When New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer began his investigations into payola practices in the US music radio sector he wanted to level the playing field, so that smaller record companies who couldn't afford to bribe radio chiefs with freebies could fairly compete for airtime.
However, according to US trade magazine Radio & Records, he may have done the opposite. They report that in the first quarter of 2006 radio stations were programming considerably less new artists - rock stations added 23 percent fewer new artists to their playlists than in the same period in the previous year, adult contemporary stations 17 percent fewer, hip-hop 16 percent less and pop stations 14 percent less.
The magazine argues that the decline in new artists being programmed is in part down to Spitzer's campaign. They say radio bosses are programming more established artists because they fear being accused of dodgy practices if they programme too many untested artists - even if they are picking those new artists on legitimate editorial based grounds
R&R data compiler Steven Strick told the LA Times: "There is an overall fear among programmers that I've never encountered before. These investigations by Spitzer and the FCC cast suspicion on almost everything. How stations choose music has changed in a fundamental way".
Whether the paranoia of being accused of payola is really behind the trend is probably hard to tell. Of course it might just be that radio stations just don't know which new artists to play when there's no free widescreen TV or an all expenses paid trip to Vegas to help them pick out which acts they should be prioritising.