• CSI Position Statement on XM Royalty Suit
• ole Music Publishing Cooks Up Deal For Cookie Jar Catalogue
• Yahoo Launches Twitter Rival, Meme
• New Firm Wants To Sell Your Facebook Friends
• Social Media Lacks Clout For Brands, Study Finds
• Survey Finds It’s Early Days For Newspaper Online Revenues
• Paul Brandt, Jann Arden Added To CCMA Awards Show
• Neil Young, Rush Join Hawkwind and Robin Trower in Listener Poll
• Awakening State Makes SXSW New Talent Showcase Cut
  
• Whitney Houston, the Sweet and the Sour
• John Fogerty Rides Again With New Blue Ridge Rangers Album
• Jay-Z, the Self-Proclaimed ‘Black Sinatra’
• Russian conductor Valery Gergiev’s Concert For Peace
• Topic Records – 70 Years Of Giving A Voice To the People
• Never Mind the Taliban – Pakistan’s Youth Want Rock ‘n’ Roll
• Cradle To the Grave – the Untold Story of Digital Natives
• Broadcast News: Corus, Astral -  and the $1M Twitter Song Contest
  

CSI VS XM RADIO – Press Release: Satellite radio broadcaster Canadian Satellite Radio (CSR), which operates XM Radio in Canada, has defaulted on its obligation to pay royalties to licensing collective CMRRA-SODRAC Inc. (CSI).

CSI represents the vast majority of songwriters and music publishers doing business in Canada. Earlier this year, the Copyright Board of Canada certified CSI’s tariff for the use of its music by satellite radio operators such as CSR, which began operations in  Canada in 2005. Under this tariff, CSI licensed CSR to reproduce its music and CSR was obliged to pay CSI royalties outstanding from 2005 until the present by July 31 of this  year. Instead, the company advised CSI that it had no present intention of meeting its obligations, suggesting that they might do so in the future.

“This position is unacceptable to CSI and the thousands of authors, composers and music copyright owners we represent,” said CSI President David Basskin. “CSR has had the benefit of using our songs for several years, and doesn’t deny that they owe us money for such use. They just don’t want to pay.”

In view of CSR’s default on its obligations, CSI had no effective alternative but to seek assistance from the courts.

“A legal action is a last resort,” said CSI Vice-President Alain Lauzon, “But in view of CSR’s refusal to meet its obligations, there was no real alternative.”

OLE’S COOKIE JAR DEAL: ole has struck a music publishing co-ownership and worldwide administration deal with Cookie Jar Entertainment. The agreement includes Cookie Jar’s massive collection of properties including “The Doodlebops,” “Caillou,” “Busytown Mysteries,” “Magi-Nation,” “Arthur” and “Metajets.”

Under the deal, ole will cultivate Cookie Jar’s music publishing properties worldwide.

The deal adds to ole’s dominance as the premier publisher and administrator of children’s television music.

The Cookie Jar Group is a Canadian-based, global children’s entertainment, consumer products and education company. Through Cookie Jar Entertainment, the company is a leader in the creation, production, marketing and licensing of evergreen character brands; its library of nearly 6,000 half-hour episodes features some of the world’s most recognizable brands.

“We’re very pleased to have been chosen by Cookie Jar to manage their music publishing properties,” said ole CEO and Chairman, Robert Ott. “Cookie Jar has rapidly become one of the best content producers in the world, and their commitment to great creative and quality work matches our own. We look forward to adding value to it.”

“ole is one of the world’s leading music administrators and publishers,” said Michael Hirsh, Cookie Jar Group CEO. “They are the ideal partner to oversee Cookie Jar’s diverse catalogue.”

Separately, ole has announced a music publishing administration deal with Scholastic Media, a division of Scholastic, the global children’s publishing, education and media company. Under the deal, ole will cultivate Scholastic’s music publishing property in all territories outside the U.S.

