Word: clays
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Storer Broadcasting Co. (five TV and seven radio stations in nine cities). Three deejays at Detroit's WJBK bit the dust, as did one Joe Niagara in Philadelphia. Meanwhile, ABC's affiliate WXYZ chopped down still another in Detroit. Of the fallen, Detroit's Tom Clay was the first to tell his story in detail-and a fascinating, lurid story...
...sometime window washer with a personality greatly appealing to himself ("I am such a sweet little guy"), Tom Clay first went to work as a record spinner at Detroit's WJBK two years ago. What happened to him thereafter until he was fired last week makes a typical case history of the deejay riding the payola trail...
Silver for Christmas. Clay's view of payola ethics is intricate: "I have never demanded money from a record-company. When a deejay does that, he's dirty rotten. But it is all right for a man to put down $200 and leave a record for a deejay. If the deejay honestly thinks it is good, then he is justified in taking the $200 because, after all, that money is an investment for the record company. If the deejay turns down the record, the $200 is well spent. It saves the company money-they...
...companies were satisfied with Clay's code. When they paid him, they wanted to hear their records played. But Clay did not always oblige. Chicago's Chess and Checker record companies, Clay claims, got so mad at him one year that they did not even send him a Christmas card. "That really bugged me," he recalls. "So the man says, 'Didn't you get the silver plate for Christmas?' I said no. When he gets back to Chicago, he phones me and says, 'Tommy, baby'-when they say 'baby,' look...
Meanwhile, regular checks (marked "promotion") came in from other companies, and Clay listed them for the income tax men. "Can I send you something every month?" payolateers would ask. "That isn't necessary," was Clay's stock reply, "but go ahead if you want to." The wages of spin almost doubled his yearly salary...