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Cumulus To Stop Reporting Music Adds To Trades
January 23, 2006 at 11:32 AM (PT)
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CUMULUS Exec. VP JOHN DICKEY has announced that, beginning next week, the company will no longer report music adds to trade publications.
DICKEY explained to ALL ACCESS, "As of next week we are no longer reporting adds. Our philosophy is that the charts do nothing for us as a business. Our job is to program to serve the listener and advertisers. It's no longer a broad enough of a horizon to look just at ADDS and charts. That's only a small part of what it should be.
"It should be retail sales, clubs, and other points of national and regional media influence. We have been training a breed of programmers who have become too reliant on charts and callout. They all have a place but I want to train folks to become more innovative and use their guts."
As of next week we are no longer reporting adds. Our philosophy is that the charts do nothing for us as a business.
He went on to explain why "adding" records no longer works for CUMULUS: "The 'TUESDAY Add Mentality' causes folks to run songs up and down more than they should be doing. I just don't see any advantage to reporting records to the trades. If they want to know specifics, they can look at MEDIABASE. We should think about adding records at any point during the week, not just on a Tuesday."
When asked if the non-monitored CUMULUS stations would still send out a playlist or guide as to what is going into rotation, DICKEY said, "What we play is our business, and in our non-monitored stations we are no longer going to send out weekly playlists. We want to be cutting edge and forward-thinking, and so we are out of the add business as of next week. We are excited about getting out of the ADD business.
The national programming staff at CUMULUS, Sr. Format Dir. Top 40 JAN JEFFRIES, Exec. Format Dir. VAL GARRIS, and Nat'l Format Dir./Pop MARK POLITT will still have input with the stations. "Music decisions will continue to be a collaborative process with our national programing staff. BIG CHAMPAGNE, SOUNDSCAN, and other media sources both inside and outside of radio will allow us to be far more in touch regionally and locally with what we need to play. This is a more intelligent and expansive approach and will allow us take more intelligent risks with our programming."
DICKEY noted that "JOHN KILGO is now officially an employee of CUMULUS. He is our Sr. Dir./Label Relations. He is charged with developing business models that work for labels and CUMULUS."