YAHOO BOWS MEME: In its latest effort to catch up in social networking, Yahoo has quietly introduced a microblogging service that looks like its answer to Twitter. An English-language version of the offering dubbed  Yahoo Meme was launched in alpha this
week following the rollout of versions in Spanish and Portuguese in recent months, according to TechCrunch .

BRANDING - Online Media Daily:  Women frequent Facebook, MySpace and Twitter more often these days, compared with one year ago, but brands are not benefiting from the increase in interaction, according to research from Q Interactive and ad:tech Chicago released Wednesday. The study of more than 1,000 women across age, geography and households during four days in mid-August found that 52% of social networkers have friended or become a fan of at least one brand. But when asked whether social networking sites influence purchases, 75% of women who participated in the study said ads on social networks do not encourage what they buy.

THAT’S WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR- Reuters: How much are 1,000 Facebook friends worth?

According to Leon Hill, $177.30.

That’s the price that Hill’s online marketing firm uSocial.net is selling Facebook friends for, through a new service that has already raised alarms within Facebook. Hill’s reputation as a notorious peddler of online souls precedes him, having launched a similar service selling Twitter followers to clients earlier this year.

Now, uSocial has set it sights on Facebook, which Hill believes will be the greatest opportunity yet.

“It’s going to be massive. There are about 20 times more people on Facebook” than on Twitter, said Hill in a telephone interview from his home-base in Brisbane, Australia on Wednesday.

The idea is to provide a company with a giant pool of Facebook friends, which Hill’s clients can then market to. Hill said that he befriends Facebook users on behalf of his corporate client, approaching users who are fans of Ferraris, for example, if a client of his wants an audience that’s interested in sports cars.

TAKING THE PLUNGE: How newspaper sites that charge are faring – Paid Content: As more newspapers kick around the idea of charging for content, much of the attention has been focused on the pay models employed by the bigger players like the WSJ and the Financial Times. But quietly, some small- and medium-circulation papers are coming up with their own formulas to get readers to pony up for access to their websites.

We checked in with some of these papers to find out how much they are charging and how they’re faring.  Results here

PAUL BRANDT and JANN ARDEN have been added to to the line-up of performers at this year’s CCMA Awards, sheduled for broadcast live on CBC from GM Place in Vancouver, on Sept. 13. Victoria Banks, Tara Oram, and Dean Brody previously were announced as performing on the show.

NEIL YOUNG and RUSH make the cut in Brit online broadcaster Planet Rock’s recent
‘greatest ever’album listener poll, alongside such predictable names as AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and not so predictable such as Robin Trower, Wishbone Ash and Hawkwind. Cruise the poll and be prepared for some pleasant reminders and surprises:

AWAKING STATE is the only Canadian Band selected from among thousands as a Top 10 finalist in the Airwalk – Unsigned Hero Contest at SXSW 2010, in Austin, Texas. In order to generate sufficient votes to win a prestigious performance showcase at SXSW, the world’s largest music expo, the Toronto hard rock band is conducting an electronic crusade. This prize includes an interview in Spin Magazine and $5000 cash.

“The contest closes on September 30th” , said Kent Martell, singer and guitarist for the group. “So, we are asking our friends, families and fans to help spread the enthusiasm and compel people to visit the contest page on the Internet to hear our music and vote for us. We’d be crazy if we didn’t do everything possible to be there in 2010″.

In addition to their viral campaign, Awaking State and Airwalk are providing prize packs for promotion giveaways and servicing conventional and niche media as well as circulating their EP ‘Into the Machine’, and tracks from their new project, produced and mixed by Grammy-winning Sylvia Massy (Tool, Johnny Cash).

The band’s club remixes have garnered airplay on the BBC and risen to No. 2 on BeatPort Charts. ‘Into the Machine – The Remixes’ is available on Furious Records. ‘Bury Me’, collaboration between Awaking State and Antiform is the lead single from their album ‘City in Exile’, and is generating interest in the band on the other side of the world.  They appear at the Barrie New Music Fest, Sept. 28.

