463. BTB Talk: Payola

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1:26You guys welcome to another episode of Beyond the Blinds as always it's me Kelly Williams. And Troy McKeety. And this is a Beyond the Blinds talk. This is something I wanted to do for a long time. We're going to be talking about Peola. I've had these notes ready since July of 2025. Well, when I write think of Peola, I always think of you because you're like the person that kind of informed me of it. Like I knew it existed, but I don't think I really understood like the weight of it all. Yeah. And I don't want anyone to think I'm going into this like shocked that the music industry is rotted and shocked that like some artists paid money to be played on the radio. It just always is so interesting to me like who didn't pay the money? Like who wasn't able to afford $40,000 to get their song played at a specific time on a specific day where they know a lot of people are listening to the radio.

2:31And like who shouldn't be as famous as they are, but they use pay all it to get there. Yeah. And like who should be more famous, but just like you said, didn't have the money to like cheat. Yeah. So basically the structure of this episode, we're going to do a lot of background about payola because in the 50s, it got really crazy to the point where they had to make laws. And then we're going to talk about Limpbiscat, but also artists like Jennifer Lopez and Nicholas Shay and Jessica Simpson. So there are more current things going on in the last thing we're going to end on is like the new age of payola basically. Can I just say how much I love that Jennifer Lopez has become the face of like cheating in the music industry like any kind of like bad shortcuts like you know, I mean immoral decisions like Jennifer has done it all. She has and you know who else is going to pop up you guys ready for this name Elliott Spitzer. Oh my god Jesus. Great. Okay. All right. This episode's all over the place. Okay. But payola according to Wikipedia is the given name to illegal practices of paying a commercial radio station to play a song without the station disclosing the payment.

3:45In the term payola was first used in 1916 by variety in a front page editorial condemning the practice calling it a direct payment of evil. You know now that we're talking about this I remember was it Clive Davis. Yes that we talked about payola. Yeah. So Clive isn't in this because we did talk about it over on his episode in Patreon. But Dick Clark is mentioned quite a bit. Okay. Okay. It's like all of Ryan C. Crest's daddies are being. Literally. Literally it's everyone that Ryan C. Crest loves. All of his father figures. So we're going to start with payola in the 50s and this is from performing songwriter dot com. Okay. Payola became a household word in the 1950s. The decades music scene was the convergence of a number of systematic factors. The rise of rock and roll in R&B which coincide with the rise of small labels.

4:50The introduction of the inexpensive 45 RPM single radio shift to talk 40 music post war prosperity in the emergence of the teenager as an economic force records began to replace live performances as the main way to hear and sell music in labels recognize that popular disc jockeys could influence sales. So kind of like the early influencers were disc jockeys on the radio in 1950 there were approximately 250 disc jockeys in the US by 1957 the number had grown to over 5,000. The increase was partially due to the sheer amount of new records being produced by both major and indie labels as the name suggests a disc jockey was responsible for sorting through all of these releases. Naturally the sorting was influenced by payola. These on air personalities had so much clout with young listeners time magazine called them the poobas of musical fashion and pillars of the US low in middle ground culture.

5:55Aware of their rising status jocs established flat rate deals with labels and record distributors a typical deal from mid level DJ was $50 a week per record to ensure a minimum amount of spins. More influential jox commanded percentages of grosses for local concerts lavish trips free records by the box fell plus the all time honored swag as Cleveland DJ Joe Finn in later describe the decades. It was a blur of booze broads and bribes. It's not crazy to think that like the music industry is already so like lawless and like to debatuous and just insane and like around this time it was a hundred times worse. It's so crazy to think about and like no regulations on anything. And it was like a norm it was like just built into the thing of like yeah you're gonna have to like fuck all these people. You know what I mean and nobody was saved like I remember us reading about how was it Janice job when that clive was like yes you're gonna have to fuck for this like even people you wouldn't expect.

7:07So this is from medium it's as firstly established musicians were no longer being played on radio is rock and roll dominated the last five years of the 1950s like no other genre before it or since barring maybe disco 1970s in hip hop. Secondly the blending of black and white music traditions meant there was cross pollination in the music in mixing of the races which was found upon the sexual content of the lyrics and the tribal rhythms of the music were deemed concerning. With conservatives feeling it would result in the moral decay of American society. God Jesus Christ nothing's changed. Furthermore one no longer needed to be a formally trained musician to be successful in music therefore the quality of music was deemed inferior mainly because trained musicians were no longer being employed. Lastly rock and roll gatherings involved the mixing of racism and at times degenerated into violence which was concerning part of that moral decay.

8:10Conservatives didn't light that white adolescence were adopting many of the cultural stereotypes and traits of their black heroes all of this added fuel to the conservative fire. The result was that the music was banned in Boston and five other northeast cities in 1958. More over the rock and roll was banned in Russia and some churches encouraged the burning of the rock and roll records in public society was unhinged in the damage to creative expression that conservatives reaked on society was far greater than the music itself. Images of people burning records was horrifying in the ultimate suppression of free speech and creative expression similar to images from Germany during World War II. Along with Elvis rock and roll bread a whole new era of rock stars in the mid to late 1950s including Jerry Lee Lewis, Richie Valens, Bill Haley, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry and Johnny Cash.

9:11A whole industry developed around the stars especially the men who broke the music on the radio the DJs, discockies or radio show hosts. DJs were considered vital members of the rock and roll value chain as they wielded a lot of power with youth culture of the day and could make or break a star and their music. Record companies began playing DJs under the table to play their records more often boosting sales and chart positions. Are conservatives not bored of being on the wrong side of history in every fucking decade? Right isn't it crazy and I guess I just wanted that history to be out there just so you could understand how important the radio was at that time. And we are still suffering the what do you call it like the blowback the overflow of like this time period where it's like conservatives don't know whether they want to appropriate and steal from black and brown people or bar it. Because they're so threatened and afraid of swinging hips it's like please for once in history beyond the right side of something.

10:19It's really wild right like it's crazy to think that we're kind of still having this argument just in a different way. 1000% like it's actually insane what stream centers. This is the continuation of the medium article DJs who were responsible for sorting through thousands of tracks delivered to them by recording studios companies artists managers and publishers started establishing deals with these entities for priority play listing on their shows. The more the songs got played the more money the artists song writers publishers and record labels made this was known as payola at the height of the payola frenzy amid level DJ was earning about 50 a week. The most influential DJs commanded percentages of concert grosses trips free records along with a plethora of other perks including co songwriting credits various articles were published dealing with the practice in periodicals like billboard magazine.

