Spitzer's An Idiot

[BarryL]

This is from the Wall Street Journal this morning:

"The office of New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has opened an investigation into the ways global music companies secure radio airplay for their releases, according to people familiar with the matter."

The article goes on that he wants to investigate the use of promoters who affiliate themselves with stations and pay a fee to the station to provide music. The allusion is that it's Payola.

Doesn't Spitzer know that if people don't like the songs, they'll change the station. And then the ad revenue drops as the listenership drops. Furthermore, if this is a crime, it's a victimless crime.

It irks me that people haven't recognized by now that Spitzer is on a never-ending quest to extort settlement money from anybody and everybody to fill the coffers of New York State's treasury. IMO he's done more damage to the entire U.S. economy than either Presidential Candidate could ever do.

The man is a jackass (no offense meant to any donkeys that may be reading this).

[kexodusc]

I don't know...I think the guy just likes being in the spotlight, but I sure as heck wouldn't want his job (maybe just his paycheck)

Most surveys I've seen on radio play and listenership conclude that a listener will listen to the best AVAILABLE station, even if it's crap. So it's a "lesser of two evils" thing in many cases.

I prefer radio talk shows and news to music now. CD's take care of music for me.

[Bob Shannon]

What many people don't realize is that about three corporations own ninety percent of the radio stations in this country. They have reduced radio play to "formats" and "formulas" and look at music as "product" instead of the art that it is. After all, they have shareholders to think about. The fact that these corporations are intertwined with the the record industy to the point where you can't tell where one ends and the other begins is a large reason why popular music has stalled in it's proggression. The statement that record company reps are visiting and paying stations to play music and it can't be bad is rediculous. What about the guy with an underdog label? The guy who can't get the pay for play? DJs get into the business because they love music and want to be a part of the industry. Let them do they're job. There is a very good reason why payola is illegal. It stalls the progress of art and it locks the unknown/unrepresented out. There's no such thing as a victimless crime. Only the big money gets in. When a station has a rigid uncomprosing playlist the DJ is reduced to just being a robot. The statement that people will change the station is equally rediculous because this is happening on ninety percent of the stations in America. The only place you can hear anything new and refreshing is on a few fledgeling college or privately owned low wattage stations. Do you think that with the album rock early FM climate of the seventies we would see the proliferation of such acts as Britney Spears or The Backstreet Boys? Yes, there has always been bubblegum pop but these are mainstay huge icon stars today-the best thing going. I think it's about time the government got involved in this issue they have turned a blind eye to for the last forty years. Capitalism is great, but it has a tendancy to destroy the finer things.

I'm Bob Shannon and I aprove this message
(I can't believe this thing doesn't have a spell check)

[MindGoneHaywire]

Read the book Hit Men before you say things like this. I'll give you a mulligan on it because it sounds like you don't really know the issue, but if you look into it, I believe you'll change yr tune. The story I saw had a quote in it to the effect that Spitzer's 20 years too late, but if you knew a little more about the nature of indie promo men, I don't think you'd say this. They're often mob-connected, or at least they used to be, this may have changed, but I doubt it. If you want to criticize Spitzer because he's a grandstander, that's fine, but this is an issue that nobody had the balls to go after for too long a time because of the sensitive nature of the big-biz interests involved. Do some research & tell me if you come up with the same conclusion. I doubt it. If the notion of PDs floating in the gifts of indie promo men--cash, hookers & blow, etc.--strikes you as a victimless crime, then remind yrself that these are supposed to be 'public' airwaves. As for NY State, we send way more to the federal government in taxes than we get back, so I have no problem if someone's trying to fill the coffers here. There's way more to this than Spitzer, it's been going on forever, it's HIGHLY illegal, and I am VERY glad someone's finally trying to doing something about it.

[BarryL]

I'll give you a mulligan on it because it sounds like you don't really know the issue.

The man has a big record of public insinuation and then negotiates mutli-million dollar settlements because legislators pass gray laws. If crimes have been committed, then take it to court. Throw the bums in jail if they're breaking the law. But Spitzer isn't going for convictions.

The Spitzer witch-hunt methodology is very successful for the finances of the State of New York. It rarely serves justice and it rarely identifies victims. Believe me, radio listeners aren't victims, nor are small record labels. They aren't entitled to anything. And the notion expressed by Bob that radio is about art and not selling commercials by attracting large audiences is naive.

[BarryL]

Only the big money gets in. I think it's about time the government got involved in this issue they have turned a blind eye to for the last forty years. Capitalism is great, but it has a tendancy to destroy the finer things.

See the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/22/bu...tml?oref=login
From the New York Times article:

"In the late 1990's, the Justice Department began a broad investigation of payola that eventually encompassed dozens of Latin and urban- music radio stations across the nation. It won convictions against two top executives at Fonovisa, the biggest independent record label in the Spanish-language market, and a top radio executive. No cases have been brought in the urban-music category. Unlike the promoters in the rock and pop fields who receive payments as stations add a song to their playlist, many urban-music consultants receive initial lump sums to finance the marketing of a new single, and distribute the money as they see fit."

