“there are a bunch of awful songs that somehow got air play.”
It was known as “Payola”, lol. You can Google it.
The Payola scandal (the illegal practice of record companies paying a DJ to have certain records played as ‘regular airplay’) almost ruined Dick Clark’s career before it went into high gear. Clark avoided fellow DJ Alan Freed’s fate by deciding to sell his stake in certain record companies and by cooperating with authorities. One DJ, a Phil Lind disclosed in Congressional hearings that he had taken $22,000.00 to play A record.