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Sure, the Governor of New York getting busted for dallying with hookers was bad news for nearly everyone involved, primarily Mr. Spitzer. But if you’re a music biz executive, the good news days are few and far between, so one man’s disaster turned out to be a upbeat day for the major label guys. Sure, the Governor was largely appreciated for his tough stance on corporate malfeasance, but when you were on the “who can really say what ‘corruption’ is, anyway?” side, he was a bit of a jerk. So, when the hooker thing came to light, well…
Many in the music business are having the last laugh over the current prostitution scandal involving N.Y. Governor Eliot Spitzer, a stern reformer who caused no end of problems for the industry when he took action against the labels’ alleged use of payola and bribes to influence radio airplay. Spitzer socked the four major record groups for a total of almost $31 million in penalties and the four major radio chains for another $12.5 million. For $4,300 a pop, that hires an awful lot of high-class hookers.
If only the guys from the majors knew that was Spitzer’s weakness, they might have hooked him up with one of their connections to make that whole “payola” mess disappear, but it’s a little late for that now.
Rumor Mill [Hits Daily Double]
As a celebratory single, they’re releasing Amy Winehouse’s little-heard cover of Murray Head’s “One Night in Bangkok”
Karma’s a b*tch, is all I have to say. Spitzer’s payola crackdown made my work life a living hell when I was doing radio promo- even at a small label where all I was really dealing with were small non-commercial stations. I would never go as far as to say that payola is cool, but what really bugged me about the whole thing was that it was clearly Spitzer just trying to look like the white knight slaying the dragon of corruption, all to buff up his image, pre-gubernatorial run. Claerly there were more important issues affecting New York- health care, education, housing, the job market- than radio station pay-for-play.