The Beach Celtic Festival will be celebrating it’s sixth Anniversary September 12 and 13. The “gathering of the Celtic Clans” is held Kew Gardens in the Beach area of east end Toronto. The site is best known as the home of the Beaches Jazz Festival. The event this year features singer/songwriter Don Graham, the Wallace-Symington Highland Dancers, the Pipes & Drums of 25 (Toronto) Service Battalion, and roaring Celtic band Wheelhouse. There’s also entertainment for kids (Milk Toast Jam), and local Celtic radio personality Hugo Straney will be an on-stage host.

WHITNEY HOUSTON’s much derided Good Morning America performance in Central Park could have sounded worse, according to an unsubstantiated report in online news tab Gawker. The website suggests  GMA producers and ABC execs furiously debated sweetening the sound, with LA brass winning and bringing in a post-production team to “sweeten” Houston’s creaky voice.

JOHN FOGERTY RIDES AGAIN – Los Angeles Times: After the 1972 flameout of Creedence Clearwater Revival, ending its short reign as America’s most popular rock band, John Fogerty launched a solo career in a surprising way. His debut effort was titled “The Blue Ridge Rangers” and consisted of country and folk-rooted songs he’d always loved. Suddenly without a band behind him, Fogerty played all the instruments and sang all the vocals himself.

He didn’t even put his name on it: The album jacket showed silhouettes of what appeared to be five guys wearing cowboy hats, playing guitars, fiddle and upright bass. They were all Fogerty, superimposed on a spacious, open landscape.

Now, 36 years after that album was released, he’s resurrected the concept with a new collection, “The Blue Ridge Rangers Rides Again.”

“There probably wasn’t a month that went by in all that time that I wouldn’t hear a song and think, ‘Oh, that’d be great for another Blue Ridge Rangers record,’ ” said Fogerty, a ball of energy while talking about music last week in the living room of the Beverly Hills home he shares with his wife, Julie, and their two teenage sons.

“I’d thought about doing another one; it’s just one of those things I never got around to actually doing,” he said. “Then one day Julie came to me and said, ‘Why don’t you make another Blue Ridge Rangers record?’ Well, it’s like your wife walks up to you with all your fishing gear in her hands and says, ‘Here, why don’t you go fishing for a few days?’

“After the 1972 flameout of Creedence Clearwater Revival, ending its short reign as America’s most popular rock band, John Fogerty launched a solo career in a surprising way. His debut effort was titled “The Blue Ridge Rangers” and consisted of country and folk-rooted songs he’d always loved. Suddenly without a band behind him, Fogerty played
all the instruments and sang all the vocals himself.

He didn’t even put his name on it: The album jacket showed silhouettes of what appeared to be five guys wearing cowboy hats, playing guitars, fiddle and upright bass. They were all Fogerty, superimposed on a spacious, open landscape.

Now, 36 years after that album was released, he’s resurrected the concept with a new collection, “The Blue Ridge Rangers Rides Again.”

“There probably wasn’t a month that went by in all that time that I wouldn’t hear a song and think, ‘Oh, that’d be great for another Blue Ridge Rangers record,’ ” said Fogerty, a ball of energy while talking about music last week in the living room of the Beverly Hills home he shares with his wife, Julie, and their two teenage sons.

“I’d thought about doing another one; it’s just one of those things I never got around to actually doing,” he said. “Then one day Julie came to me and said, ‘Why don’t you make another Blue Ridge Rangers record?’ Well, it’s like your wife walks up to you with all your fishing gear in her hands and says, ‘Here, why don’t you go fishing for a few days?’ ”

The Magna Carter – Guardian: Will Jay-Z tone down his ‘reality rap’ now he’s got Obama on speed dial? What would he play Noel G to get him into hip-hop? And, asks Malik Meer, does he really reckon he’s the Kurt Cobain of hip-hop?

