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It is in the rough-and-ready world of pop music that payola is most common and flagrant. One record-company executive has the system down to a cash-accounting formula: it would take $22,000 to make a record popular in Chicago. "There are so many people you have to schmeer [bribe]—the singer, his manager, the station, the disk jockeys." In Detroit, two stations will openly plug a song for the right price. WKMH offers an "Album of the Week" deal: it plays one record or album 114 times a week, with a commercial before and after each shot. Price: $350 a week, for a minimum of six weeks. Detroit's WJBK has a similar deal.
A Piece of a Singer. Many a disk jockey owns a piece of a singer or of a record-distributing company, thus has his own vested interests in the popularity charts. In Detroit, WKMH Jockey Robin Seymour bought a 15% interest (in the name of his wife) in ARC Distributing Co., which has 50 labels. Even scrubbed, smiling Dick Clark owns three music publishing companies: Sea Lark Enterprises, January Music, Arch Music.
In Philadelphia one record wholesaler says he used to have 25 local disk jockeys on his monthly payroll, at $25 to $200 each. And one recent Christmas an eager Philadelphia record distributor sent a deejay a gift TV set and portable typewriter.
The next year the distributor, in a more modest mood, sent him only a fancy tray under a huge yellow cheese. Back from the angry deejay came a crisp note: "Cheese constipates me."