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Clear Channel has fired two programming executives and disciplined several others for misconduct after an internal review of “pay for play” allegations, The New York Times reports. Clear Channel says it will provide additional training to station managers and programming personnel on the company’s policies against payola.
The move comes a little over a week after Clear Channel President/CEO Mark Mays said he did not see a “train wreck” coming on the issue of payola. At that time, Mays said that the 4-6 employees investigated in connection with the BMG consent decree were the bad actors, leaving 99.9 percent of its radio programmers doing what they should be doing.
FCC commissioner Jonathan Adelstein recently said the payola scandal was “the widest and most flagrant abuse of our rules in the history of American broadcasting” and that he planned “to put the fear of God” into broadcasters about obeying the FCC’s payola rules.
The payola issue hit front pages in late July when Sony BMG Music Entertainment settled an investigation by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer by paying $10 million and saying it would stop paying radio station employees to feature its artists.
Radio stations in the U.K. reacted with outrage when they learned of a report by researchers from the University of the West of England which accused them of promoting excessive drinking.
The study looked at 1,200 hours of radio output,…
General Motors posted sales of 308,817 vehicles in August. That’s a drop of 20 percent from August of last year - but 31 percent better than July.
In order to boost sales as much as possible during a time when…
A new digital out-of-home network to reach golfers is launching to 100 retail locations in the next two months. The network will be available in Dunham’s Sporting Goods, Golf Etc., Golf USA, Pro Golf, and ParMasters, among others.
Fox says that viewers’ attention to commercials is higher when fewer commercials are aired. The revelation comes as a result of testing the network has done for its freshman thriller, Fringe, which will premiere Sept. 9 with limited commercials and shorter…
Worldwide sales of mobile phones will reach 1.28 billion units in 2008 - up from 1.15 billion units in 2007 - an 11 percent increase from last year, according to Gartner, Inc - (via MarketingCharts).
While the mobile phone market is poised for…
Consumers in all income segments are cutting back spending, and doing so to a greater extent recently than at the beginning of the second quarter, according to a comScore study examining changes in consumer attitudes and perceptions about the U.S. economy…
