The Poughkeepsie Journal reports that WPDH-FM Poughkeepsie Program Director Gary Cee was linked yesterday for a second time to New York state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s payola investigation into the radio and music industries. Cee's connection to the investigation is related to his former job at WLIR Long Island.
"I have never and would not ever make a deal for payola," said Cee, who worked at WLIR from 1991-2003, the last five years as the station's program director. "We just don't do that at WPDH and I didn't do that at WLIR."
One e-mail that Spitzer released yesterday is dated Jan. 14, 2003. It left out the names of the sender and recipient. The subject is "WLIR/Long Island in on Everclear." The text of the message reads: "Gary Cee is asking for some promotional support for this add and moving Coldplay to 5x/day ... he asked for $1,500 in tee shirts, I said there was no way, he then asked for $1,000 — I said I would check, lemme know what I can do ... cheers," Chuck Benfer, general manager for Cumulus Media in Poughkeepsie, had no comment regarding WLIR. But, he said, "We certainly have never done anything that we have to be worried about and Gary Cee has never done anything while working for us that we have to be worried about. We're completely above board and would never participate in any kind of pay-for-play scandal."
Benfer added, "Just because there was an e-mail about something doesn't mean there was payola going on."
Source: http://www.radioink.com
Recommended Comments