In the back room of a north London recording studio Jay-Z is rolling a rhyme around his mouth. “What was it again? ‘I’ve got 99 problems but the … huh?’” he says, scanning the walls, desperately trying to remember. “‘I’ve got 99 world problems but the ba …’

Damn!” Slouched on a sofa, Jay-Z – AKA Shawn Carter, the Jigga Man, the God MC, the self -proclaimed “black Sinatra” – is recalling the last time he pressed flesh with the president of the USA. The 39-year-old rapper had been booked to perform at Barack Obama’s inauguration party but at the last minute, panic set in. Worried that the first lady and her daughters may not take kindly to his casual cursing, he quickly reordered the set, reworking the lyrics of some his best-known tracks including “99 problems but a bitch ain’t one”. “It was slick,” he laughs, “I gotta get that to you.”

A quick Google reveals the line was “I’ve got 99 world problems but a Bush ain’t one” but the anecdote only serves to underline the extraordinary journey Jay-Z’s taken and where he stands on the pop-cultural landscape. Thirteen years on fron the release of his debut album, his life story reads like a made-for-TV movie: Carter Jr grows up in Brooklyn’s
notorious Marcy Projects to a single-parent mother, starts dealing drugs, turns to hip- hop, releases his debut album himself; years pass and he’s crowned the greatest rapper of all time, amasses a fortune through various business ventures, marries the hottest pop singer in the world and his friend and fan becomes the POTUS.

If you came across it on the Biography Channel you’d baulk at the predictability of the rags-to-riches, American-dream trajectory and flip channels. Yet his impact and influence is there for all to see.

WW 2 CONCERT: Music is a power for peace – Reuters: Russian conductor Valery Gergiev led musicians from 40 countries Tuesday in a thrilling concert in the heart of former Nazi-occupied Poland to mark the outbreak of World War Two 70 years ago.

“I turned the first page of the music and said I can’t handle this and then professionalism took over,” said violinist Monica Curro of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, who joined a select group of about 90 musicians for two concerts by the World Orchestra for Peace in Krakow and Wednesday in Stockholm.

Krakow-native Krzysztof Penderecki, whose five-minute-long “Prelude for Peace” had its premiere at the concert which concluded with a rousing performance of Mahler’s gargantuan Fifth Symphony, said music is too abstract to stop war, but gave the orchestra a rave review.

“It’s an important day in our history,” the composer said. “And the Mahler was extremely good, and played with such passion.”

Gergiev, whose conducting of the orchestra coincided with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin attending a memorial ceremony in the eastern Polish port city of Gdansk, had said earlier that if the concert stopped even one suicide bomber it was worth the effort and expense.

TOPIC RECORDS– 70 years of giving a voice to the people – Guardian: Topic is the oldest independent label in Britain, if not the world. Not bad for a Marxist party offshoot that was started in a basement.

Tony Engle is not a man much given to hyperbole, which is unusual in a record label boss. In fact, after 36 years in the job, he’s still not entirely sure that he should be running a record label at all: he worries that the whole business of recording the kind of music he does runs contrary to its very essence. “The thing about folk music is that it existed prior to microphones,” he says.

“The singers I really loved, when they were performing in their heyday, records had hardly been invented. The music existed to serve the community. In a way, recording almost undermines certain aspects of the music. It’s a strange contradiction that exists within it.” He sighs. “But if you love the music and you love records, like me, you’re forced to get into this circular contradiction all the time.”

Even he is forced to concede that his label, Topic, is unlike any other. It’s not just its advanced age, although that’s certainly a factor. Topic is currently celebrating its 70th birthday. No one seems entirely sure whether this makes it the oldest independent record label in the world, but it’s certainly the oldest indie label in Britain – a fact it is now celebrating with Three Score and Ten, a beautifully packaged book containing seven CDs, biographies of its most famous artists and as many photographs of men in caps playing accordions as a human being will ever need.