11:20So billboard magazine has been on payola since the 50s but yeah basically they were just taking in all these bribe bribe bribes and they were kind of creating who was going to be the next big star. God the world is a stage everything is bullshit like genuinely everything is bullshit and this kind of even what's not anywhere near the same exact thing it reminds me of the conversation we were having. And they don't worry darling episode where it's like we are the spider man mean sometimes out here in the streets fighting with each other in the comments. You know like literally like ending relationships with people over celebrities yeah over famous people and half the time what we're fighting about is bullshit. We don't even really know what's going on with these people right it's so crazy to think like maybe Elvis if a DJ wasn't paid a certain amount Elvis wouldn't be Elvis. Oh my god and then to think that if like social media existed at that time and like stand Twitter was a thing you'd have girls fighting for and against Elvis violently as they've been fed a bunch of bullshit and like you know no shade to Elvis but we all know where Elvis like God is moves from right it's just like the cycle never ends it just goes on and on and on.

12:44Could you imagine stand Twitter like beetles girls versus Elvis girls oh my god it would be insane. So all of these accusations of payola kind of came to nothing until the TV quiz show scandal exploded in 1958 so television quiz shows were really popular at the time which meant there was a lot of money being thrown at them so to maintain high ratings secure advertisers. And keep the show successful producers would sometimes like identify charismatic contestants and feed them answers well other contestants were instructed to intentionally miss questions and eventually a disgruntled former contestant started exposing what was happening in the revelations that some televisions like biggest quays shows were essentially rigged led to a congressional investigation in 1959 for the record I would go to the show. For the record I would be that disgruntled one I'd be like no they made me lose they did this they plan this so I'm like a little bit obsessed with this with this whole game show thing because it's it still impacts like our reality TV competitions today so much and like you know top chef and project runway and.

14:02RuPaul's drag race like they all have such strict rules because of this and the other day I just want to give a shout out so that people can watch it if they want I watched this video on YouTube about. Legends of the hidden temple the Nickelodeon show and how you know it's like everybody knows that that show was like pretty rigged so that the kids like couldn't win it and it was a big deal because of this because it was the first show. Since this happened to really be question like is this cheating okay the YouTube channel is called dial up days what a good name I know it's so good and the show is called legends of the hidden temple was it rigged and they talk about this. So yeah so Congress starts looking into like deceptive practices in broadcasting just television at first but then it turned to radio and payola so before the hearings even started a Chicago DJ name Phil Lind and again remember this is a nineteen fifty nine he admitted to taking twenty two thousand dollars to play one single record.

15:07Jesus that's the scale we're talking about in nineteen fifty nine twenty two thousand dollars so that brings us to the two biggest names to be questioned before Congress and that's Alan Fried in Dick Clark. Okay are you familiar with Alan at all not really no there's a reason okay so again this is from performing songwriters dot com. Alan Fried in Dick Clark both played important parts in the rise of rock and roll. Fried embodied the spirit of the music more than Clark refusing to play white cover versions of black songs such as Pat Boone's 2D fruity remember that that's really important. In though they both denied ever accepting payola it's almost impossible to imagine two young popular jocks not succumbing to a little temptation guilty or not it was freed who ended up taking the fall for DJ's everywhere why did the committee single him out freed was abrasive he consorted with black R&B musicians he jive talked smoke constantly and look like an insomniac Clark was squeaky clean.

16:17Handsome in polite at least on the surface once the grilling started freaks friends and allies in broadcasting quickly deserted him he refused on principle to sign an affidavit saying he would never accept payola w ABC fired him and he was charged with twenty six counts of commercial bribery free to skate with finds in a suspended jail sentence and he died five years later broke in virtually forgotten. God that is insane the music industry is so interesting because like a person like that will have all that impact and like be completely just like the rewriting of history how you can just write somebody out of ever existing. And it's really interesting that he wouldn't play the white covers of black artists and I think that's like so bad as he also point the term rock and roll he basically created that. And he I think he was in Boston and at one point there was a really big riot in Boston and he called the Boston police like boring he was like they're just kind of strict and boring that was an a riot like he really hated the man.

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24:11of your first sale today head over to shopify dot com slash blinds to get your free trial today that's right start your free trial at shopify dot com slash blinds that's shopify dot com slash blinds. Okay, so this is from vice it's a damn shame that the man who's credited with coining rock and roll is very name will forever be associated with pay all up sure he wasn't guilty as anyone else but Alan freed ended up taking the fall for an entire rotten network of sticky finger DJs it's speculated that freed board the brunt of the committees ill will because unlike the squeaky clean dick clerk freed was a heavy smoker a jive talker a rock and roll lifer who freely associated with black musicians and refused to betray his own principles by signing an affidavit swearing he'd never accept pay all up he was charged with 26 counts of commercial bribery and handed a bundle of fines and a suspended jail sentence he lost his television show his radio show and found himself black bald rendered virtually unemployable by the fallout from pay all the scandal five years later he died penniless and alone

25:22Dick Clark went on to become one of America's most beloved cultural icons how's that for fair and Dick Clark is just like the most white washed ass like nothing to see here. Right he's like I will count down the new year's even give you a top 40 every week and that's that. Wow I mean going back to your earlier point it just kind of makes you when you learn more about this stuff it just makes you like it's like god I wonder who is who is supposed to be more famous like who is supposed to be like one of our great icons and they're just not because of pay all up and who is really famous and really I can't and like shouldn't be right and it sucks that like Nicki Minaj is the loudest most vocal person when it comes to pay all up and even in a lot in modern day with all this history of a lot of people still didn't believe what she was saying even though there's like so much recorded history of it right exactly like Congress had to get involved yeah.

26:27So like I said Dick Clark really did get off pretty easy in this case because Alan took a lot of the blame and this is from history dot com on May 2nd 1960 Dick Clark concludes his second day of testimony in the so called payola hearings testimony that both save and altered the course of his career if Alan freed the disjockey who gave rock and roll its name was payola's biggest casualty then Dick Clark was its most famous survivor. It may be difficult for those who first encountered Dick Clark in his TV bloops and blunder's days to understand the power he once wielded from his platform on American band stand. But it was great enough in the late 1950s to make a star out of nearly anyone he chose from Connie Francis to Fabian. It was also great enough to attract the attention of the House Committee on legislative oversight the congressional subcommittee investigating the payola scandal. At the payola hearings Clark would testify to holding an ownership stake in a total of 33 different record labels distributors and manufacturers all that profit it handedly from the rise of Clark anointed stars like Danny in the juniors and Frankie Avalon.

