'Play It, Say It' Rolls Out At CBS Radio

It was last week that CBS RADIO Pres./CEO DAN MASON had sent out an internal e-mail that pledged to work more closely with record companies and their artists by doing more to identify the music titles CBS RADIO stations play.

"Effective immediately, CBS RADIO Contemporary, Rock, Urban and Country stations will increase the integration of title and artist information on new music releases in an effort to personalize, and drive sales of the product," he wrote. "We will also be expanding our radio play history online as far back as several years, providing a living synopsis of the songs we feature on the air for anyone to access."

That move is now being discussed in the mainstream press, with THE NEW YORK TIMES writing, "It would seem one of the basic tasks of any disk jockey: tell listeners the name of the song they just heard. But last week the head of a major radio company felt compelled to instruct its programmers to start identifying more of the songs played on the air, by title and artist name."

"At one point in our culture there were well-schooled retailers who could help people figure out what that song was, because they wanted to buy it," said EMI MUSIC EVP/Marketing & Promotion GREG THOMPSON. "In this day and age that doesn't exist," he told THE TIMES.

CBS Radio Los Angeles:  KAMP-FM, KROQ-FM, KTWV-FM, KRTH-FM, KCBS-FM, KNX-AM, KFWB-AM

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