Nor is it Topic’s bizarre stable of artists, although, again, you would be hard-pushed to find a label with a roster remotely like it. As you might expect, given Topic’s venerable age, virtually every major figure in the British folk revival has recorded for them, from Ewan MacColl to Eliza Carthy, by way of Anne Briggs, June Tabor, the Watersons, Martin Simpson and Davy Graham, as well as innumerable traditional singers captured in priceless, aged “field recordings”.

Never mind the Taliban – Pakistan’s youth put their faith in rock’n'roll – Guardian:Wannabe rock stars have it tough in Pakistan. Last month a new band, Poor Rich Boy (and the toothless winos), took to the stage of a cramped Islamabad cafe for their breakthrough gig. On the first night, one person turned up.

“It was the night of the world cricket finals. Bad timing,” said the group’s guitarist, Zain Ahsan, ruefully. The second gig was better – 30 people came along – but brought its own dark worries.

“I asked the owner, ‘What if a bomb goes off?’” said Ahsan. “She said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be with you.’”

CRADLE TO GRAVE: The Untold Story of Digital Natives – Hypebot: At the turn of the twentieth century, Digital Natives only knew a well-developed consumer culture shaped by the means of MTV, commercial radio, and big-box retail outlets, based on a continual influx of new artists.  Many of who were designed to follow down the steadily declining path toward lowest-common-denominator standards and adhere to the mold of mass-marketing and traditional business thinking set forth by those within the Record Industry.

By doing so, the quality of the music in that time period succumbed to the compromises necessary to make it appeal to everyone, which, in turn, meant that it would, “almost certainly not appeal perfectly to anyone.”  Popular music which was once seen as a running commentary on who we are and where we are as a society became no more than a
escapist release within the context of a mass-culture that was dominated by throwaway singles and rapid obsolescence.

Within a few short years the culture of radio had deteriorated.  In the wake of wide -scale industry consolidation, the remaining media conglomerates increasingly focused on “least objectionable programming,” content that would offend the fewest people and cause the lowest rate of tune out.  Beyond this point, the songs that made the cut were essentially used to create a buffer.  Or, whatever could provide the most cushioning between two long advertisements.

Total Request Live emerged as “the dead center of the music industry” and with it, MTV had its finger firmly placed on the pulse of American youth culture, which, simultaneously, created a feedback loop where executives researched teens for indications on what music they should play, while teens themselves scoured the network for models of  new artists to imitate, the latest fashions to wear, and songs that would become the soundtracks to their lives.

Due to the lucrative nature of CD’s, big-box retail outlets leveraged their vast networks to command lower prices than that of their local competitors and used them as loss leaders in hopes that they could drive music fans towards their higher ticket items.

In doing so, they disconnected music from aesthetics of the local scene and single-handedly undermined the social network of record stores that spent years developing in order to meet the needs of their audience.

Out of this chaos and transformation, an epidemic of file-sharing tipped within this culture of consumers, primarily, because it appealed to the deep seeded western values that had been instilled them since birth.  Like a credit card, file-sharing encouraged

Digital Natives to consume more music than they could ever possibly afford without prompting them to think twice about how they could ever pay artists back for the songs that were now in their possession.

Even in a summer of Taliban violence young Pakistanis are rocking on. An underground music scene is quietly thriving in the country’s major cities, nourished by the internet and the passion of mostly amateur bands.

In Lahore a pair of unemployed rockers have tapped into that enthusiasm with a new school for rock’n'roll.

PAUL McCARTNEY free track from new Adam Sandler movie Funny People available to download exclusively here

BOY GEORGE has had an electronic tag allowing police to monitor his whereabouts – a
condition of his bail after he was released early from jail for assault and false imprisonment of a male escort in 2007 – removed.

