Payola?
(well, okay, not really... more like just "theft")

Recently, Infinity Broadcasting (the company that owns stations like "the wazoo" WAZU and WLVQ in Columbus, Ohio) fired its top programmer in Rochester, New York for taking gifts from record companies.

According to the New York Times, the programmer "had accepted an unspecified sum's worth of gift certificates sent ostensibly for use in listener contests or in station promotions." One representative of a major label said that they had ordered more than $1,000 dollars in gift certificates from Best Buy to be sent to Infinity Rochester in the name of said programmer. The certificates were reportedly never given away.

Damn... I almost feel bad, now... I mean, could I have gotten in trouble for walking out of the radio station once with a two-litre (well, one of two hundred two-litres we had for a promotion) from Pepsi that was supposed to be given away? Well, considering that I didn't take it "from" Pepsi and it didn't have anything to do with playing any music (I was, in fact, just thirsty)... and with what some other folks walked out of that station with, I'm not that concerned.

Listening to: Prime STH - "Underneath the Surface" (2001)