It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year... for Holiday Songs

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - December 21, 2009) - As the week of Christmas kicks off and last- minute baking, shopping, decorating and planning kicks into high gear, holiday music is being played more and more on radio airwaves across America. The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), today released its listing of 2009's most played holiday songs, tracked by radio airplay monitoring service, Mediaguide, from over 2,500 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 118,918 times
2.  "Jingle Bell Rock" (Joseph Carleton Beal, James Roth
    Boothe) - played 118,601 times
3.  "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" (Edward Pola, George
    Wyle) - played 101,614 times
4.  "White Christmas" (Irving Berlin) - played 89,348 times
5.  "Winter Wonderland" (Felix Bernard, Richard B. Smith)
    - played 77,599 times
6.  "The Christmas Song" (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)
    (Mel Tormé, Robert Wells) - played 74,360 times.
7.  "A Holly Jolly Christmas" (Johnny Marks) - played 57,948 times
8.  "Little Drummer Boy" (Katherine K. Davis, Henry V. Onorati, Harry
    Simeone) - played 55,617 times.
9.  "Feliz Navidad" (José Feliciano) - played 51,072 times
10. "Frosty the Snowman" (Steve Nelson, Walter E. Rollins)
    - played 51,068 times

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

About Mediaguide

Mediaguide, co-owned by ASCAP, monitors radio broadcast music in real-time and facilitates the accurate distribution of royalty payments to songwriters, composers and publishers. Its proprietary technology and network of over 2,500 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 (PRO) representing the world's largest repertory totaling over 8.5 million copyrighted musical works of every style and genre from more than 370,000 songwriter, composer and music publisher members. ASCAP has representation arrangements with similar foreign organizations so that the ASCAP repertory is represented in nearly every country around the world where copyright law exists. 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 PRO owned and governed by its writer and publisher members. www.ascap.com.