STAMPING OUT PAYOLA - Radio, TV still important in digital age

Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer

There is a school of thought that believes that with increased Internet access, radio and television are less important to music consumers and, therefore, payola concerns are overstated.

But Cordel Green, executive director of the Broadcasting Commission of Jamaica, quickly shoots down that opinion.

"If that statement were accurate, we wouldn't have a payola problem, unless people are crazy and they have money to waste. Because we know that the people who drive a lot of the consumption of music - they are not the only ones and they are not the most important group either," Green told The Gleaner.

"It's something we need to think about also - but we can accept that youth play an important part in the consumption of music, certainly some genres. Well, guess what? A lot of payola, we understand from the anecdotal evidence, swirls around the popular music.

"Now, if radio didn't matter, I don't know why people would be trying to bribe deejays," added Green.

The Internet Telecommunications Union (ITU) Internet Usage and Telecommunications Report shows Jamaica's Internet penetration rate is 55.5 per cent. This is a leap from 2.3 per cent in 2000.

Among the radio stations on the FM band which carry extensive current Jamaican popular music programming are Irie, Zip, HITS 92 and FAME.

In addition to specialised music programmes on free-to-air television stations CVM and TVJ, cable stations Hype TV and Tempo, which covers the Caribbean, are heavily music-oriented.

But Green argues that the exposure of music on radio fuels sales.

"I believe that what the digital space does and what it helps with is sale. So you go to iTunes and you purchase, but people still need exposure. If you put your music onto the Internet, you are competing first of all with the entire world.

"The second thing is that your exposure will be dependent on the individual, meaning that I will have to take a decision to download," said Green.

According to the man who is among the leading campaigners to end payola: "If I don't know a particular artiste from Adams. You record 'suppen' and you put it out there on the Internet and you put up your Facebook and whatever you want to do and you say 'listen to me, I'm the baddest thing around'. I Cordel Green would need to take a decision to download you vis-à-vis all the other thousands of people around the world who are telling me that they are the best reggae artiste or the best rock artiste or something."

Individual action

Green zeroes in on the element of choice and the necessity of individual action.

He said: "Radio doesn't work that way. The listener doesn't volunteer to hear a particular artiste. The listener turns on a particular radio station and the music comes to the listener. Therefore, I believe people in the music industry still recognise radio and television as very important platforms for getting known very quickly.

"I am not taking away from the viral effect of the Internet, but one must not overestimate the potential for viral exposure on the Internet and, by deduction, whittle away the importance of the traditional media, because I don't believe that is the case."

Green also points out that there is a direct connection between radio and the digital space, saying "radio is also in that space, because most of radio is not being streamed on the Internet. So it still remains an important medium".

Added to the exposure is the financial return that comes with rotation on radio.

"The other thing, too, is that we must recognise that for many persons who create songs, when they look at their business, take a long-term look at their business, record sales might be a kind of front-end part of that business trajectory. They think about their royalties."

He argued that, "The most guaranteed space for that now is still traditional media. When you go on the Internet and you download somebody's song, well we know what goes on there."

According to Green: "When a radio station is operated properly as a radio station, which we are now saying, for example, tightening the screws around playlists and so on, one of the primary purposes is for a collection society to be able to collect royalties for the artiste."