27:38One of the companies in which Clark had a financial interest was Jamie records the label that made. Dwayne Eddie famous and returned a tidy profit of $31,700 to Clark on an initial $120 investment believe me this is not as unusual as it may seem Clark told the payola committee. I think the crime I have committed if any is that I made a great deal of money in a short time on little investment but that is the record business. More important than any denials issued by Dick Clark during his payola testimony was the fact that over the preceding months he had at the direction of his network ABC devised himself of all his ownership interest in music related business and in roughly a 150 pop songs from which he earned royalties as a credited quote songwriter. This action and combination perhaps with his good looks and famous demeanor the New York Times called the then 30 year old Clark smooth slim and youthful on the witness stand led Congress to give Clark a pass will encouraging prosecution of the uncooperative Alan freed obviously your fine young man is how the committee chairman representative or in Harris from Arkansas concluded the hearings held on this day in 1960.

28:58I don't think you're the inventor of the system I think you're the product that is wild. I hate the idea I don't know if it's just like unsettling to me the idea that like there are so many people that are considered like icons. Like untouchable can never ever be whatever and it's just because they had a little extra money. Right and it's not shocking but it's like jarring to think about it. Yeah it's jarring and it's like very frustrating. I think frustrating is the best way to put it because there are so many artists who like I've loved and they've kind of gone away and I'm like is it a terrible man or is it payola like what is going on. And you when I talk about that all the time a female artist where people will make fun of them it's like I honestly find the conversation in 2026 around like female pop stars to be so. I hate it I hate it like I avoid. I hate to stand Twitter now at all costs because I just hate.

30:02The obsession with like numbers and charts and whatever and it's like you don't even realize that half of this shit is just like paid for. Yeah and it's like who knows who it's not always necessarily about like talent. And like you said sometimes it's just like some fuck asked man that hates. some woman that either wouldn't sleep with them or embarrassed as hurt as ego or whatever, and doesn't let her release music again for years. It's not always because she's like a flop, you know? Right, and now when it comes to charts, I'm like streaming makes it also skewed anyway. That how can you even tell? Yeah, and like, I don't know, people who obsessively follow that stuff, I'm like, that is, I'm so glad that I don't have that autism. You're great. That's funny. You know, like, I have my own obsessive weird things, but I'm so happy I'm not a charts girl obsessive, obsessing about numbers and, cause like you said, it's also bullshit now anyway.

31:02Like the only charts I ever really cared about were the TRL countdown or when VH1 used to do the top 20 music videos, I'm trying to predict where they would land. And even the TRL countdown we found out because of fucking, what's his name? My bum is on your head or whatever. Tom Green. Because of Tom Green, we're like, oh, it's fake. Even that was fake. Our institutions are not real. That was real. I don't know what you're talking about. So just some key details of this 1960s law that passed banning Peola. So now people had to have a mandatory disclosure. Broadcasters had to announce on air if any money service or valuable consideration was received for an airing of a record or commercial material, there were criminal penalties. Violations of the sponsorship identification rules were classified as a misdemeanor carrying penalties up to $10,000 in fines in one year in federal prison,

32:04an expanded scope. So the law extended responsibilities beyond station license to individual station personnel and DJs. So it's not just the station now like DJ Troy McKeeley could get in trouble for it. Not just 108 or whatever. And then the quiz show rigging. The quiz show's really pushed people over the edge, you know? Yeah. So the amendments also made the receptive rigging of television quiz shows a federal crime, a federal crime if you rig a quiz show in the 50s or even up to today. It's also crazy to think like if you were a radio person at this time like before all of the laws were in place like I would love for somebody to make a movie about that. Yeah. Like just the bribes and the offers. And I remember us reading about how like they would bring in like every day a line out the door of prostitutes

33:04for payola like it's like play our record and you can sleep with all these. It's crazy. Like it's crazy. The thing I can't get over is the song writing credit. That's so insane to me that if you took you know a $10,000 bribe not only will you get $10,000, you're going to get a co-write like credit. Like how in God's name is that even a tiny bit okay? Right like Dick Clark's like I don't know. I think people are just mad at me because I made a small investment and got a bunch of money back. It's like, you're mad at you Dick Clark. Dick Clark is like I can't help that people are obsessed with me. And it also makes me think of of Ditty. It makes me think of when we talked about Ditty in the last documentary that we watched. And like for a few years like bad boy artists were the only people on the radio like all day and night. So can you imagine the stuff that Ditty was offering

34:05these radio hosts and like offering Leno invites to the white party and you can come to a freak off if you are. Just play Lil' Kim all day and all night. Well I wonder where it like the line is to cross because I have like a Taylor Swift reputation promotional box that was sent to radio hosts because one of my followers like there's husband was gonna throw it away and they're like no we have to send it to Kelly because you were going to the radio. So like that's not payola though. But like you got a reputation ticket with this box. So how is that payola? What was in the box? I can show it to you if you want. Okay yeah I want to see. It's like this huge box right? Is it wood? It's I don't know it's like not cardboard but it's not wood. Wow. And then you open it. Oh my God holy fuck. Yeah. That's amazing. And then like there's more stuff under it. He was going to throw that away.

35:07Yeah he's gonna throw it away. And like you get the reputation album of a ticket to tickets and like a lane in here that you can wear it the show I guess. That is incredible. I know I've left the cult but I still have some memorabilia okay. Yeah we never really leave the cult. They're always with us. But yeah I'm like I guess like that's not money but it's still you got to go to the reputation tour. Yeah so that's interesting. Yeah like what is considered Paila and what's not? Like gifts. I wonder how when they go to court over stuff like this how they decide. That guy's like I don't have that box anymore. I was given away. No one asked me. He pulls you into a lawsuit. So in the 70s and 80s Paila didn't necessarily like disappear. It just changed a little bit. So instead of the old school image of like a DJ being handed money to play certain songs record labels started hiring independent

36:11promoters. And that's how they got away with it. So a label could legally pay someone to promote its records in these independent promoters became extremely powerful through the 70s and the 80s. And major labels could afford to spend heavily on promotion while smaller labels struggled to compete for the same radio exposure. And this essentially created a new middleman between record labels in the radio station. So instead of a label directly paying a DJ, they were paying someone whose entire job was to get their song played on the radio. Interesting. The loopholes of it all. So by the 1980s a small group of powerful independent record promoters became known in the industry as quote the network. And these promoters controlled different territories across the country and had close relationships with influential radio stations and program directors. And these labels would pay the promoters

37:12like huge amounts of money to help get their songs added to radio playlist. And then the network became so powerful that some people in the industry believed refusing to work with them would actually hurt a record's chance at being played. So by the middle of the decade, major labels were reportedly spending tens of millions of dollars a year on independent promoters. So while this wasn't necessarily the same as like, here's an envelope full of cash in the 1950s, you can see how the idea of paying for influence over what Americans heard on the radio never went away. I hate how not pure this industry is. It's like, I have an idea. Why don't we do this crazy thing where talent speaks? Why? How about we do this crazy thing where talented people get rewarded for being good at doing music? Isn't that wild? And it made me think wasn't diddy a big promoter? Yeah.

