official at Sony music was trying to boost interest in the song "A.D.I.D.A.S." by Killer Mike, and considered sending disc jockeys at WAMO-FM one Adidas shoe to promote the song. Jocks at the Pittsburgh station, and others throughout the Northeast, could get the second shoe after playing the song 10 times, he mused.

		Previous coverage Sony to pay in radio probe (7/26/05)

Epic Records' attempts early last year to manipulate the request lines at Harrisburg's WLAN-FM were not working. The young women paid to pose as radio listeners were not being saucy enough with DJs to get air time and plug Epic's releases, the label's Top 40 promotion director complained.

"My guys on the inside say that it's the same couple of girls calling in every week and that they are not inspired enough to be put on the air. They've got to be excited. They need to be going out, or getting drunk, or going in the hot tube [sic], or going clubbing ... you get the idea," the promoter e-mailed.

Those findings were included in more than 50 pages of documents New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer released this week, after Sony BMG Music agreed to pay $10 million to end a pay-for-play -- or payola -- investigation by his office.

Spitzer detailed systematic attempts by officials from Sony (the parent of Epic and other labels) to bribe radio stations nationwide with cash, free trips, laptops, plasma televisions and other merchandise to get their recording artists on the air.

Artists in the documents Spitzer released included Good Charlotte, Celine Dion, Jessica Simpson, Jennifer Lopez, Duran Duran, Audioslave, Franz Ferdinand, John Mayer and Kelly Rowland.

Following payola scandals in the 1950s, Congress barred radio stations from receiving payments, or anything else valuable, for playing songs. Spitzer said Monday that the illicit practice was still widespread, and his office was investigating the three other major music companies -- Universal, EMI and Warner Music Group.

His office also is investigating major radio companies, including Clear Channel and Infinity, which own most of the top-rated stations in Pittsburgh.

Spitzer also criticized Sony for paying people to manipulate request lines, as Epic Records apparently did at the Harrisburg station in February 2004. According to e-mails, Epic was supposed to pay $600 for a weekend of calls to WLAN-FM and 17 other stations nationwide.

Pittsburgh's WXDX-FM was targeted in a similar scam to boost interest in a band signed by Arista Records (another Sony imprint) in December 2002. An Arista official agreed to pay $250 per week to young men for calls to WXDX and 13 other stations to request songs by Pacifier, a pop-metal band.

"As we discussed, please be sure all callers are male, preferably under 25 (or sounding like it!), and that the bulk of the calls are made between 6 p.m. and midnight," said e-mail from Arista.

Radio programmers -- both locally and nationally -- treated Spitzer's findings like kryptonite yesterday, underscoring a sense of uneasiness within the industry. Local programmers who did return phone calls on the matter refused any comment. Normally voluble on-air personalities -- such as WXDX-FM disc jockey Alan Cox -- were also not talking.

"That's out of my area of experience. It's out of my loop," Cox said.

Michele Clark, a New York-based spokeswoman for Clear Channel, said yesterday the radio firm is cooperating with Spitzer's office but is not commenting on his findings.

Clear Channel and Infinity Broadcasting own a good chunk of the Pittsburgh radio market: Clear Channel has WDVE-FM, WXDX-FM, WKST-FM, WWSW-FM, WPGB-FM and WBGG-FM. Infinity owns KDKA-AM, WDSY-FM, WRKZ-FM and WZPT-FM.

Clear Channel for one has always maintained that its programming decisions are made locally, with playlists based on research and on knowing the tastes of local listeners. Two years ago, Clear Channel announced a company-wide zero tolerance for pay-for-play practices and severed ties with independent promoters who worked as middlemen for the record companies.

Payola, or the practice of accepting money to give specific records more airplay, is one of the more shameful chapters in music radio history. It's been illegal since 1960, but since then, the practice has morphed into more subtle forms, including giving some station employees expensive gifts, like vacations or electronic equipment, paying for frequent airplay under the guise of advertising, and contributing prizes for listener promotions.

Pay-for-play became an issue after the deregulation of the radio industry, when large companies began buying up multiple stations, creating giants like Clear Channel and Infinity. With programming decisions in the hands of a few large companies, instead of thousands of individual stations, their influence on the music industry became formidable.

How the Spitzer investigation will affect the way Sony and the other big music companies work with radio to get airplay remains to be seen.

What will it mean for the listener, who supposedly owns the public airwaves? Radio is already under pressure to compete with other forms of music -- from satellite radio, with its diverse formats and commercial music, and Internet radio, which offers a smorgasbord of music for every taste.

Ultimately, tightening the definitions of payola and enforcing them may benefit both music makers and music consumers. For artists without a well-oiled promotion and money machine behind them, it may level the playing field. For listeners, they may get to hear what they want -- not what the music industry wants them to hear.

Or they may get more Celine Dion.

"OK, here it is in black and white and it's serious," an Epic executive wrote in 2003, after some Infinity radio stations buried Dion's songs in their overnight rotations, despite offers of trips (or "flyaways") to meet her in Las Vegas.

"If a radio station got a flyaway to a Celine show in Las Vegas for the add, and they're playing the song all in overnights, they are not getting the flyaway. Please fix the overnight rotations immediately."