For many years, we’ve smoked ourselves in the US 1950’s doctrine of Payola without necessary looking at the cross-sectional effects—especially the benefits of paying for your music to be hugely played on radio stations.
Ghanaian songs are not going anywhere and this is partly due to the fact that, our musicians have bought into this concept of; ‘I will not pay for my music to be played or promoted’, wrongly terming every payment for radio broadcast as POYOLA, a contraction of “pay” and Victrola record players.
Now let me emphatically mention that, paying a DJ to play your song on radio is not PAYOLA and there is nothing wrong with it—be it legal or moral.
According to the U.S. law, 47 U.S.C. § 317 which gives grounds to PAYOLA, the illegal act of PAYOLA takes place when a radio station plays a specific song in exchange for money, service or other valuable consideration directly or indirectly and fails to disclose on air as being sponsored airtime—rather, presents the song as being part of the normal day’s broadcast.
All around the world, musicians and record companies pay HUGELY for their songs to be played/promoted on radio stations, online and TV. There is nothing wrong with such payments; the only thing wrong is when those broadcasting the songs fail to state that their actions are sponsored.
In fact, I consider Payola as an intelligent crime against radio listeners and not even the musicians so why are the musicians in Ghana rather the ones heavily fighting it?
Have we sat down to think of this? What is the difference between paying for your music video to be shown on a TV station and paying for your music to be played on radio?
If there are equally good or crap songs out there and a DJ has a limited time on his hands, I see nothing wrong if a musician buys 4 minutes of the DJ’s airtime to make sure his song is played—-and remember the catch, as long as the DJ makes it clear to the listeners that this is a promo or does not present the song as being part of the normal day’s broadcast, that is not illegal and it is not called Payola.