Nick Messitte at Forbes Weighs In On Payola Laws

A couple weeks back I wrote a piece here explaining why Payola Laws distort the market in the music industry ensuring that independent artists are rarely heard by the general public on radio and streaming services.

I recently talked with Nick Messitte, a journalist with Forbes, who was researching the subject. This week he published an excellent and more detailed story on the subject of Payola rules. I am thankful for his interest; in my hundreds of web searches, I have seen only a handful of quality articles on the subject. I am surprised by the lack of attention given to Payola laws given the tremendous press coverage of similar laws that favor entrenched interests in other industries over disruptive companies such as Uber, Tesla and Airbnb.

Granted, the aforementioned companies are themselves driving the coverage as free market champions who are challenging the status quo. At Music Audience Exchange, we are looking to bring data and transparency to the business of breaking new music. We have a new service called TuneLaunch that provides all artists access to major airwaves and provides data on how audiences respond. In Nick Messitte's upcoming series on "The Intersection of Music and Tech", he will be writing about TuneLaunch. You can look for it on Forbes.com.

Make sure you check out "How Payola Laws Keep Independent Artists Off Mainstream Radio" here.