38:13Makes sense, right? Totally. So now we're going to get more into the modern paola and try to read advice. Yeah, I see. I see that motherfucker's name. Also, I have to say, people got really mad at Woodstock 99, documentary, growing up, I fucking love Lib Biscuit. Okay, that's my truth. I loved Fred Durst, not to the point where I'd wear a Yankee hat, but pretty close. And I didn't and still don't feel bad about it. So you could be pissed off that I read Fred Durst the whole hour and you will continue to be a mama. I'll never apologize for that. This is an article from Vice. Not only did Paola ruin at least one man's life and cause untold amounts of chaos within the music industry itself, it's also to blame for Lent Biscuit's career. Hello, you girls aren't gonna like this one. Send the hate to vice in 1998 when they were having a hard time getting airplay

39:14in Portland, Oregon. Before a big concert, the still fledgling rap rock, outfits, management, paid a local radio station, KUFO 101.1 to play their song, counterfeit for five weeks straight, presented by interscope announcement before and after. Like an exclusive. Oh my God. The company framed it as a pay for play scheme while distancing itself from Paola accusations, leading the New York Times to compare the move to paying for an infomercial. This is honest, Paola was about fraud. Okay. We are good people. Manager Jeff Quansonence told MTV, Paola was about DJs defrauding the owners of their stations and potentially hurting ratings by not making musical decisions. Then the FCC required people to say that a spin was paid for, so the fraud element was taken out of it.

40:17By us saying this is brought to you by interscope, you know the money is going to the station. If stations want to make bad decisions, then their ratings go down. The record, $3 bill, y'all, went on to sell over 170,000 copies, launching lit biscuits career and standardized the practice for pay for play for a whole new generation of greedy DJs and greedier record labels. I didn't know that. What do you think about that? Trying to market as an exclusive, because technically they are saying this is presented by interscope and they're kind of giving some kind of notice that interscope is paying for this. It feels like when a lawyer reads through a court case and finds literal insane loopholes that they can use to their advantage, it just feels like legal cheating. Yeah, legal cheating, I think, is the best way to put it. Because God forbid you rely on your talent or skill

41:19to just see if this song could take off. If that Portland DJ didn't take the money, Woodstock 99 wouldn't have happened the way it took. Wow, the butterfly effect, and it all led to us. So now we're going to jump to 2005. And this is Sony BMG, there was a $10 million pay-oh-less settlement. So there's kind of like a big pay-oh-la moment in the early 2000s again. And this is from CBS News. One of the biggest companies, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, agreed Monday to pay $10 million into stop paying radio station employees to feature its artists to settle an investigation by New York Attorney General, Elliott Spitzer. The agreement resulted from Spitzer's investigation of suspected pay-for-play practices in the music industry. Sony Spok's spokesperson, John McKay, said the practice was wrong and improper. Despite federal and state laws prohibiting unacknowledged payment by record labels

42:20to radio stations for airing music, such direct and indirect forms of what has been described generically as pay-oh-la for spins has continued to be an unfortunate, prevalent aspect of radio promotion, he said. Sony BMG acknowledges that various employees pursued some radio promotion practices on behalf of the company that were wrong and improper and apologizes for such conduct. Sony BMG looks forward to defining a new higher standard in radio promotion. Spitzer said Sony BMG has also agreed to hire a compliance officer to monitor promotion practices. He commended the company for its cooperation. Our investigation shows that contrary to listener expectations that songs are selected for airplay based on artistic merit and popularity, airtime is often determined by undisclosed pay-offs to radio stations in their employees. This agreement is a model for breaking the pervasive influence of bribes in the industry.

43:23Spitzer had requested documents in information from EMI, Warner Music Group, the Vendy Universal, essays, Universal Music Group, as well as from Sony BMG, which is a joint venture of Sony corporations and Bertelsman AG. Spitzer said his investigation showed Sony BMG paid for vacation packages and electronics for radio programmers, paid for contesting giveaways for listeners, paid some operational expenses of radio stations in hired middlemen known as independent promoters to provide illegal payments to radio stations to get more airplay for its artists. Spitzer also said emails among company executives showed top officials were aware of the payments. Spitzer said Sony BMG employees sought to conceal some payments by using fake contested winners to document the transaction. In one case, an employee of Sony's epic label was trying to promote the group audio slave to a station and asked,

44:24what do I have to do to get audio slave on WKSS this week? Whatever you can dream, I can make it happen. In another case, a promoter unhappy that Celine Dion's I Draw-Val Knight was being played overnight on some stations threatened to revoke a trip to a Dion show in Las Vegas unless the play times improved. Sony BMG music is an umbrella organization for several prominent record labels, including aristorecords, Columbia records, Sony music international and so-so deaf records. Star artists signed with the aristolabel alone include Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Outcast, Pink, and Sarah McLaughlin. The 10 million will be distributed to not-for-profit entities, and embarked for music education programs, Spitzer said. Spitzer wouldn't comment on the status of similar investigations into other major record companies. Spitzer appears to have found a whole arsenal of smoking guns, said John Adelstein, a member of the Federal Communications Commission, a Democrat.

45:25We need to investigate each particular instance that Spitzer has uncovered to see if it is a violation of federal law. This is a potential massive scandal. Record companies can't offer financial incentives under a 1960 federal law that made it a crime punishable by $10,000 fine and up to a year in prison to offer money or other gifts to give record airplay. The practice was called Peola, a contract of pay and vitrola record players. The law was passed in response to the Peola scandals of the 1950s and early 1960s that implicated some then-famous disdrockies. Can I just say is a complete side note? Yeah. My favorite Celine Dion song, not a rational opinion, but I love hydroval night. Like, it is really good. So hot. It's so underrated. It's all coming back to me as my favorite Celine Dion song, which is a, by the way, appropriate. Yeah. I'm gonna have that be the last song played at the wedding.

