ASCAP Commemorates Country Radio Seminar 45th Anniversary

The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) celebrated the 45th anniversary of the Country Radio Seminar (CRS) at its 53rd Annual ASCAP Country Music Awards on Monday, Nov. 2. CRS Executive Director Bill Mayne and formerASCAP executives Judy Harris, owner Judy Harris Music, and Charlie Monk, CRS Director Emeritus, accepted the honor from ASCAP Board Member Barry Coburn.

The Country Radio Seminar was founded in 1969 to connect country radio with the country music industry. Harris and Monk were ASCAP executives who saw value in promoting the growth of country radio. ASCAP hosted the first seven years of planning meetings and ASCAP's annual songwriter showcases have been among its most popular features.

In recent years, CRS has featured nearly every top artist or group as they were on their way up, from guitar slingers like Keith Urban and Brad Paisley to Jason Aldean, Little Big Town, Miranda Lambert, Luke Bryan, Eric Church and Blake Shelton.

As CRS has grown to become the world's largest radio conference, so has the number of Country stations, from less than 200 to more than 2,300, with 200 million spins per year.

Country Radio Seminar is an annual convention designed to educate and promote the exchange of ideas and business practices in the Country music industry, with specific emphasis on issues relevant to Country radio. CRS 2016 will be held Feb. 8-10, 2016 at Omni Nashville. Visit www.CountryRadioSeminar.com for more information.

The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) is a professional membership organization of songwriters, composers and music publishers of every kind of music. ASCAP's mission is to license and promote the music of its members and foreign affiliates, obtain fair compensation for the public performance of their works and to distribute the royalties that it collects based upon those performances. ASCAP members write the world's best-loved music and ASCAP has pioneered the efficient licensing of that music to hundreds of thousands of enterprises who use it to add value to their business - from bars, restaurants and retail, to radio, TV and cable, to Internet, mobile services and more. The ASCAP license offers an efficient solution for businesses to legally perform ASCAP music while respecting the right of songwriters and composers to be paid fairly. With 550,000 members representing more than 10 million copyrighted works, ASCAP is the worldwide leader in performance royalties, service and advocacy for songwriters and composers, and the only American performing rights organization (PRO) owned and governed by its writer and publisher members. www.ascap.com