Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) has sent an open letter to the heads of CBS Radio, Citadel, Clear Channel and Entercom, questioning their commitment to ending payola in radio. Feingold says he is troubled by potential violations in the "rules of engagement" that were agreed to back in April. The letter was prompted by the recent accusations by the Future of Music Coalition that Clear Channel was forcing musicians to give up their digital copyrights in order to get the airplay that broadcasters are required to give under the payola consent decree.

"The settlement between the federal government and major radio broadcast companies in March was an encouraging step toward greater access and increased air time for independent and local artists," Feingold said. "But now it seems that simply relying on good faith to end the pervasive practice of payola may not be enough. The major radio companies should reaffirm their commitment to making air play decisions based on artistic merit instead of on the musicians’ or labels’ willingness to provide thinly veiled bribes through payola."

"Radio consolidation and payola have long kept deserving local and independent artists off the nation’s airwaves. Earlier this year, Clear Channel agreed to address the problem of payola, but its latest actions show it wasn’t sincere," said Michael Bracy, policy director of the Future of Music Coalition. "Clear Channel has substituted one brand of payola for another type of pay-to-play. This is just payola under a different name."

Feingold's letter was sent to CBS Radio President/CEO Dan Mason, Citadel Chairman/CEO Farid Suleman, Clear Channel Chairman L. Lowry Mays and Entercom President/CEO David Field.

In the letter, the Senator says that, "Now that you have had a couple months to put [the rules of engagement] into place, I’d like to request more information on what access you have provided and how it has been publicized. Have you taken any efforts to increase the amount of access provided and to facilitate submissions? I’d also be interested in knowing whether this access is through each individual station, to the corporate playlists and testing pools, if applicable, or both."

He also threatens making the voluntary rules into law before Congress. "I have held off on reintroduction of my legislation this Congress because I was hopeful that the voluntary rules of engagement combined with the consent decree could be effective in eliminating payola and related abuses. But it is very troubling that the voluntary rules seem to have been violated after just a few months," Feingold wrote. "When the agreement was announced in April, I expressed concern that the consent decrees and side agreement depended so heavily on continued good faith instead of strong enforceable standards. The weakness of the voluntary reforms is that there is no impartial arbiter like the FCC to determine the meaning of the rules, so they can be parsed or ignored with only public opinion as a partial check."