BMG shamed in Spitzer warning

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer warned radio stations that they would not escape scrutiny as his investigation into pay-for-play schemes in which music companies pay for airplay of songs released on their labels.

The warning came as Mr. Spitzer announced the first settlement by a music company in the year-long investigation.

Sony BMG Music has agreed to pay $10 million to a music-related charity and alter its promotion practices, as well as to make a public statement acknowledging that it had pursued improper pay-for-play deals in order to get music by its artists played on certain radio stations and that such practices are still prevalent in the music industry.

Specifically, Spitzer said that Sony had bribed programmers and disc jockeys with luxury trips, gifts such as digital cameras, as well as payments through independent promoters.

Some members of the music industry disputed the impropriety of pay-for-play practices by using the example of product placement in supermarkets, where companies routinely pay the supermarket chains for optimum placement of their products in the stores.

Others claimed that the practices were not illegal, as well as that radio was not even that important a platform for the launch of music in the internet age, where websites have replaced radio as the media of choice for promoting music.