OASIS‘ 1994 hit Live Forever has been named the number one song of all time in an international poll – just days after guitarist Noel Gallagher quit the band. The now defunct Brit band (see story below) in fact hold three of the top five spots in the survey, nabbing third place with Don’t Look Back In Anger and fourth with Wonderwall. Las Vegas band The Killers took second place with Mr Brightside, while Joy Division rounded out the top five with Love Will Tear Us Apart. The poll was conducted by U.K. radio station Xfm, TripleJ in Australia and KROQ in Los Angeles.

LIAM GALLAGHER has reportedly told Italian waiter Vincenzo Della Corte there is ”no way” his brother Noel can rejoin Oasis after quitting last week. According to Della Corte – who served the rocker, his wife Nicole Appleton and bandmate Andy Bell at Lake Como’s il Gatto Nero restaurant on Tuesday – their music styles are “incompatable” and
they would be going there separate ways.

GUITARIST JACK WHITE reported to have been in the studio with Keith Richards, fueling all sorts of speculation about White producing the next Stones album, producing a Keith Richards album, climbing Mnt Everest etc. Richards acknowledged the two had been in the studio together but declined to add shrubbery to this fact.

MADONNA made her Sticky & Sweet show in Israel on Tuesday night (01Sep09) a family affair – she brought daughter Lourdes onstage with her. The star performed to 50,000 fans at Hayarkon Park in the capital Tel Aviv for her first show in the country in 16 years, and even wrapped herself in an Israeli flag during the concert.

BOB GAUDIO was in Toronto last week for the first-anniversary gala performance of Jersey Boys, the musical based

on the lives and songs of The Four Seasons. Gaudio was the Season who wrote the songs and the one who, if the show is to be believed, was the most diffident about performing them. I met him at his hotel that was, naturally, the Four
Seasons.

According to Gaudio, the show is to be believed. “I was a more than reluctant performer.

Who says you have to go out on the road and perform?” Beyond that, Jersey Boys isn’t some outsiders’ attempt to cash in on the fame and music of a legendary group. “It was homegrown; it was our idea,” More specifically, it was the idea of the two most iconic of the original Seasons: Gaudio himself and lead singer and falsetto extraordinaire Frankie Valli. They had had “lots of TV offers,” but the theatre beckoned, certainly for Gaudio himself: “Frankie and I thought, ‘If we do a TV movie, it’s a quick run and then it’s over; we’ll give the theatre a shot.’ So we started to go back, to open doors.”

Somewhere in the course of their door-opening, Gaudio saw Smokey Joe’s Café, the roof- raising show based on the songs of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, and thought, “Wow, look at that audience reception.” That show was a revue with no connecting story. Then, even more successfully, came Mamma Mia!, which hung ABBA’s hit songs on a newly invented storyline to which they had no particular connection. “I thought, well, where do we go
from here? National Post

WHITNEY REVIEWS: “…Most of the album (sounds as if it) has been cranked from a very jaded mill, Globe & Mail columnist Robert Everett-Green  waxes on Whitney’s latest opus-I Look To You.

Continuing: “The professionals hired to write the songs (including R. Kelly, Alicia Keys and Diane Warren) have dumped a hopperful of clichés into the lyrics, the tunesmithing and the arrangements, which slide smoothly from daylight disco to sentimental piano balladry to pop gospel. With the exception of A Song for You , a good Leon Russell number from the seventies, the disc is a virtuoso display of fake songwriting. It feels like the kind of album whipped up in three weeks for the newest American Idol winner, though I Look to You was three years in the making. “

And here’s what Sport Murphy at the New York Post has to say: “There’s no question that the power and flexibility of her instrument have been diminished, with most flaws exaggerated, not disguised, by multitake editing, overdub overkill and auto-tune enhancement. Yet somehow, through the mire of desperation that such production touch-ups reveal, the sound of a mature singer can be detected, grit and rasp adding texture to her still-fairly-shimmering voice.”

