22:20:51 dzhos: dzhos (9:48:29 PM): for example: when 'the wall' came out, cbs records did an experiment. they didn't give any money to independent record promoters in los angeles. the 'the wall' shows only played in four cities, only two in the us. floyd sold out a 16k seat venue for, like, five nights in a row, and yet none of the major radio stations in la had played 'another brick in the wall' even once.
22:21:07 dzhos: dzhos (9:54:40 PM): see, somebody at cbs wanted to prove that you could have a song on the radio without payola. but they couldn't do it with a no-name act, because, if it failed, what would that prove? no-name acts fail all the time. and they couldn't do it with neil diamond or somebody, because they'd be super-pissed. floyd, though, was sorta fake underground. they had the number one record without the benefit of airplay, and they had really never gotten play on top 40 stations. so it was decided they'd be the test case.
22:21:20 dzhos: dzhos (9:59:44 PM): and, what do you know, none of the radio stations in la were playing 'another b in the w,' despite its absurd popularity around the country (80% of top 40 stations in the us were playing it--in its first week of release, it had gotten more airplay than any other current single), mad sales, their selling out five big shows in a row, etc. so when pf arrived in la, their manager noted that seemingly everyone under thirty had a floyd shirt on. he also noted that they'd sold out one of the largest venues in town for five straight nights, and that their record had been at #1 for a month. so he wondered why they weren't on the radio.
22:21:31 dzhos: dzhos (10:02:11 PM): well, somebody at cbs, nobody seems to know who, told him exactly why not. and, like, the shit hit the fan. pf demanded independent promotion. one morning, cbs gave the go-ahead. by that afternoon, it was on the radio. it was still the #1 song on two of the four major top 40 stations six weeks later.  ¶ 10:36 PM