46:26Really? That's gonna be like our last song to get it all out. And get it all out I will. Mm-hmm. Uh-huh. When you invited, we are friends. It can turn into popular belief. We do get along. Make sure to get a thread going for that one. I am going to the wedding. You may want to get that thread started now. Um, I'm so glad you have the next article. I am too. From the title, I'm so happy. This is from, sorry. This is from, I'm giddy. I have gooseies. This is from Fox News. This is a 2005 Payola Shocker J.Lo hits. Others were bought by Sony. I always say when people ask me that the so-called vipers of the movie business would not last a day in the record business, uh-huh. Now Elliott Spitzer's office has decided to prove the point. Please be advised that in this week's Jennifer Lopez top 40 spin increase of 236, we bought 63 spins

47:30at a cost of $3,600. How interesting. Like these are emails that people are putting in, like print. Like why would you write that? Wow. I've never seen where it shows the exact amount per spin. This is a good article. That's so interesting. Please be advised that in this week's good Charlotte top 40 spin increase of 61, we bought approximately 250 spins at a cost of $17K. It kind of sounds like ad sales, like the way that you sell ads for like a podcast. Ironically, it didn't help as the memo notes that the company actually lost spins or plays of the record, even though they laid out money for them. See above. The internal memos from Sony Music revealed today in the New York State Attorney General's investigation of Peola at the company will be mind blowing to those who are not so jaded to think records are played on the radio

48:30because they're good. We've all known for a long time that contemporary pop music stinks. Well, let's not get crazy. We hear quotes hits on the radio and wonder, how can this be? And now we know. And memos from both Sony, Columbia, and Epic Records, senior vice president and promotion circa 2002 to 2003, whose names are redacted in the reports but are well known in the industry, spell out who to pay and what to pay them in order to get the company's records on the air. From Epic, home of JLo, a memo from November 12 of 2002, a rate card that shows radio stations in the top 23 markets will receive $1,000, markets $23 to $100, $800, lower markets get $500. If a record receives less than 75 spends at any given radio station, we will not pay for the full rate. The memo to DJ states, we look forward to breaking many records

49:30together in the future. They're like, we look forward to stealing much, much in the future. Take Jennifer Lopez's awful record get right. OK. All right. OK, let's not get crazy. With the shrill horn, oh, God. With the shrill horn and lifted wrap, it's not clear that the bots sensation when it was released last winter. So too, where her previous hits, I'm glad and I'm real. According to the memos, all were obtained by Sony, laying out dough and incentives. It's no surprise. There isn't a person alive who could hum any of those songs. This is a direct attack. What the hell? I'm right here. I'm alive. Unreadiness. Not even JLo herself. Well, well, there's some truth. More memos. We ordered a laptop for Donnie Michaels at WFLY in Albany. He has since moved to WHYI in Miami. We need to change the shipping address.

50:30One Sony memo from 2002, can you work with Donnie to see what kind of digital camera he wants us to order? Another from someone at Sony's Urban Promotion Department. I'm trying to buy a Walkman for Toy Abesley at WRKSNY. Can PRS get to me tomorrow by 3 PM? I really need to get the CD by then or I have to wait a week or two before she gets her music again. Nice, huh? How many times have I written in this column about talented and deserving artists who get no airplay and no attention from their record companies? Yet dozens of records with little or no artistic merit are all over the radio and racked in displays at the remaining record stores with great prominence. Thanks to Spitzer's investigation, we now get a taste of what's been happening. More memos. This one from February 13th of 2004, gave it a Jessica trip to WKSE to secure Jessica's spins and switch foot. That would be Jessica Simpson for whom Sony laid on big bucks in the last couple of years to turn her into something that she's clearly not, a star.

51:34Wow, they hate gays. Well, it is Fox News. It is a Fox News. Oh, yeah, I forgot I was reading a Fox News article. Hello, hello. And then there's a story of a guy named Dave Universal who was fired from Buffalo's WKSE in January where there was word that Spitzer was investigating him. Universal, likely a stage name, claimed that he did nothing his station didn't know about. That was probably true, but the DJ got trips to Miami and Yankees tickets among other gifts and exchange for playing Sony records from a Sony internal memo on September 8th of 2004. Two weeks ago, it cost us over $4,000 to get France Ferdinand on WKSE. Wow. I don't think I've ever seen the numbers just like laid out like that where it's like, this many spins for this much money. It's really interesting, right? It's very fascinating. Because there's a lot of stuff like artists and bands that you just don't think about. Like nobody's thinking about France Ferdinand

52:35when you're thinking about Payola or whatever, you know? Well, when I looked it up and saw their name, I'm like, that makes sense. I never liked them anyway. Wow. Wow. That is crazy. I love that they're like, Jalos music's bad. So obviously it's paid for. And I think it's interesting like good Charlotte they tried to get them more spins and they were like, it didn't work. We'll do next. What do we have to do? Even a walk then giving someone a walk man could be considered some kind of payola, I guess. You know, it must be so interesting to be somebody like Jennifer Lopez where like you just have basically like Marvel Super villains protecting you. Like Tommy and like this, the men that are in control of her career are so many Medina. They're so, they're the most powerful men that exist in music. And they do like such evil things for her. Why do you think? Like I think the Me Too movement obviously helped

53:36like actors in Hollywood specifically more so than music. But what do you think it'll take for music to kind of have that moment? You know, I don't know in a post-ditty being exposed world, I don't know now. I used to feel like I knew, but now we all know about Diddy and even still people like don't get it. Right, because people will be like, Diddy's not even the worst of them. I'm like them, we should talk about the worst of them. Yeah, like in a post-cash, world, I'm just like, I don't know. I just think it's so different with music because of like we were saying earlier, like the stands and just like how delusional fan bases can be. Yeah. And obsessive and like not logical, not rational. I could keep going. No, I think that's a good point. And like I think people have a different relationship to music than they do with like actors and stuff like that.

54:37We look at musicians a little bit different than an actor because actors are like, oh, they're faking it anyway. Right. Whereas musicians who want to believe that they believe the music they're putting out. Exactly. And like every song is a diary entry and they live by the words they were singing. And like, you know, and also like, yeah, just the emotional investment that people have in musicians, you know, like the way that somebody is invested in like, Lady Gaga versus, you know, Angelina Jolie, even no matter how much they love Tomb Raider, it's just different, you know? Laura Croft, is that what you called her? Yeah. I didn't know Americans called her Laura. So then this is an article from Variety, this is from 2006. Oh, can I also just say that we have gotten, there have been a couple comments of people being like, be careful with the vanity fair. Oh, okay. I know that vanity fair is evil, but they're a necessary evil in my life. Unfortunately, honestly like TMZ. Yeah, 1000%. Like, I love Nancy Jo sales,

55:38and unfortunately there is a, there's a whole ecosystem there revolving around vanity fair. We said, we said we're talking about music right now. Okay, badness in the music, not in the articles that we read, the publications. It's nothing about the publications in this episode. Oh my God, that is hilarious. So this is from Variety from 2006. Universal music group has become the third major music distributor to settle a New York Aola probe offering to pay a $12 million fine and in pay for play practices. New York State Attorney General Elliot Spencer announced the settlement Thursday, slapping the world's largest record company with the largest fine in his radio air play investigations. Previously Sony BMG paid 10 million, Warner Brothers paid five, and all the money's are given to charity. Spitzer's investigation determined that universal and its record labels offered a series of inducements to radio stations and their employees to obtain air play. Among the artists mentioned who benefited, oh my God.

