Also, it’s great to see both Paul Heil & Marlin Taylor speak up on this thread. Guys, I love what both of you are doing and if it weren’t for folks like you who are striving for excellence our genre of music would be in much worse shape. Thanks for your contributions to Southern Gospel. I listen often.

Some months ago, a gold watch and three $100.00 bills were delivered in behalf of an artist. They were promptly dispatched to XM’s legal department and returned post haste.

I am not real sure what Solid Gospel is doing.. but I would think they have re-searched the legality of selling these features. This isn’t some rinky dink operation that would unknowingly risk criminal or civil prosecution.

Now.. I am not sure Solid Gospel’s practice is the most “classy” thing they could be doing.. and it is frowned on by some in SG circles.. when artists of questionable talent appear to be buying airplay on the industry’s largest SG radio network. I think there is a way to sell artists advertising and promotion without sacrificing your credibility.

In a legal sense, I believe an artist or label has every right to buy an ad, just as a Chevrolet dealer does. If they want to buy 3 minutes of ad space during which their song is aired, that’s up to them. The same goes for an interview or a “feature spot” or a “make it/break it” segment or whatever else the station will provide to allow them to get exposure in exchange for their ad dollars.

What you CAN’T do legally, to my understanding, is pay a station to play your song AND report it to the air play charts based on how much it’s played. If 24 spins of “Mama Get The Hammer” are purchased and 25 are played in the course of a day, only one spin can count.

When I was a dj at a CCM station, we did interviews all the time and there was never money involved. It was good for us and good for the artist. The record labels would frequently send us “radio specials” promoting a particular artist, usually a full hour program after adding commercial breaks, in hopes that we would play it. We rarely did that, but other CCM stations would–and I’m quite confident that no one ever paid one way or the other.

A few times I’ve heard Solid Gospel do interviews with artists and play their music during that time, but they would announce that “this hour of broadcasting is sponsored by _____” several times during that period–which seemed to make it clear that this was some sort of paid advertising. And most of the time these were artists I had never even heard of before and whose songs I never heard on Solid Gospel at any other time.

If this is true, it is really hokey.

Tom