[Regulator75]

From Jann Arden.

It's been quite the few days. I feel relieved in so many ways to have at least kicked the ball to get it rolling in the right direction. When you stand up for something you truly believe in, you have to be prepared to do it no matter what the out come will be.

When I found out what a local Calgary radio station was doing with it's song playlists, I was so beyond dismayed and ANGRY that I knew I had to be vocal about it. AMP radio was taking songs, WITHOUT the artists permission, the label's permission, the producer's permission, SOCAN'S permission, or ACTRA's permission and butchering them into 90 to 120 second chunks, because, as they have been reporting, "It's what our listeners wanted"......What listeners is my question?

For many years, all of us artists have had what the industry calls, 'radio edits' done to our songs. We have accepted it because we have wanted to work hand in hand with radio to make it a win win for everybody-but we have always been involved with those edits so they can for the most part maintain their integrity and artistic license.

As story tellers, we want our 'story' to be somewhat in tact! Often times, with our knowledge- long intros are cut down by several seconds, or an ending is faded much sooner than it would have been- there were minor changes made in order to fit the commercial radio format. That usually meant keeping the song around 3 min and 30 seconds....but what AMP has been doing is so beyond that it's sickening. In essence they are assuming that their listeners are stupid and that they don't care about something that is 'disposable' even on the best of days. And that something is an artist's creations. Huge amounts of heart and soul and a LOT of money goes into making this music for all of US!!

This whole move is about AMP scrambling to somehow increase their 'listenership', which has been bleeding profusely. This station has gone so far as to BURN thousands of dollars instead of helping people who really need ... Yup, they thought it would be excellent publicity to simply incinerate a pile of cash to gather up a few pathetic ratings. The breast augmentation contest was a real winner too...What a wonderful thing for a young woman to aspire to having done, and hey, to win it in a contest!!!

Because of me being so outspoken about this issue, Steve Jones, the VP of the New Cap radio chain, sent out a letter to all of his stations telling them to immediately and permanently remove me from all their playlists. This is not a surprise to me, and it's exactly why so many young artists can not afford to speak up when their music is massacred. They fear reprisal in the form of being banned, which is just what they did to me. I don't care about what they do to me to tell you the truth. I have had my day at radio, I have enjoyed and continue to enjoy a success made possible by YOU, the people who have always supported my work and I am so grateful. This is about the young artists that have to face this kind of bull#### if they speak up. Go against us AMP clearly says- and we'll STOP playing you on a hundred of our stations. Steve Jones is a petulant immature child, trying to punish me, simply because he knows he is wrong and he wants to shut me up. I won't ever shut up. FYI. Thank God they don't play my music. What a sham. If they start hacking up music...what's next? That's something I am not willing to sit back to find out.