Holiday Music Dominates Airwaves With Five Days Until Christmas

"Sleigh Ride" Continues to Top National Holiday Song List


NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - December 20, 2007) - With just five days left until Christmas, many people are busy shopping, baking, wrapping and decorating, and whether they're in the mall, their cars or their homes, it's probable that holiday music will be their soundtrack during these last-minute activities. The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), today released its final listing of 2007's most played holiday songs, tracked by radio airplay monitoring service Mediaguide from over 2,600 radio stations nationwide.

The top 10 most-played holiday songs in the ASCAP repertory this holiday
season are:

    1. "Sleigh Ride" (Leroy Anderson, Mitchell Parish) - played 176,257
       times
    2. "Winter Wonderland" (Felix Bernard, Richard B. Smith) - played
       167,800 times
    3. "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" (Ralph Blane, Hugh Martin)
       - played 132,030 times
    4. "Jingle Bell Rock" (Joseph Carleton Beal, James Roth Boothe) -
       played 127,384 times
    5. "White Christmas" (Irving Berlin) - played 121,754 times
    6. "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" (Edward Pola, George
       Wyle) - played 118,663 times
    7. "A Holly Jolly Christmas" (Johnny Marks) - played 92,066 times
    8. "Silver Bells" (Ray Evans, Jay Livingston) - played 90,204 times
    9. "Frosty the Snowman" (Steve Nelson, Walter E. Rollins) - played
       89,896 times
    10. "I'll Be Home for Christmas" (Walter Kent, Kim Gannon, Buck Ram)
        - played 88,306 times

 -- Note: The above list represents an aggregation of all different artist
    versions of each cited holiday song.

Members of the press who would like a custom week-to-week or local run of real-time 2007 holiday song airplay may contact Kathleen Reynolds (CooperKatz for Mediaguide) at 212-455-8062 or kreynolds@cooperkatz.com.

Mediaguide, co-owned by ASCAP, was launched in 2002 to monitor radio broadcast music in real-time and facilitate the accurate distribution of royalty payments to songwriters, composers and publishers. Its proprietary technology and network of over 2,600 radio stations currently tracks more stations and total airplay than any other monitoring service in the U.S.

About ASCAP

Established in 1914, ASCAP is the first and leading U.S. Performing Rights Organization representing the world's largest repertory totaling over 8.5 million copyrighted musical works of every style and genre from more than 300,000 songwriter, composer and music publisher members. ASCAP has representation arrangements with over 90 music rights organizations such that the ASCAP repertory is represented in nearly every country around the world. ASCAP protects the rights of its members and foreign affiliates by licensing the public performances of their copyrighted works and distributing royalties based upon surveyed performances. ASCAP is the only American Performing Rights Organization owned and governed by its writer and publisher members. www.ascap.com