[MindGoneHaywire]

Sounds like you don't know the issue, which is payola and indie promo men, not Eliot Spitzer, though you are trying to make him the issue. He's not. I didn't say a damned thing about art or small record companies. Like I said, do some research on indie promo men, with an eye towards their mob connections, then come back & tell me you still believe the same thing you put in yr first post. Again--try reading Hit Men. I believe you'll change yr tune.

>Spitzer isn't going for convictions.

Tell that to Rudy Giuliani, who spent the mid-1980s marching innocent Wall Street traders out of their offices in handcuffs, and who pulled plenty of crap as mayor that he ended up on the losing side of in court. He managed to accomplish a thing or two in spite of this. According to a Reuters story today, Spitzer secured $50 million in unpaid royalties for thousands of recording artists from their labels in May. I didn't even know about this. $50 million, Barry. Do you still think this is all about grandstanding? Or are you perhaps willing to admit that there are areas of the music business where illegal activity is rampant, and that someone should be doing something about it?

[BarryL]

Sounds like you don't know the issue, which is payola and indie promo men, not Eliot Spitzer, though you are trying to make him the issue. He's not. I didn't say a damned thing about art or small record companies. Like I said, do some research on indie promo men, with an eye towards their mob connections, then come back & tell me you still believe the same thing you put in yr first post. Again--try reading Hit Men. I believe you'll change yr tune.

>Spitzer isn't going for convictions.

Tell that to Rudy Giuliani, who spent the mid-1980s marching innocent Wall Street traders out of their offices in handcuffs, and who pulled plenty of crap as mayor that he ended up on the losing side of in court. He managed to accomplish a thing or two in spite of this. According to a Reuters story today, Spitzer secured $50 million in unpaid royalties for thousands of recording artists from their labels in May. I didn't even know about this. $50 million, Barry. Do you still think this is all about grandstanding? Or are you perhaps willing to admit that there are areas of the music business where illegal activity is rampant, and that someone should be doing something about it?

If they money is owed, the companies ought to pay. But that's not what this charge is about. The story was about middlemen being paid promotional dollars by record companies, who are then supposed to influence the radio stations. I didn't read anything about mob connections and dead fish heads being found in beds. What's a story from May have to do with today's story? Are you insinuating that these radio stations have mob connections? Please clarify.

If record companies are committing fraud, then they should be prosecuted. But an accusation or insinuation isn't evidence.

Giuliani's record is as bad as Spitzers. He did, as you say, march innocent traders out in handcuffs, ruining plenty of careers so he could pretend he was a bigshot. Read Daniel Fischer's Payback. Yeah, he came through in the end as a hero, and he did do heroic work in his mayoralty years post 9/11/01, but his abuse of position as a public prosecuter, abusing the intent of RICO laws aimed at organized crime to prosecute and persecute the purveyors and revolutionaries of a radically new financial paradigm of raising funds in the capital markets with high interest bonds. At the root of the phenomenal growth of Las Vegas from a run-down town to the fastest growing metropolis in the U.S., you will find the story of Michael Milken, a man who's life and livelihood was destroyed by maniacical Rudy Giuliani.

Get with the game here. You're focused in on minute details and are missing the big picture. This is about government control of the airwaves and a rampant narcisistic ego, not about high crimes and compensation to victims. Spitzer's a walking economic wrecking ball, in my opinion.

[MindGoneHaywire]

>If they money is owed, the companies ought to pay. But that's not what this charge is about.

Yeah, well, this charge isn't about slamming Spitzer, either. In yr assessment of him as an 'idiot,' does it not matter to you that he has done something that's resulted in artists being paid $50 MILLION in unpaid royalties that the labels were ripping them off for?

>The story was about middlemen being paid promotional dollars by record companies, who are then supposed to influence the radio stations. I didn't read anything about mob connections and dead fish heads being found in beds.

Well, that's because you didn't do any research. You want me to send you my copy of Hit Men? I'd be happy to let you borrow it.

>Are you insinuating that these radio stations have mob connections? Please clarify.

Indie promo men have a long history of mob connections. Not radio stations, but I never said that.

>If record companies are committing fraud, then they should be prosecuted. But an accusation or insinuation isn't evidence.

Yeah, well, the head of Clear Channel admitting that their radio stations accept payments from indie promo men to get records played IS evidence.

http://www.radioink.com/listingsEntr...&PT=industryqa

Get it now? Why in the hell are you making Spitzer the issue here? It makes NO SENSE.

>Giuliani's record is as bad as Spitzers.

You obviously don't live around here.

>He did, as you say, march innocent traders out in handcuffs, ruining plenty of careers so he could pretend he was a bigshot.

The thing was, he WAS a bigshot. A pretender pulls all that stuff & then doesn't accomplish anything. If you want a list of Giuliani's accomplishments, I can provide some of 'em. If you don't think they outweigh any negatives that came from either his prosecutorial tenure or his mayoralty, then I'll tell you you're wrong.

>Yeah, he came through in the end as a hero, and he did do heroic work in his mayoralty years post 9/11/01

No, pre-9/11. Like cutting the murder rate 70%.

