Glynis O’Hara
PAYOLA, long the battle of the music industry, reared its ugly head this week when Mike Edwards, former managing director of EMI South Africa, was quoted in the press as saying his company had actively participated in the system of paying for airplay.
It’s long been said that it is rife, especially on the vernacular stations. Black DJs in the past were paid very badly by the SABC, said a source, so it was hardly surprising that the practise had grown.
Dave Alexander, managing director of Tequila Records, said this week he had been “overtly asked for payment twice, surreptitiously 50 to 100 times”. On one occasion he was asked for R600 in return for frequent flightings for a music video, a highly tempting offer in terms of the enormous publicity – but he refused to pay.
“White” stations had been less vulnerable to payola, he said, partly because DJs had to conform to a computerised playlist, whereas black DJs had had more control over what went out. “But there is more control now, because more and more stations are going over to computerised playlists. It looks like payola is diminishing.
“For example, on Radio Zulu, which has been highly criticised as one of the worst culprits in the past, they now have a music compiler. I once wanted to meet the DJs and give them a sample of our music and he wouldn’t let me, because of the risk of payola.”
Edwards told the industrial court in a written submission, in a hearing over his dismissal in 1995, that on arriving in this country from the United Kingdom, he “discovered that EMI South Africa actively participated in payola and that it formed, and still forms, an important part of doing business in a major portion of the local market. In recent years the method of generating the necessary cash was through a system of dummy invoices, often using a dormant company as a front.”
Irvin Schlosberg, the new MD of EMI South Africa, responded this week that he could “not comment on what happened before his arrival and that his company traded 100% legally” and subscribed to the Association of South African Music Industry’s (Asami) code of conduct.
But some industry people are not necessarily against payola “because what’s the difference between paying a DJ R500 and taking him to dinner?” – but strongly feel there should be disclosure to the station’s bosses.