ABSTRACT
The Congressional hearings on payola that grabbed headlines throughout late 1959 and 1960 cast a dark cloud over rock ’n’ roll, suggesting that the music had soared to popularity on the wings of illegal industry practices. As Peter Bunzel’s report for Life magazine points out, payola, loosely defined as “pay for play,” had been an established part of the music business dating back to the late nineteenth century. Concerns over payola, however, had begun to escalate in the mid-1950s on two fronts. First, the American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers (ASCAP) accused its rival licensing organization, Broadcast Music International (BMI)—home to the majority of rock ’n’ roll songwriters-of forcing its songs onto the airwaves, and successfully lobbied Congress into hearing their claims. Second, and more significantly, the 1959 scandal surrounding rigged television quiz shows offered Congress a readymade platform to extend a formal investigation into the music industry. The central figure in the payola hearings, Dick Clark (1929-2012), the host of ABC’s American Bandstand, bore the most public scrutiny of any of those brought forward to testify. As the Life article intimates, despite the conflict of interests between his corporate holdings and broadcasting practices, Clark’s clean image and fervent fan base virtually guaranteed that he would escape the committee’s wrath. The many comparatively anonymous disc jockeys who admitted to accepting bribes, however, were less fortunate. In the end, though, the Congressional hearings did little to abolish payola. By the early 1970s, another payola scandal had rocked the music industry, and major investigations into payola have occurred every decade since. This raises the question: in an industry defined by market competition, where does one draw the line between legitimate business practices and abuses of the system? And what effect, if any, does payola have on today’s listening audience?