>his abuse of position as a public prosecuter, abusing the intent of RICO laws aimed at organized crime to prosecute and persecute the purveyors and revolutionaries of a radically new financial paradigm of raising funds in the capital markets with high interest bonds. At the root of the phenomenal growth of Las Vegas from a run-down town to the fastest growing metropolis in the U.S., you will find the story of Michael Milken, a man who's life and livelihood was destroyed by maniacical Rudy Giuliani.

Do you think all this is an acceptable tradeoff when you consider the murder rate was cut by 70%? The mob was removed from the Fulton Fish Market & the Javits Center? Times Square was cleaned up? I do. Perhaps you thought NYC was better before Giuliani became mayor? I grew up nearby & have been a NYC resident since Ed Koch was mayor. If you think the city's not better for Giuliani having been mayor, you've got to be kidding. Even with all the bad--and, as you can see, I'm aware of the bad as well as the good--his mayoralty turned this city around in ways that nobody thought was even possible.

>Get with the game here. You're focused in on minute details and are missing the big picture.

Look who's talking! You're so hung up on Spitzer that you're not even looking at the issue of payola! GMAB!

>This is about government control of the airwaves and a rampant narcisistic ego, not about high crimes and compensation to victims. Spitzer's a walking economic wrecking ball, in my opinion.

This is about what YOU say it's about? No. Payola is more than 'government control of the airwaves,' it's about ILLEGAL BRIBES. I'd say that I fail to see why you think this is about Spitzer when it's not, but I know why. It's because you don't seem to know or care about payola & independent promotion. Let me know if you want to see the book. Otherwise, forget about Spitzer: this is about payola, and if you have a problem with this based on him, that sounds awfully misguided to me.

[BarryL]

Read the book Hit Men before you say things like this..

Send a copy of Hit Men to this guy. He apparently needs to read it to! ;-)

http://www.techcentralstation.com/122002A.html

[MindGoneHaywire]

No, YOU do. I see NO mention of anything having to do with indie promo men in that article. Which was written nearly two years ago, which means it was prior to Spitzer securing $50 million in unpaid royalties from recording artists whose labels were cheating them.

Why do you continue to make Spitzer the issue when the issue is indie promo men & payola?

TCS, by the way, is hardly an unbiased source. I'm well familiar with them. It's no longer searchable on their site, but they had several articles in the past, from people like Michael Fumento, denying the existence of a little malady called "chronic fatigue syndrome." Funny, all those articles are gone now, as are the ones on JunkScience, which, curiously, is no longer searchable. All those articles gone about the court case in Alberta a few years ago where the legal representation of an insurance company, with the full support of several editorial pieces in TCS, tried to suggest that there was no such malady. Hmmm. Why have they removed all these articles? Perhaps because it's only recently that people with chronic fatigue syndrome are shown to produce abnormal results on tilt-table tests, or that a large percentage of them have abnormally low blood volumes. Prior to this information coming to light, both JS & TCS were chockful of stories about how this was all in the mind. No stories in the past three years on either site about how something that's all in the mind can magically reduce one's blood volume or produce an abnormal result on a tilt-table test.

I'm not a liberal, so I'm not going to come back at you with a lefty website talking about all of the good things Spitzer has done (and not only for the reason that HE IS NOT THE ISSUE). You didn't mention any of the good things Giuliani did, only that he was a 'bigshot' who wreaked havoc on bond traders. Um, there's just a bit more to his resume. And I'd say there's just a bit more to anything you're going to read on a site like TCS, which has zero credibility so far as I'm concerned. And I've seen plenty of conservative free-market economists laud Spitzer for some of his efforts, including some of those listed in the TCS piece, for inspiring investor confidence in Wall Street--that regardless of whether or not he's gone a bit overboard, that people are more likely to invest if they know there's a pitbull watchdog out there making sure people don't get ripped off. I'm not into grandstanding as Spitzer has done, but there are plenty of righties in the business community who think he's good for business, NOT the other way around.

In the meantime, you still have not addressed the issue of indie promo men. You want the book? Really, I have no problem sending it. None whatsoever. I still have your address. You had an awful lot to say about Spitzer, as though he's the issue, without knowing the issue. Didn't you check the link I provided? I think you'll have a difficult time convincing anyone it's a source that's 'biased' in the context of this discussion, and there's a direct quote, in an interview, in black and white, from the head of Clear Channel's radio division admitting his stations accept payments from indie promo men to see records introduced to playlists. Why is this still about Spitzer for you? HE'S NOT THE ISSUE.

[BarryL]

Why is this still about Spitzer for you? HE'S NOT THE ISSUE.

I think Spitzer has gone beyond the bounds of appropriate government behaviour. Let's leave it at that. I'm not sure it's appropriate for the government to be initiating civil cases. That's not their function. There is an aspect of blackmailing behaviour about Spitzer that think goes beyond the bounds of legitimate government behaviour.

As for Hit Men, there were two copies available at my local book big box bookstore. I'll keep it in mind for reading pleasure, but right now I have other reading priorities.

Nobody is perfect, and Guiliani did considerable acts of greatness for a city, country, and world that needed his leadership in a particular time and space. For that he should be commended and held to be a role model. But there are earlier deeds for which we should judge with equal clarity.