CMJ Pay For Play Scandal?

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http://www.eastbayexpress.com/issues/2003-02-26/feature.html/1/index.html

― mark p (Mark P), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 18:40 (twenty-three years ago)

WHERE'S THE $350 THEY'VE OWED ME FOR A YEAR AND A HALF?

― M Matos (M Matos), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 19:06 (twenty-three years ago)

threaten to sue them. that's what a writer in this article did.

is this not totally bullshit? they've done this to WPRB a bunch of times. makes me so angry.

― Dave M. (rotten03), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 19:14 (twenty-three years ago)

M: Would you accept $350 worth of punched CERTAIN DAMAGE promos?

― mark p (Mark P), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 19:17 (twenty-three years ago)

Hell on earth.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 19:25 (twenty-three years ago)

college stations should do a protest like the one those guys are doing with AOL discs, where we collect them all and send them back to CMJ en masse.

― Dave M. (rotten03), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 19:30 (twenty-three years ago)

Is this that suprising?

― earlnash, Wednesday, 26 February 2003 19:33 (twenty-three years ago)

All the back and forth about "unverified" artists and albums is rather hilarious. With the interweb how it is, it wouldn't take long at all for a CMJ staffer to "verify" a record on a particular station's charts.

CMJ has been worthless as an actual magazine ever since I discovered its existence in the mid-90s. The only thing I've ever paid much attention to is the charts in the back, and now apparently those are becoming untrustworthy as well. I fully expect this magazine to go the way of the totally corrupt Publishers Weekly in a few years.

The sole reason tiny little WESU paid money to appear in CMJ is because we worried that promoters and record companies would ignore us otherwise and we'd have no new music for our DJs. Does anyone have experience working for a noncommercial radio station that wasn't affiliated with CMJ, and if so, did you experience any such problems?

― Amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 19:33 (twenty-three years ago)

I've got a big pile of them dating back to the late '80s. CMJ charts are pretty much industry silliness anyway. Those promo people are paiiinful, but like Amateurist said, they're a necessary evil to get free CDs.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 19:34 (twenty-three years ago)

My hatred of the promo people is mitigated somewhat by the knowledge that they have the worst jobs on the face of the earth.

That said, the radio reps for Rounder, Arhoolie, Del-Fi, Folkways, and a few other labels were wonderful.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 19:36 (twenty-three years ago)

Why don't college radio stations just public an XML file with their list and let other stations get it? It'd be really easy to setup a utility that parses these.

― Jonathan Williams (ex machina), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 19:39 (twenty-three years ago)

better yet: go to http://www.dustedmagazine.com

it's the real deal folx.

― gygax! (gygax!), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 19:40 (twenty-three years ago)

But is there any real reason we need a central repository of this information? GI love Dusted, but I think that this could all be done station to station using the Cyberweb.

― Jonathan Williams (ex machina), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 19:43 (twenty-three years ago)

proposed solution: list the M*untain G*ats' Tallahassee instead of Certain Damage comps in place of entries not in their database

― J0hn Darn1elle (J0hn Darn1elle), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 19:59 (twenty-three years ago)

maybe they should have let the interns/staffers at CMJ put their favorites in instead?

― Jonathan Williams (ex machina), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 20:03 (twenty-three years ago)

So do you guys actually buy this "placeholder" excuse? I don't at all.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 20:05 (twenty-three years ago)

I vote for John's solution.

― James Blount (James Blount), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 21:56 (twenty-three years ago)

Its not a scandal, or at least it wouldn't be if the manager of CMJ had a bit more tact.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 22:04 (twenty-three years ago)

But is there any real reason we need a central repository of this information?
Yes, most people in community radio or even promotions arent computer literate. And its already standard practise to email everyone and their donkey your charts. It made even more sense before when you had to FAX things mind you.
I don't buy the placeholder excuse but I've had similar issues with the artist getting mixed up for having a similar album title. For instance try entering Mothers of Invention as the band responsible for "Freak Out" and they will pop in Frank Zappa at no extra charge.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 22:07 (twenty-three years ago)

Manager HA HA HA HAA CMJ HAAAA HA HA HAHAHAHAHA had more tact!!! HA HA HAAA HA HA HA HAAHAA HA HA HAUGLK

*chokes, dies*

― Millar (Millar), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 22:11 (twenty-three years ago)

Well from what I know all music directors make up their shorts out of some mystic algorithm involving actual airplay, their own personal tastes, and their crushes on sundry DJs. So CMJ is not being much more capricious than your average MD, just more venal.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 22:12 (twenty-three years ago)

Amateurist = OTM

CMJ has a lot of faults, but I don't see this as being that big a deal. These college students need to be more cynical. Of course shit like this happens!

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 22:13 (twenty-three years ago)

Does anyone have experience working for a noncommercial radio station that wasn't affiliated with CMJ, and if so, did you experience any such problems?

I have both, and yes you do get a drop in servicing specially from smaller boutique indies and a HUGE drop from Indie promoters (no big loss there). If your in a large market or are a class 3 or above station it probably wont affect your servicing one bit. If your a tiny watt, tiny town station then you might as well buy a good long distance plan cause its going to take alot of grunt work to pick up the slack. Having a subscription is handy but if its not in the budget there is no reason to go out of your way for it, specially considering the customer service which is possibly the worst of any corporation.
I shouldn't even get started on CMJ cause I won't stop.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 22:15 (twenty-three years ago)

I will not take this personally but Im getting very touchy on sweeping generalizations. Smaller the station, the more training focused and the less free form the format the more realistic the charts are usually.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 22:18 (twenty-three years ago)

hahahaha shorts = lists

― Amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 22:18 (twenty-three years ago)

These college students need to be more cynical

*rises up*

HA HAA HA HA HA HA HA HAHAHA college students HA HA HAAHAHAHAHAHA CYNICISM HAAAAAAA HAHAHAHAHAUGLK

― Millar (Millar), Wednesday, 26 February 2003 22:23 (twenty-three years ago)

Most MD's I've know through the years fake their "top 30"..Either for cough*Indie Cred*cough*,The carrot on a stick of a job prospect, or free stuff.

