STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Hey, let's talk about the 21st century strategies for making a song a hit. The music industry has always had its ways over the generations, from the musicians known as song pluggers who were paid to promote sheet music in the early 20th century all the way to the payola scandal of 1950s radio. Well, how's it work today? Allyson McCabe reports on modern efforts to blur the line between entertainment and advertising.
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ALLYSON MCCABE, BYLINE: "The Clicquot Club Eskimos," the "Champion Spark Plug Hour," "King Biscuit Time" - major brands often produced and underwrote live broadcasts during radio's golden age, says media historian Cynthia Meyers.
CYNTHIA MEYERS: There were no advertisements during the music program. And so they hoped that the audience would feel very favorably toward them for financing free radio programming.
MCCABE: Television took off in the '50s, taking with it sponsors and stars. But radio remained vital, thanks to disc jockeys like Alan Freed, who introduced audiences to new music, including rock 'n' roll.
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BERN BENNETT: And here is the king of rock 'n' roll himself, Alan Freed.
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ALAN FREED: Thank you, Bern Bennett, and welcome to our "Camel Rock 'N' Roll Dance Party."
MCCABE: DJ's became influential tastemakers, and record labels plied them with cash payments and gifts in exchange for airplay. Media reports led to congressional hearings. Hundreds of DJ's were implicated, and Freed was eventually fired and fined. But Cynthia Meyers sees payola as an inevitable consequence of radio's evolving business model.
MEYERS: When you think about it, the music industry was buying airtime just as brands were buying airtime in order to promote their product, which was music recordings.
MCCABE: In 1960, Congress amended the Federal Communications Act to require that pay-for-play arrangements be disclosed on the air. But record labels quickly found work-arounds, using independent radio promoters as middlemen, to covertly fund airplay, contests and giveaways. Kevin Erickson in the nonprofit Future of Music Coalition says the consolidation of the radio industry in the '90s corporatized payola.
KEVIN ERICKSON: When we talk about payola, people have an image of somebody, like, sliding a briefcase full of cash to a DJ, and that Alan Freed model is not really how it works anymore.
MCCABE: Today, large media companies own most major market radio stations and playlists are set at corporate headquarters. Payola investigations in the mid-2000s led to multimillion-dollar settlements by several major label conglomerates and four of the nation's largest radio station owners.
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MCCABE: Now, a new model of brand sponsorship has supplanted label-funded payola.
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UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: You don't jump on the bandwagon. You drive it. But that doesn't mean you have to go it alone. Dr. Pepper is all about being a one-of-a-kind flavor. So they're right there with you. And when it comes to helping promote independent artists, they're all in.
MCCABE: Dr. Pepper's One Of A Kind Sound was designed by the tech start-up Music Audience Exchange to sound a lot like pre-release album teasers. CEO Nathan Hanks says this allows major brands to reach specific demographic targets while emerging bands gain valuable exposure.
NATHAN HANKS: Artists are calling us months in advance to be in the program, and they're thinking about these partnerships as the marketing strategy for the single or for the album.
MCCABE: On an even larger scale, Pepsi launched The Sound Drop this fall. It's a partnership with MTV, the music app Shazam and iHeartMedia, formerly Clear Channel Communications, the country's largest radio station owner.
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SWAY CALLOWAY: Pepsi invites you to discover your next music obsession in episodes where we profile new artists.
MCCABE: The Sound Drop spotlights artists who are already on major labels and in rotation on iHeartRadio. Emma Quigley is Pepsi's head of music.
EMMA QUIGLEY: It's not a traditional spot. It's - because it goes deeper. It's telling you a story.
MCCABE: Sort of like a mini documentary.
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LUKAS FORCHHAMMER: We are Lukas Graham.
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LUKAS GRAHAM: (Singing) Your mama said that it was OK.
FORCHHAMMER: So "Mama Said" is about how I grew up without all these things that people say you need to be happy and yet I was happy.
MCCABE: Soundbites from the artists - in this case Danish pop band Lukas Graham - are woven together with audio clips of the song being pushed and aired on all of the iHeart stations playing that format. Quigley explains that these are in addition to regular airplay of the single.
QUIGLEY: We work with iHeartRadio at a pivotal time in the cycle of the single that will connect the dots between the single that's on air and in rotation and the artists themselves.
MCCABE: There is also a longer mini documentary hosted on Pepsi's YouTube channel. The only part of the campaign that resembles a conventional commercial is the banner ads Shazam runs on its app. Quigley insists that The Sound Drop isn't advertising under the guise of entertainment.
QUIGLEY: We're not advertising anything. There's no, you know, that ad's running, they have to play the track after the ad or anything of that. Yes, it's very clear that The Sound Drop is a Pepsi-owned platform, but the star of that platform is the artist and that song.
MCCABE: The approach seems to be working. Pepsi's first artist, Lukas Graham, just picked up three Grammy nominations, including song and album of the year. For NPR News, I'm Allyson McCabe.
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