Columbia Records

==== Dick Asher vs "The Network" ====
{{More citations needed section|date=June 2017}}
CBS Records had a popular roster of musicians. It distributed [[Philadelphia International Records]], [[Blue Sky Records]], the [[Isley Brothers]]' [[T-Neck Records]] and [[Monument Records]] (from 1971 to 1976). But the music industry was in financial decline. Total sales fell by 11%, the biggest drop since World War II. In 1979, CBS had a pre-tax income of $51&nbsp;million and sales of over $1&nbsp;billion. The label laid off hundreds of employees.

To deal with the crisis, CEO [[John Backe]] promoted [[Dick Asher]] from Vice President of Business Affairs to Deputy President. Charged with cutting costs and restoring profits, Asher was reportedly reluctant to take on the role. He was worried that Yetnikoff would resent his promotion. But Backe had confidence in Asher's experience. In 1972, Asher had turned the British division of CBS from loss to profit. Backe considered him to be honest and trustworthy, and he appealed to Asher's loyalty to the company. Employees at CBS thought Asher was a bore and an interloper. He cut back on expenses and on perks like limousines and restaurants. His relationship with Yetnikoff deteriorated.

Asher became increasingly concerned about the huge and rapidly growing cost of hiring independent agents, who were paid to promote new singles to radio station program directors. "Indies" had been used by record labels for many years to promote new releases, but as he methodically delved into CBS Records' expenses, Asher was dismayed to discover that hiring these independent promoters was now costing CBS alone as much as $10&nbsp;million per year. When Asher took over CBS' UK division in 1972, a freelance promoter might only charge $100 per week, but by 1979 the top American independent promoters had organized themselves into a loose collective known as "The Network", and their fees were now running into the tens millions of dollars per year, Music historian [[Frederic Dannen]] estimates that by 1980 the major labels were paying anywhere from to $100,000 to $300,000 ''per song'' to the "Network" promoters, and that it was costing the industry as whole as much as $80&nbsp;million annually.

During this period, Columbia scored a Top 40 hit with the [[Pink Floyd]] single "[[Another Brick in the Wall]]", and its parent album ''[[The Wall]]'' would spend four months at No. 1 on the ''Billboard'' LP chart in early 1980, but few in the industry knew that Dick Asher was in fact using the single as a covert experiment to test the extent of the pernicious influence of The Network – by ''not'' paying them to promote the new Pink Floyd single. The results were immediate and deeply troubling – not one of the major radio stations in Los Angeles would program the record, despite the fact that the group was in town, performing the first seven concerts on their elaborate [[The Wall Tour (1980–81)|The Wall Tour]] at the [[Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena]] to rave reviews and sold-out crowds. Asher was already worried about the growing power of The Network, and the fact it operated entirely outside the control of the label, but he was profoundly dismayed to realize that "The Network" was in effect a huge [[extortion]] racket, and that the operation could well be linked to organized crime – a concern vehemently dismissed by Yetnikoff, who resolutely defended the "indies" and declared them to be "mensches". But Dick Asher now knew that The Network's real power lay in their ability to ''prevent'' records from being picked up by radio, and as an experienced media lawyer and a loyal CBS employee, he was also acutely aware that this could become a new [[payola]] scandal which had the potential to engulf the entire CBS corporation, and that the [[Federal Communications Commission]] (FCC) could even revoke CBS' all-important broadcast licenses if the corporation was found to be involved in any illegality.{{sfnp|Dannen|1991|pp=4–27}}