Radio Data Services Vying for Top Spot

In 140 cities across the country, music detectives at a research service called Mediabase sit in front of personal computers listening to seven-second snippets of radio broadcasts. It is, in a sense, the high-stakes corporate equivalent of “Name That Tune.”

For a decade, record labels relied on Nielsen Broadcast Data Systems to track how often their songs received play -- or “spins” -- on radio stations. But three years ago, broadcasting giant Clear Channel Communications Inc. entered the game when it bought Mediabase.

Now, Mediabase’s sales staff is receiving backup from Clear Channel’s radio programmers, who wield enormous clout at record labels starving for airplay. San Antonio-based Clear Channel owns about 1,200 radio stations, six times more than its most powerful rival, Viacom Inc.’s Infinity Broadcasting.

Record executives say Clear Channel’s aggressive push for Mediabase is the latest example of how the industry giant is using its size and reach to tap into the tens of millions of dollars spent on radio promotion by major record labels.

Clear Channel executives deny that they require their own stations to use Mediabase data.

But recently, the music director at Clear Channel’s Z-100 in New York, an influential pop radio station, had some news for record industry officials. “Z-100 exclusively only looks at Mediabase for any song information,” music director Cubby Bryant said in an e-mail to a label pitching a new R&B; record. “I thought I’d give you the scoop. We only care about Mediabase numbers.”

Bryant said his station’s policy is not part of a mandate from Clear Channel management. But he also made clear that he doesn’t mind helping out a sister company. “We knew the rest of the country wasn’t quite on the Mediabase bandwagon yet,” he said. “But after awhile we said we should start spreading the word.”

Record executives say Bryant isn’t the only Clear Channel programmer touting Mediabase.

Besides Clear Channel’s muscle, another advantage that Mediabase has over BDS is cost. In many cases, Mediabase is able to offer its service to record labels at a lower price because it is effectively subsidized by its deals with stations.

The two services essentially square off in a matchup of man versus machine. BDS places inaudible “tags” in new songs and positions computer-equipped radio tuners in more than 125 markets to listen for the tags as they are broadcast from more than 1,100 stations. The equipment forwards the information to BDS, which tallies the number of plays of each song and compiles nationwide data for delivery every morning -- and in another BDS service, those numbers are updated online every few minutes.

By contrast, Mediabase relies on people, not computers, to track airplay. The company “skims,” or samples, broadcasts from radio stations, and in turn sends audio feeds to 135 music experts scattered around the country. Their task is to determine whether each clip is a lyrical blast from Eminem, guitar solos from U2 or snippets of a Christina Aguilera melody, then fill in the song’s title on a station log sent to a central database.

“Every piece of audio passes a human ear before it is journaled,” said Rich Meyer, Mediabase’s president. “That gives Mediabase an edge, for example, in identifying a ‘leaked’ song,” which BDS may not have entered into its computers.

BDS, however, maintains that its electronic monitors are superior to humans, and it remains the dominant market research company at major labels.

“Our product is more accurate and ... is delivered in a more timely manner than our competitor’s,” said Rob Sisco, executive vice president for Nielsen BDS. The company is a unit of Dutch conglomerate VNU, which also owns the Nielsen TV ratings service and Billboard magazine. (Billboard, the music industry bible, bought an interest in BDS long ago when it began using the company’s statistics on its pages.)

Before BDS pioneered electronic monitoring, play charts were based entirely on verbal reports made by radio personnel, whom executives say were easily corrupted with gifts and money from record labels.

Radio play remains the most powerful tool to sell new music. BDS and Mediabase monitor the playlists of 1,100 radio stations among the 12,000 stations scattered across the country.

The five major record conglomerates pay about $15 million a year for the two rival tracking services -- sometimes buying both BDS and Mediabase numbers in order to cross-check them -- but the total amount of money at stake is considerably greater. Playlists have a domino effect on music promotion campaigns, record store retail orders, concert bookings and bonuses awarded to record label promotion executives.

With album sales sliding amid rampant music piracy, record labels are scrambling to cut costs and are questioning whether they can support two duplicative airplay services.

Earlier this year, the world’s biggest music company, Universal Music Group, owned by Vivendi Universal, threatened to drop BDS and keep only Mediabase. Ultimately, Universal Music cut a one-year contract for access to BDS at a lower cost, according to industry sources.

“This is a horrible choice,” said one Universal executive. Because of BDS’ higher fees, “you’d love it if you could go with their competitor. But then you say to yourself, do you really want to empower Clear Channel? You’re sort of caught.”

But Mediabase’s influence is growing. In addition to being the service used by many large radio stations, its charts are published in Radio & Records magazine and serve as the rankings for programs such as “Rick Dees Weekly Top 40,” which is syndicated by Clear Channel unit Premiere Radio Networks.

For its part, New York-based BDS isn’t standing still. It has started moving more aggressively into Mediabase’s traditional turf, pursing radio stations as clients; BDS now claims 350 stations as subscribers. Mediabase has 1,100 radio station clients -- of which about 25% are owned by Clear Channel, the company said.

A Clear Channel spokeswoman said she was not aware of any of the company’s 1,200 stations using BDS’s services.

BDS contends, however, that’s not because they aren’t interested. “Many Clear Channel programmers have told us they would prefer to subscribe to BDS,” asserted Sisco, the Nielsen executive, “but are forbidden to by corporate edict.”