Universal Music Group, the world’s largest record company, settled a payola investigation with New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer for $12 million and agreed to stop bribing radio stations to secure airplay for its artists.

“Consumers have a right not to be misled about the way in which the music they hear on the radio is selected,” Mr. Spitzer said in a statement. “Pay-for-play makes a mockery of claims that only the ‘best’ or ‘most popular’ music is broadcast.”

Under terms of the accord, Universal, a unit of Paris-based Vivendi, said it will hire a compliance officer to monitor promotion practices and stop using independent promoters as middlemen to deal with radio station programmers.

Mr. Spitzer has been investigating corruption in the music industry since 2004. In November, Warner Music Group, the world’s fourth-largest music company, agreed to pay $5 million and stop giving payoffs and gratuities. No. 2 Sony BMG reached a $10 million settlement in July.

“It’s about what I expected,” a senior analyst with the market research firm Inside Digital Media, Philip Leigh, said. “I think that Spitzer’s mainly concerned with stopping the practice and less so with the punitive aspects.”

Universal bribed programmers with vacations, tickets to sporting events and concerts, and electronics equipment in order to get music by artists like Nich Lachey, Ashlee Simpson, and Lindsay Lohan played on the air, according to Mr. Spitzer. Universal owns Island Def Jam, Interscope, Verve, and other labels.

The payola strategy also included paying stations for contest giveaways and other expenses, hiring independent promoters as conduits for illegal payments, and paying for airplay under the guise of advertising, Mr. Spitzer said.

Universal executives not only knew about the payments, they demanded accountability from the radio stations, pushing them to “deliver the bargained-for airplay,” Mr. Spitzer said.