― brg30 (brg30), Thursday, 27 February 2003 00:21 (twenty-three years ago)

brg, you say 'free stuff' very dismissively, but in fact that's the beauty of charts. They are a way to get 'free stuff' in the form of fantastic fucking records into your station. Not just free stuff for you, but for the other djs, the listeners. Faking the top 30 is not as sinister as it sounds.

― ben tausig, Thursday, 27 February 2003 00:45 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah, I'm all for faking the charts (or fudging them at least).

― Amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 27 February 2003 00:49 (twenty-three years ago)

No one ever said anything about fudging, if you have 10 records all tied for the bottom spots of course the cooler or the local acts are going to get it.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Thursday, 27 February 2003 01:01 (twenty-three years ago)

brg, you say 'free stuff' very dismissively, but in fact that's the beauty of charts

No,it just means at my station we get more shitty records......

― brg30 (brg30), Thursday, 27 February 2003 01:14 (twenty-three years ago)

No,it just means at my station we get more shitty records......

Most of the art of MD'ing is in using the charts to reverse that unfortunate scenario.

― ben tausig, Thursday, 27 February 2003 01:47 (twenty-three years ago)

Most of the art of MD'ing is getting your programmers to play new music they might possibly like instead of Dave Mathews or the same Grateful Dead bootlegs with making it feel forced upon them.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Thursday, 27 February 2003 05:16 (twenty-three years ago)

It actually sounds like a legit excuse, given the different spellings any number of MDs would use. Stupid, but legit.

And given the number of people CMJ's laid off and screwed on cash, I can only assume that the interns are busy putting the mag(s) out.

― bucky wunderlick (bucky), Thursday, 27 February 2003 22:55 (twenty-three years ago)

Is it a scandal? Yes, even to the queen of cynics, this is outrageous.

Will people care about the scandal? No, because they will not understand it.

Mike Boyle's reaction shows that he knows how busted CMJ is. It is the reaction of someone with nothing left to lose.

If you don't think it is a big deal then you shouldn't complain about what major labels do in general or to the music they put out. Also R.I.Y.L. overpaying for corrupt CMJ reporting: BDS reporting.

Matos, when I get back next week we are gonna got get yer money.

(Sorry for the rant everybody, grrr I am really annoyed at CMJ and I even volunteered last fall!)

― felicity (felicity), Friday, 28 February 2003 18:32 (twenty-three years ago)

one month passes...

I think the anger at CMJ is misplaced. Their initial fix was to change their placeholder to "Unverified."

When CMJ learned that my band is called Unverfied and that they had put us on the playlists of radio stations even though we had yet to release a song they gave us a free slot on the next Certain Damage CD to be released with the May 5, 2003 issue of The CMJ New Music Report.

They were upfront, honest, and obviously have a good sense of humor. Viva CMJ!

Scotty Unverified
http://members.aol.com/swarm007/unverifiedtheband.html

― Scotty Unverified, Friday, 11 April 2003 23:45 (twenty-three years ago)

I was involved with an interview CMJ did with KALX and my station, WFMU, after the brouhaha became public and they were in damage control mode. To their credit, I don't believe that their replacement of records with "Certain Damage" was nefarious or pre-meditated. It just seemed like some sloppy work on their end, but when asked by the East Bay paper and a few others about the situation, I was honest and vented my frustration of months and months of playlists being screwed up, altered, and by their own admittance, completely wiped for records not being 'recognized.' Seemingly that has changed and they've become a bit more diligent about entering station's charts correctly. Though the article that ensued in CMJ featuring the KALX/WFMU viewpoints sure didn't answer some of our questions. One big issue is that CMJ is installing tracking system hardware in a lot of webstreaming radio stations to automatically generate playlists, though that seems unlikely to recognize every record. And as KALX pointed out, its digital thumbprinting system at the CMJ HQ would not include the ripped thumbprint of analog (i.e. vinyl), so a lot of 7"s and 12"s and LPs would surely be ignored by the tracking. My personal feeling is that stations shouldn't allow themselves to have parameters set by a music trade magazine's ability to recognize what is being played, and hopefully smart stations don't. On the same hand, as someone pointed out above, CMJ service does go hand in hand with station's being on labels' mailing lists, so it's a real problem to toss the subscriptions. It should be noted too that there are some good people at CMJ who do care about music, and the technological limitations they are grappling with right now is the unfortunate source of some of the griping amongst radio stations, and one that is out of their hands until the higher-ups at the mag decide to fix it. This publicity has hopefully helped make up the minds of the powers-that-be there to work to straighten things out, or at least not alter playlists.

― Brian Turner (btwfmu), Sunday, 13 April 2003 04:22 (twenty-three years ago)

nine years pass...

So the CMJ conference is going on now with the NY Times busy blogging it.

― curmudgeon, Wednesday, 17 October 2012 21:04 (thirteen years ago)

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