It is a practice as old as the birth of radio in Jamaica: payola, paying radio stations to give priority airplay to certain tracks and so boost their media impact.
Mostly practised in the USA in the 1950s, but considered a form of corruption, payola lived on in Jamaica, allied to various threats. In his early days Bob Marley used a persuasive tone to get himself played on the radio. More recently, in 2005, Irie FM decided to pull all of Jah Cure's tracks from its programming: the station had received death threats to play the artist more often (news from 09/11/2005).
The Broadcast Commission (the Jamaican equivalent of the CSA in France) would like to put an end to it, the Jamaican Observer reports, by criminalising the practice and imposing heavy fines.
Long decried for skewing the charts and building reputations as sudden as they are fragile, payola was also accused of dragging artistry downwards. Not so, Dennis Howard recently assured a conference organised by the Broadcast Commission.
Dennis Howard (who made a name for himself by declaring the death of dancehall, news from 21/09/2010) played down the impact of payola on the quality of current productions. First, because that would "presuppose that good artists do not resort to it", which is not the case.
Above all, because the way music is consumed has changed. Technology has freed listeners from the grip of radio stations and Top 50-style rankings: "Young people are completely immersed in technology and mobile phones. They don't rely on the media to decide what they will listen to. Traditional media are relegated to the bottom of the list. Youtube, Facebook, Last-FM and Outaroad are the main platforms. Young people make their own choices."