56:41I see the names. Huh. Who benefited from the pay for play system where Nick Lachey, Ashley Simpson, Brian McKnight and Lindsay Lohan, I feel sick. Universal music group labels included Interscope, Geffen, A&M, Island Def Jam, and Motown. Settlement requires UMG to cease payments and other inducements to radio stations, discontinued the employment of indie promoters, hire a compliance officer and implement an internal system to detect future abuse. The Attorney General's office, Spitzer reported, obtained emails showing that universal execs were aware of payoffs and employees were trained and pressured to purchase air play. Quote, we have been working cooperatively with the Attorney General's office and resolving these promotion issues and are pleased to have completed the process with the agreement, UMG said in a statement, that reforms that we have agreed to with the Attorney General are consistent with the policies that we voluntarily implemented over a year ago.

57:42Okay. Also, how do they have a compliance officer? Like aren't they in a huge fucking company? We're implementing a compliance officer as the, like what? Where have come they been? Probe discovered that universal radio strategy included bribes in the form of electronics, trips, sports and entertainment tickets to radio station programmers, payments to cover operational expenses and contest giveaways, retention of indie promoters, as can do it for illegal payments to stations and payments for air play under the guise of advertising. The investigation connected air time in Albany, New York for McNight's Shira Kudawita with a radio programmer's use of a Miami hotel room that was listed as a contest prize for accounting purposes. The same programmer also received a Manhattan hotel room and Yankees tickets were playing a Le Shai tune. Can you imagine receiving Yankees tickets

58:44for playing a Nick Le Shai song? Especially because I would play what's left in me for free. Yeah, I know. Yeah. It's like, I'll play, give me just one night. I don't need the, I don't even might think Yankees. When Spitzer just released findings of his investigation in July, emails led to smoking guns within Sony's music epic and Columbia record labels and to the presentation of trips and merchandise to radio workers in small Eastern markets. Spitzer released none of those specifics in connection with the UMG report. As with all the investigations, the music company does not acknowledge guilt, but does admit, but does admit individuals were partaking in illegal practices. UMG will also pay $100,000 to cover the cost of the investigation. Spitzer's office said that the investigation continues and all eyes are on AMI. Spitzer sued Intercom communications earlier this year and accusing the radio company's personnel of accepting cash payments for air play. Intercom denied the allegations

59:45and reportedly rejected Spitzer's proposal of a $20 million settlement. In addition, last month, the FCC extended its own investigations into payola practices at Clear Channel. Kitaddle, is all you say. I think it's Cytadel. You can skip it. You can just say, you can just say, let's see, be on the radio if you want. Kitaddle, sit down, I'll say sit down, I'll say it. Payola practices at Clear Channel, sorry. Cytadel, Broadcasting and CVS Radio after Spitzer's office had subpoenaed each of them. The 12 million from UMG will be distributed through the Rockefeller, the L'Anthropy Advisors. Oh, I'm sure that that'll go to a great place. Thank you Rockefeller family. So yeah, so that is like the early 2000s version of payola and again, I don't know how like tickets to the reputation tour isn't a part of payola,

1:00:45but apparently it's not. Wow. Or maybe it is and I'm starting them. It's even more interesting to hear this stuff because now with everything being streaming and everything is so different, there's less of a reliance on the classic system to get music out or whatever. But it's more interesting, I think this time, when we're young, Ashley's a little bit more allegedly going through all of the classic, get your song out there and it just hits. Like the stuff that we love not knowing that it's just payola. It's so like Lindsay Lohan, no offense, I actually love her music, makes sense. Like yeah, they're gonna play for rumors, but you would think like pieces of me, people actually loved that song, but apparently they didn't. Well then it makes you think too, like the combination of people genuinely loving it, plus the payola must just, I mean, I guess that leads to like all those records that Ashley broke with her debut.

1:01:47Yeah. You know, but I guess when you think about somebody like Joe Simpson being in charge, it's like, well yeah, like Joe Simpson is gonna do that shit. And it's like of course Nick, Ashley and Jessica were all involved because of Joe. And it's interesting in the article we've read before, the one you just did, how it's like, you know, we're gonna pay $4,000 for 200 more spins. And I'm like, is 200 more spins really that many? I know, it doesn't feel like it, but I guess, if I guess if, okay, if you think about it, like it's being spread out, like every what, 20th song or something on the radio throughout the week, it adds up, but it still doesn't feel, the number feels really small. I mean, you could play it 24 times a day once an hour. Yeah, like I guess that, yeah, that makes sense. God. Also, there were those songs you couldn't escape. And now I'm just like, Peola,

1:02:47like happy by for L Williams, Peola. I mean, I think everybody can think of one song that they're just like, I can't believe how often I'm hearing this song, like I can't believe. I remember my mom used to bring that up all the time about bye, bye, bye. Where she would be like, I physically cannot turn on any radio and bye, bye, bye isn't playing. You would imagine Lou Perlman was like in that Peola bag, you know? I always think of Narl's Barkley. That song craze. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. I ended up hating that song because of how much I heard it. Yeah, that's a good example. Hey, yeah. Well, that's also one of the longest-running videos on TRL. This is a slippery slope to go down. It is. An outcast was named in one of them. Oh, my God, the black eyed peas for sure. Don't you dare. I got a feeling it's Peola. I'm sorry, it has to be. Oprah just woke up and it cold sweat. I know, Will I am said he's going to slap you next time you see you?

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1:06:57Egg sandwiches, fries, burgers, some fans even swear by dipping pizza crust in it. And once you notice it, you start seeing it everywhere. Chefs use it, restaurants use it. People who really care about flavor use it. Never try it, grab the bottle with the red cap next time you're out of the store. Put it on just about anything. Then you'll understand. QB, the original Japanese mayonnaise. So I'm actually interested in your side of this too, because we have different creative friends. Creata. Oh, it came out. Hello. So we're going to be talking about the new age of peola, and that's basically Spotify discovery mode to be exact. But before that, I want to talk about TikTok, because I do think there's a version of it that's happening over on social media. So once you get to a certain level as a creator on TikTok, you can get offers where you're paid a certain amount of money to make a video using a specific song. I am always offered $200 to put certain songs in my TikToks, and I don't do them, because I don't get enough views to actually make money, and I know that.

