Payola has been the radio and music industry’s dirty secret for decades. While the Federal Communications Commission avoided taking action on payola, leaders like Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, Senator Russ Feingold and then-New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer pushed for progress.

Now, the FCC is reported to be on the brink of pushing through a negotiated consent decree with the broadcast industry. This consent decree could bring to an end the broad investigation that the FCC announced in the aftermath of the Spitzer investigation.

Future of Music Coalition strongly believes that any successful settlement must have three components:

• A basic framework that outlines how the local independent music community can interact with the commercial radio industry to gain access to commercial airplay;

• A credible oversight plan that ensures the negotiated framework can be enforced in a way that will lead to true reform; and

• Serious penalties that hold the broadcast industry responsible for years of abusive practices that have so damaged the music community and the public.

Any deal that does not address all three points must be judged a failure.

As we come to a critical juncture in the payola debate, we hope that recent public statements of FCC commissioners are a signal that a consent decree will be credible and enforceable. Anything short of that will be a grave disappointment to the music community that has continuously urged the FCC to resolve the payola issue in a way that benefits musicians and the public.

Further, FMC strongly believes that successful resolution of the payola issue is not enough to reform radio. Rather, payola is part of a broader reform agenda that includes holding the line on commercial consolidation, expanding and protecting noncommercial radio, and ensuring that the transition to terrestrial digital radio (HD Radio) is done in a way that benefits the music community and public. We discuss the failures of the commercial radio marketplace and the need for reform in our recent report, False Premises, False Promises: A Quantitative History of Ownership Consolidation in the Radio Industry.