Sony/ATV Hangs At Top of Publisher Airplay Chart

Sony/ATV has been poised firmly at the pinnacle of the Top 10 Country Publishers Airplay Chart (published in Billboard) for six of the last seven quarters. The publishing company had 14.1% of market share for country airplay during the third quarter 2011, measured by HFA between July 1 and Sept. 30. This percentage is down slightly from Sony/ATV’s Q2 and Q1 shares, which were 14.8% and 15.9%, respectively, but still ranked No. 1 on the list.

Rounding out the top five publishers on the newly released Q3 country rankings are: No. 2 EMI Music Publishing (13.1%), No. 3 Warner/Chappell Music (11.7%), No. 4 UMPG (10.8%), and No. 5 Words And Music Copyright Administration (10.8%). The complete top ten list is in the Nov. 19 issue of Billboard.

Looking at the overall charts, EMI Music Publishing had the largest share of airplay for the sixth consecutive quarter with 17.9%. Nashville based Words & Music ranked No. 8, driven in part by “Tonight Tonight” (Hot Chelle Rae) and “Remind Me” (Brad Paisley/Carrie Underwood).

Kimberly Perry ranked No. 6 on the Top 10 Songwriters Airplay Chart, the only country writer on the overall list.

Her solo-write “If I Die Young” landed at No. 15 on the Top 20 Airplay Songs chart, and Hot Chelle Rae’s “Tonight Tonight” ranked No. 11.

HFA determines a publisher’s share of a song and compiles the charts based on the top 100 country songs at 192 stations monitored by Nielsen BDS. A publisher is defined as an administrator, copyright owner and/or controlling party.