All rights reserved. And while the practice occurs mainly on country music stations, rock stations are also getting into the act. Interscope Records paid a Portland, Ore. station to play a single by Limp Bizkit, for example. The answer lies in semantics.
Listeners respond by buying the record.
In the case of Wariner's single, this translates into the single receiving airplay in smaller markets such as Milwaukee. The deal originally went down when a group of CBS-owned country stations met in Nashville earlier this year. They decided that if they all agree a song should be added to their playlists, they will accept advertising in exchange for guaranteed heavy rotation. Wariner's single is their first big payoff. Instead, the money-changing is done at the corporate sales level, where it stays firmly in the hands of the large broadcast entities that own the stations.