Cox To Cease Reporting Music Adds To Trades

On the heels of CUMULUS MEDIA's policy of not reporting music adds to trade publications (NET NEWS 1/23), a memo from a COX station has been widely circulated to National and Regional record label execs stating that: "Effective immediately, per COX, we cannot discuss research or report any adds to trade publications."   

COX RADIO President/CEO BOB NEIL told ALL ACCESS, "The proximity of the our announcement not to report 'music adds' to the trades coinciding with CUMUMLUS is pure coincidence. We'd been talking about this for a while, and would have beat CUMULUS to the announcement, except that several key folks were on vacation. so we waited.

"We do an annual review of our payola and plugola policy and since most of our Country and AC stations were no longer reporting anymore for quite some time, we just determined that to stay above board would require a lot of administration. And, for so few stations reporting 'music adds,' it was more effort than it was worth. With so much of this data being available electronically, the process of 'adding' songs has become a cumbersome process when the airplay is verifiable. This move was not aimed at anyone or any trade in particular, but is simply updated policy we've put into place." 

R&R Reinstates CUMULUS Monitored Stations

And, in a late development, R&R Publisher/CEO ERICA FARBER sent out an industry-wide letter announcing some early findings of a fact finding mission about reporting music adds, stating: "The CUMULUS monitored reporters that were temporarily on hold from their respective panels last week will be reinstated, effective with next week's charts."

FARBER's letter concluded, "Until further notice, we respectfully request that all other reporters continue to inform the industry of their programming decisions by reporting their official adds, as R&R has not been in the business of announcing these decisions for radio without radio's direct involvement."

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