1:07:57And I know that's not exactly peola. It's paid music promotion, and there's nothing wrong with that. But I still think it's some new version of peola, if that makes sense. And I have a creator friend who was approached directly by an artist, but by the artist's team, and they were offered money to promote the music without disclosing hashtag ad. And I think that's another way. And it's not technically peola in a traditional radio sense, but I think it raises a similar question, how much of this music that we think is being organically given to us, becoming popular, is actually being paid to be put in front of us? And do you have any friends who've dealt with that? I do. I figure. I do. Yeah. And I'm very fascinated by it, because I do think that because it's so new, like the TikTok being such a big force in music is so new that it feels kind of lawless. Like it's the Wild West right now.

1:08:57And I do think that it's a form of peola. And I think it's very interesting when you watch certain artists, like when they're trying to do that, and it just reads as very obvious, like people can suss it out, like Megan Trainor. Yeah. I mean, you want to talk about TikTok peola. Her being like, come on, everybody. Let's do the viral dance for her song that hasn't been released yet. Yeah. It's like, ugh. But I guess when you're being managed by Lou Taylor, it's like, yeah, you would expect something like that. And I also think it's kind of hard, not with like Megan Trainor. Like that's very obvious, but like I found Noah Khan going through TikTok. But it's because my algorithm knows I like that. So some of the time I'm like, is it just the algorithm? Or are they actually paying to be put in front of me? Yeah, I think it's honestly probably a perfect split down the middle of both. But it is really interesting. And it's funny how some people can do it so effectively and like be really good at making a feel like authentic.

1:09:59But I do think like for a lot of artists, they're probably like, damn, I wish that I would have cast in during that like Doja Cat era of like TikTok, you know, when it was really, I mean, you could have a song literally take over the globe from a TikTok dance. Now it's a little, it's like oversaturated, it's different, you know? Yeah. I'm just trying to think like, I know Taylor Swift's her latest song, I knew you. Like that's been put on my repeat playlist. And I'm like, what is that? Like what kind of deal does she have with Spotify? When I listen to that song in full, once. It's crazy. Yeah. And I think like, even though I'm obviously biased because I'm a fan, I do think that you can look at somebody like Charlie and be like, okay, like that feels like inorganic. But then even she will release videos and be like, this is what they're telling me that I need to post on TikTok, you know, like, it's just interesting. I do think the social media aspect of it has just added

1:11:00a whole layer to make it more complicated. And I wonder about those early TikTok influencers who would dance to specific songs over and over and over again. Like they had to be getting paid by those artists. 1000%. Like, scroll through their account and it's 60 videos of the same song starting over and over. Yeah. So this is our final article. It is a little bit long, but it's called pay to get play listed. And it's from 2025 from the Guardian. The post introduced a new program called discovery mode. And this is from Spotify, which would ask artists to accept lower royalty rates in exchange for algorithmic promotion. It was paid a play, but Spotify introduced the scheme as neutral language. Artists would be able to identify music that's a priority for them, which would become one of thousands of data inputs influencing how Spotify delivers the perfect song for the moment just for you. Rather than charge an upfront fee, labels or rights holders

1:12:01agree to be paid a promotional recording royalty rate for streams and personalized listening sessions where Spotify provided this service. Participating labels in artists take a 30% royalty reduction on tracks enrolled in the program when they are discovered through its channels. Only tracks more than 30 days old are eligible. Notably, there have been no signs that Spotify plans to publicly label which songs are enrolled. A lack of disclosure that has caused many music advocacy groups to liken discovery mode to the radio payola of the 1950s, which was eventually outlawed by the US Federal Trade Commission. Spotify, of course, framed discovery mode, which wasn't exactly replicating the terms of radio payola as democratizing. One Spotify employee explained it this way, quote, we're not asking for any upfront budget or payment, which means there's no barrier to entry. More artists would have the freedom to devalue their work,

1:13:02the opportunity to participate in an extractive system. And that was somehow democratic. Discovery modes inner workings are, in part, a product of how playlists have evolved more broadly. Many of Spotify's recommendation systems start with a curator identifying songs eligible to be included in a playlist. A personalization algorithm then decides which 50 end up on a user's playlist based on what they are most likely to identify with. Similarly, in the automated mixes impacted by discovery mode, user-specific remixes in the radio and autoclave features, a sequencing algorithm re-ranks the tracks from a relevant pool before they're delivered, increasing their chance of being served to users a source explained. Internally, Discovery modes success has been measured by the percentage of total artists who are onboarded and how much cash this was saving Spotify. By 2023, Spotify employees celebrated

1:14:02in an exciting Discovery mode milestone, according to a review of the company's Slack messages. More than 50% of what Spotify calls tier two to three artists, those annual royalties of 50,000 to 500,000 have tried the Discovery mode. Last year, we sent out within an ambitious goal of getting 30% in employee wrote, surpassing 50% felt beyond our wildest dreams and yet here we are, congrats all. But in the long-term Discovery mode, also seemed like an economic arrangement that only the most moneyed labels could afford. Discovery mode is very insidious in that it doesn't matter whether you do it or not, you're affected by it, one indie label employee told me. If all of your competitors are using Discovery mode and you're not, your share is going to go down. The disingenuous promotional material emphasized how this program was all about what the artist wanted to promote. By the end of 20 to 23, that was in question

1:15:03as Spotify introduced pre-campaign insights or PCI, an algorithm that would tell an artist or label which tracks were more likely to stream well in a Discovery mode campaign. It was rolled out for a managed service discovery mode customers as opposed to self-service customers. Advertising industry terminology referring to whether a customer has a point of contact managing their campaigns. For those eligible, the company claimed that the PCI algorithm would recommend with roughly 85% accuracy, tracks predicted to see a lift in streams from Discovery mode campaign. So I just want to pause here to let everyone know that if you had money, you could go in Discovery mode and there was an 85% more likely chance someone is going to listen to your song because you paid to be in Discovery mode. Even though you didn't pay, you just took 30% out of the money you would have made from that stream. So they're not technically paying, but they're agreeing to make less money and give Spotify more money.

