Pay To Play: expose of radio plugging practises which generally manages to exchange nostril-flared outrage for dry factuality and is the better for it. Except for that odd little intro: “Does radio seem bad these days? Do all the hits sound the same, all the stars seem like cookie cutouts of one another? It’s because they do, and they are.”
This is nothing to do with the payola-esque practises the writer’s describing. He’s exposing the workings of radio, which is currently leaving both record companies and DJs at the mercy of pluggers, and is preventing DJs picking their own playlists. There’s no reason, though, why this set-up should make for bad, or even less diverse, music in toto, though it may lead to greater niche marketing. Eric Boehlert doesn’t even bother justifying that sour intro – he presumes the facts speak for themselves at the same time as he’s putting off an audience who enjoy radio but might just want to know something more about how it currently works.