Music radio is a radio format in which music is the main broadcast content. After television replaced old time radio's dramatic content, music formats became dominant in many countries. Radio drama and comedy continue, often on public radio.
Music drives radio technology, including wide-band FM, modern digital radio systems such as Digital Radio Mondiale, and even the rise of internet radio and music streaming services (such as Pandora and Spotify).
A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at nightclubs or music festivals), mobile DJs (who are hired to work at public and private events such as weddings, parties, or festivals), and turntablists (who use record players, usually turntables, to manipulate sounds on phonograph records). Originally, the "disc" in "disc jockey" referred to shellac and later vinyl records, but nowadays DJ is used as an all-encompassing term to also describe persons who mix music from other recording media such as cassettes, CDs or digital audio files on a CDJ, controller, or even a laptop. DJs may adopt the title "DJ" in front of their real names, adopted pseudonyms, or stage names.
DJs commonly use audio equipment that can play at least two sources of recorded music simultaneously. This enables them to blend tracks together to create transitions between recordings and develop unique mixes of songs. This can involve aligning the beats of the music sources so their rhythms and tempos do not clash when played together and enable a smooth transition from one song to another. DJs often use specialized DJ mixers, small audio mixers with crossfader and cue functions to blend or transition from one song to another. Mixers are also used to pre-listen to sources of recorded music in headphones and adjust upcoming tracks to mix with currently playing music. DJ software can be used with a DJ controller device to mix audio files on a computer instead of a console mixer. DJs may also use a microphone to speak to the audience; effects units such as reverb to create sound effects and electronic musical instruments such as drum machines and synthesizers.
Payola, in the music industry, isthe illegal practice of paying a commercial radio station to play a song without the station disclosing the payment. Under U.S. law, a radio station must disclose songs they were paid to play on the air as sponsored airtime. The number of times the songs are played can influence the perceived popularity of a song, and payola may be used to influence these metrics. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) treats payola as a violation of the Sponsorship Identification Rules, which require any broadcast of paid material to include a disclosure.
The term payola, coined by entertainment magazine Variety in 1938, is a combination of "pay" and "-ola," the latter of which is a suffix of product names common in the early 20th century, such as Pianola, Victrola, Amberola, Mazola, Crayola, Rock-Ola, Shinola, or brands such as the radio equipment manufacturer Motorola.