CUMULUS PUTS A KIBOSH ON ANNOUNCING PLAYLIST ADDS TO TRADES

Cumulus stations will no longer report music adds to trade publications. Take that, Billboard.

EVP John Dickey told the online site All Access that "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 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."

He explained that the "Tuesday Add Mentality" doesn't benefit his chain. "If the trades want to know specifics, they can look at Mediabase." He went on to say the chain will add records "at any point during the week," not just Tuesday. Great. Now record promotion geeks can hock them every day.

Dickie insisted they will no longer send out weekly playlists. "We want to be cutting-edge and forward-thiking, and we're 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, according to Dickie, who says music decisions will be made after consulting data from Big Champagne, Soundscan "and other media sources both inside and outside of radio... This is a more intelligent and expansive approach and will allow us take more intelligent risks with our programming."

Former indie John Kilgo goes in-house as Senior Director Label Relations for Cumulus, charged with developing business models that work for labels and the broadcasting chain.