BROADACASTING: STEVE KOWCH has moved from Astral-owned CFRB in Toronto to CJAD in Montreal on a six-month contract as PD, as former CJAD PD Mike Bendixen is installed at 2 St. Clair West on an interim basis. Bendixen comes to the news/talk AM with a strong background in news reporting.

BOB STEELE has returned to Calgary to host the drive show on CKXL.

Eight people pink slipped at Corus Radio Vancouver earlier this week. Included: RodSchofield, Katie Campbell, Veronica Sequin, Neil O’Brien, and sales people BeatriceConsentini, Taliesyn Huxtable, Steve De Wolfe and Don Magor. Other cuts heard about in Calgary, Edmonton and other cities. We wish you all the luck in finding new postings.

With the departure of the 34th Greatest Canadian, Hal Anderson to CJOB, Power 97 in Winnipeg introduces a new morning show loaded with personality. Wheeler in the Morning makes its debut Labour Day Monday on Power 97.  The morning crew includes long time co-anchor Dave Wheeler; Phil Aubrey moves from afternoon drive; and Rena Jae shifts from The Goat in Lloydminster, AB where she co-hosted mornings.

Classic Rock, 89-9 HAL-FM’s Afternoon Drive/Music Director; Mike McFarland and Maritime Broadcasting System (M-BS) have parted ways. He can now be reached at:beatmick1964@yahoo.com

VISTA RADIO is pleased to announce the appointment Ted Farr as the new General Manager of its Kelowna BC station, 103.9 The Juice. Farr, of course, is President of his own radioconsulting company, Ted Farr Media. Vice President Programming Jason Mann will remain active and engaged in the programming, promotion and marketing of The Juice but will refocus his time on the VP Programming group duties. Farr assumes his role on Tuesday September 8, 2009.The Juice is still recruiting for the Program Director.

MARTY FORBES, along with Edmonton’s Bounce Assistant GM Gisele Sowa, Richard Sutherland, Communications instructor at the University of Calgary interviewed by Jefferson Humphreys of Alberta Primetime discuss the current radio trend in Edmonton and Calgary – View here

$1 MILLION TWITTERS SONG of the Day Contest – RadioInfo:  It’s a 2009 Twitter-twist on an old radio promotional idea, and SCA Promotions says this is the first time it’s been done at this level. Listeners qualify by registering on Twitter and following country Wolf 99.5 in Dallas. Then they listen for the Twitter Song of the Day all this week and “Tweet the appropriate response.” Each day, ten contestants win concert tickets. When it’s all over, one grand prize finalist is chosen to play for the $1 million – and wins all the money if he or she correctly predicts the final score of the Dallas Cowboys-New York Giants game on September 20. That’s also, not coincidentally, the Cowboys’ first regular season home game in their luxurious new stadium.

Beloved U.S. TV sitcom WKRP Anderson and Herman Hesseman, into a steamy sex shocker.in Cincinnati  is the latest show set for the porn treatment. X-rated film company New Sensations have turned the late 1970s hit, starring Loni WKRP – A XXX Parody! follows New Sensation’s saucy revamps of The Office, Scrubs, Seinfeld and Friends.

RADIO ADVERTISING: Much of Radio’s weakness in Q2 and for the first six months of 2009 is linked to marketers associated with the auto industry (formerly Radio’s top ad category, now #3) and major retailers feeling the impact of shaky consumer confidence and spending.

As Q2 unfolded, Jeff Haley, President and CEO of the RAB says that increasing signs of an improving economy emerged, indicating that “we are most likely past the Q1 low point forRadio revenues and are now on the rebound.”

According the new RAB report, some advertisers, previously unable to compete against their category’s leaders, are using this opportunity to increase their share and position within the market. “Taking advantage of Radio’s core strengths, advertisers… are increasing their share of voice on the airwaves, providing encouraging signs,” remarked Haley. RAB Report