This One’s for You, KBIG : Law: Barry Manilow’s business partners file suit in Santa Ana against radio station for airing ad that asks listeners to tune in because it doesn’t play singer-songwriter’s music.

Barry Manilow may write the songs that make the young girls cry, but KBIG radio station wrote an ad that made the songwriter’s business partners cry foul.

The ad, which began airing this month in Orange County and other radio markets, invites listeners to tune into KBIG 104.3--because it doesn’t play Manilow music.

Hastings, Clayton & Tucker, an entertainment agency that has various contractual rights to Manilow’s name, sued the radio station Tuesday in Orange County Superior Court. The suit seeks at least $5 million in damages from Utah-based Bonneville International Corp., the parent company of KBIG and the station’s manager.

According to the suit, the KBIG ad is “falsely disparaging.” Nor, the suit alleges, was the station authorized to commercially use the singer’s name, which “has become, through widespread and favorable public acceptance, a distinctive designation . . . and is an asset of incalculable value.”

Representatives from Bonneville International Corp. and KBIG could not be reached for comment.

C. Tucker Cheadle, who is representing Hastings, Clayton & Tucker, said the singer is not directly involved in the suit and may not even know about it. He said the issues in the case involve “very complicated merchandising rights.”

Cheadle said KBIG is damaging his client’s business interests with its unflattering ad.

“I think Barry Manilow is a very significant name in the entertainment industry,” he said.