Radio stations, record labels, podcasters, performers and everyone who works behind the scenes will gather in Toronto June 2-8 for the 42nd annual Canadian Music Week, the largest gathering of the music industry in the country.
There will be a lot of chit-chatting, deal-making, networking, awards and knowledge-gathering over the next few days. CMW is one of many such industry events around the world. As a regular attendee, I can tell you that the conference and associated festival are very well organized.
However, that was not the case sixty-five years ago at the Americana Hotel in Miami Beach. Things were so wild at the Second Annual International Radio Show and DJ Convention in May 1959 that Top 40 radio and rock music were almost broken forever.
The Miami Beach story begins with a convention of popular music disc jockeys and radio show seminars held a year earlier in Kansas City, the first of its kind. It drew the biggest names in radio, as well as representatives from a half-dozen or so record companies. One guest speaker was Columbia Records's rock-hating Mickey Miller, who considered the new rock and roll a scourge to the culture, society, and especially America's youth. He berated the assembled groups for playing this music and urged everyone to go back to playing legitimate songs by artists like Frank Sinatra and Lena Horne. He was a downer.
Organizer Todd Storz, one of the inventors of Top 40 radio, decided to change direction in 1959. A new venue was chosen at Americana Beach along 97th Street in Bal Harbor. The second convention was billed as a chance for those involved in the new Top 40 rock radio program to exchange ideas and learn how to improve the show and the station. There were speakers, panels, and demonstrations. President Eisenhower gave a video address. Miami Mayor Robert King declared it “Disc Jockey Week” in Miami. On the surface, the convention was no different than any other industry gathering.
Not completely.
This is a chance for 19 record companies and dozens of record pros to win and dine DJs – all men, by the way – hoping to curry favor with them and influence what records they play on national radio shows. They know that these DJs have such a powerful influence on their audiences that they can make or break a song. If anyone wants to make a hit record, the radio host has to be on their side.
So how do they plan to do that? By showing them the best, craziest time of their lives.
About 2,500 DJs (about half of all DJs in the U.S.) took an all-expenses-paid trip to Miami. Big names and would-be stars came to mingle and be interviewed. Everyone was driven from the airport in limousines. Upon check-in, everyone was given $1 million in gambling money, which they were encouraged to gamble on a rigged game in order to win. The money could then be used to auction off real merchandise, such as TVs, trips to Europe, and even a brand new Studebaker.
DJs were supplied with alcohol and drugs. At a party hosted by Morris Levy, infamous roulette record company owner,Experienced 2,000 bottles of bourbonProstitutes were brought in—even from overseas. They were promised cash for future payments. It was an incredibly wild party that cost the record company about $120,000, the equivalent of more than $1.1 million today.
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Things got so outrageous that on the last day of the convention (May 31, 1959), the Miami News ran an article titled “For DJ: Beauty, wine and bribes.” The article said DJ “received the most adulation since Nero was persuaded to become a violin player. … A promoter said, 'You can buy some of them off with air conditioning; you can buy some of them off with money; you can buy some of them off with girls.'”
(The average DJ wage at the time was $50 a week, so any outstanding performance was welcomed).
The article continued: “'I guess,' one (promoter) said, 'the amount paid to disc jockeys in various forms is over $1 million a year. It's a terrible situation, but I don't know how to fix it. As we keep telling them, without disc jockeys, we're dead.'”
This is bad— bad Publicity. Bribery—the practice of bribing someone to play your song on the radio—has been around since the beginning of commercial radio and is not illegal. Maybe industry leaders don't like it, but what can they do? The scandalous behavior in Miami opened the door to fight back. Soon after, billboard, typeand Cash Box Articles are being written about the scourge of bribery and the distortions it creates in the marketplace.
Coverage of the Miami incident only exacerbated a growing crisis of confidence in the United States. After Joseph McCarthy's Red Scare at the beginning of the century, America's confidence in its leaders was shaken, and then the country had to deal with the TV quiz show scandal. In the late 1950s, a major government survey showed that TV shows like twenty one It is set for certain contestants.
The following year, the “plugola” crisis occurred, where the public learned that some celebrities were endorsing products and services that they themselves did not use. It was all for the money. This was characterized as false, dishonest and deceptive advertising that needed to be stopped.
Then, as duplicitous politicians spread fake news about the Communists in Washington, rigged game shows, and revealed that television commercials were built on lies, Americans learned that all the music they heard on the radio was paid for.
Something had to be done. Some politicians, church groups and old-school record men thought that perhaps the scourge of rock and roll could be eradicated all at once.
In the summer and fall of 1959, pressure mounted on stations to do something about DJ violations or risk losing their valuable broadcast licenses. Even before the House Select Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight held hearings on the matter in late 1959 and early 1960, DJs across the country were being fired for bribery. Again, while immorality was not illegal, most people turned a blind eye.
Some of the biggest names in radio were called to testify. Alan Freed, who had named the new music “rock and roll” while working at WINS in New York, became the scapegoat. He was charged with violating New York State's commercial bribery law and fined $300. The verdict ruined his career and led him into a period of alcoholism. He died penniless in 1965, owing the IRS nearly $40,000.
Another person who found himself in trouble was Tommy Smalls, a New York DJ who worked under the name Dr. Jive. He was not convicted of any crime but was driven off the airwaves. He later returned to the music industry as a promotion manager for Polydor Records and co-founded the National Association of TV and Radio Announcers.
But the man who skated the most was Dick Clark. As a radio personality and host of American Stage, he was involved in all things rock. He held stakes in seven independent record labels, six music publishing companies, three record distribution companies, two talent agencies, a record pressing plant—33 music-related companies in total. He was able to escape prosecution by selling all of these stakes. His clean-cut image led Commission Chairman Oren Harris to call him “a fine young man.” He went on to become one of the most beloved media figures in the country. When he died in 2012, his net worth was estimated at $150 million.
After the hearings in 1960, bribery was officially declared a crime, punishable by a fine of up to $10,000 and a year in prison. The American radio and recording industry changed radically. DJs were no longer allowed to choose what was played on their shows. Management (program directors and music directors) now made those decisions.
The 1959 DJ convention was the last of its kind organized by Todd Storz. The bribery problem was solved, right? No. Loopholes in the new law allowed bribes to continue, but in a less blatant and more secretive way. Instead of having to deal with multiple DJs, the contacts per station were reduced to just one or two people – the program director and/or the music director. Business went on as usual in a more efficient manner.
Bribery scandals broke out again in 1974, the late 1980s, and the 1990s. New York State settled several high-profile cases against record companies and radio stations. 2005 and 2006My contacts in American radio tell me that forms of bribery still exist today. It's just that the first rule of bribery is don't talk about it.
I do need to mention this. I have been in Canadian broadcasting for nearly 43 years and have worked and run some pretty big radio stations. I have never, once No one would offer anything for playing a record. I never, once I've heard of American style bribery in this country. Not once. We are either super clean here or I am naive.
I didn't get free air conditioning anyway.
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Allen Cross He is a broadcaster for Q107 and 102.1 the Edge, and a commentator for Global News.
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