1:16:03I hate Spotify. Yeah. Like as a girl who's never been a Spotify girl, and I'm not saying that Apple music is like some saint, but Spotify is just so messy to me. I am a Spotify girl, but I do see the issues. Like I don't really listen to any curated playlist. I just listen to the music I want because I know I'm just going to hear the same 30 songs over and over and over again. And now that they've let go of so many people to just make AI do a lot of the heavy lifting over there, all of this stuff that used to be cool about Spotify isn't even cool, even the Spotify wrapped. Right. That's now because it's AI, it's not people making it. Exactly. And they'll just throw whoever they think should be your top artist as your artist. Yeah. So one independent record label manager said she tried Discovery Mo campaigns for different artists on her indie rock label, but it was only the folk leaning artist

1:17:06for whom it was most effective. It serves passive listeners, she told me. She reflected on how frustrating it was that opting into Discovery mode actually did lean to increase streams for her artist, the fact that someone would hear a promoted track and not know it was promoted raised ethical concerns. This unfortunately is the way that the future looks for us and we have zero control over it. Another independent label manager noted that despite seeing results from Discovery mode, he was not sure yet what their royalty statements would look like. It's this vicious cycle where we're losing revenue because of streaming and then streaming is pushing these weird opportunities on us and we need to take them in order to make up for the lost revenue. It sadly is so desperate because the industry changes so consistently and we're constantly thinking of ways to keep up. According to Kevin Erickson, director of the Future of Music Coalition, there are important distinctions between Peola on radio and what may appear to be its contemporary online equivalent.

1:18:06Peola has gone underground with radio but comparable practices online are happening out in the open. Musicians are not paid at all when they're played on USAM or FM so there isn't the same sort of commercial incentive to use Peola. There's this whole other category of harm that happens on the digital side, said Erickson. In his view, many of the issues artists face in the streaming era include what has been characterized as digital Peola, our anti-trust issues that both the Federal Communications Commission FCC and the Federal Trade Commission, the FTC, have the power to take on as unfair methods of competition and as deceptive practices because people don't know whether they're listening to a song due to a curated recommendation or a business relationship. In addition, Erickson noted that the FTC could also contribute a more equitable streaming landscape by investigating the major record label contracts that are currently locked up by NDGs

1:19:07as well as any contract digital services providers hold with aggregators and stock music providers. As he puts it, unaccountable powers is the problem when it reverts pops up. It's not about any particular technology, it's concentrated, unaccountable private powers. In response to points raised in this article, a Spotify spokesperson disputed the characterization of Discovery Mode as a contemporary equivalent of Peola. While users cannot see which individual songs are required to Discovery Mode, the About Recommendations link in algorithmically generated playlists discloses factors that may have influenced the track listing. Spotify disputes the accuracy of views shared by employees in some internal messaging features in this chapter. According to the company, these internal messages appear to be largely from former employees who were chatting with each other about their views on different company matters, including matters that they may not have been working on or even had direct knowledge of.

1:20:08The company adds, we have a culture where employees are free to share their views, even when they have concerns or constructive criticism. They also dispute the claim that Discovery Mode is anti-competitive. The company would not comment on whether Discovery Mode profits were accurate. I actually just bought an iPod. Oh, fun. And I just want to be done with these streaming services. I want to be out of the hamster wheel. I want to own stuff again. Like I just saw an article about how CDs are back. And like Gen Z has like completely brought CDs back into and I'm so happy and grateful for that. Thank you. Because I think we need to take the power back. I agree. We are being manipulated and brainwashed and tricked into paying outrageous amounts of money to not own anything. And all they do is lie to us and trick us and deceive. And it's just like I'm just over it. Like I'm so over-spotify in Apple Music.

1:21:11And it also makes me wonder if these new artists that I have found through different, like whether it's TikTok or Spotify or whatever, it's like do I actually like their music? Like if this wasn't served to me on a silver platter, would I be into their music the way I am? Yeah, I agree. I'm just like I want out of the hamster we all. Like I'm over it. If anybody listening, I've been trying to like download my music catalog to put on my new iPod. If anybody has any good music sites, I'll be using the internet archive, but I'm out. I'm getting out. I want out. I want free. I can't do it anymore. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. And I've been wanting to talk about Payola for so long. So thank you for letting me just like chat about it. Because again, I'm not shocked by anything. It's just interesting how it's like reinvented itself in time. No, I thought this was super interesting. And I think it's important that we know it. Like, you know, it's important that the public knows this information because like it's affecting us greatly.

1:22:13And like I said, we are really passionately supporting some of these people or like violently defending them and their streams and how much they charted and blah, blah, blah. And she's a flop and she's not, oh, and it's like, I have to tell you what the fuck you're talking about. I know. I just saw this video of like a bot farm and what it actually looks like and how most of the people you're fighting with online are actually bots, not real people. Yeah. Oh my God. I saw my first Christine from sister why I was like posted a video talking about the new season. And there were Cody bots in her comments. People were like, I never thought I'd see the day where there's a Cody bot. It was like lover of Cody 49. Like I'm happy that Cody and Robyn are gone because they deserve better. They were the only entertainment on the show and people were commenting, I cannot believe I'm seeing a Cody and Robin bot farm at play. Honestly, I made a video about Michaela leaving sister wives and posted it to Instagram.

1:23:14And within five seconds, someone defending Taylor posted with no, it was like, you know, like X, Y, six, seven, eight, nine telling about how much Taylor is lovely and how I'm wrong. Yeah, I saw this woman, I don't remember where I saw the video but she was talking about AI. She was like an AI specialist or whatever. And she was talking about how like an outrageous percentage, I think it was like over 60% or something of the video of the people that we're talking to on the internet are not real. Like, yeah. And I remember even just a few months ago, we talked on this show about how like a new statistic come out where it was like in the very near future, people will wonder, like people won't be able to gauge what is real and what's not real because of AI. And we're here. Like just in a few months, we are here. And I do have to let everyone know, you guys know Troy and I won't take money to talk good about anyone, but also podcasters, there's pay-all-end podcasting. Oh, I'm so loosely, absolutely.

1:24:18And a lot of without naming names, a lot of the people that you wonder, how are they getting all these interviews? How do they get the biggest people to come on their show without any skill or whatever? It's because of pay-all-end. So yeah, so that is all about pay-all-end. You guys can scream about it from the rooftops. And I like doing episodes like this. Like I love a history moment on this show when we go back in time and being able to track it all the way back to the 50s up until today. Like it's so crazy how much it's changed. And now I look at Dick Clark differently and I've never wanted to do that. Oh, me and Ryan are gonna have to have a talk tonight about Dick. Nicholas Shale stream your music, nobody's paying me. Yeah. And this elsewhere. But thank you guys so much for listening. And thank you to, we put up like an ask box on our Instagram last week and somebody mentioned this. And I was like, oh my God, people remembered, I talked about it. So that is why I did this.

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