Online music research service to offer free airplay feedback.

Record companies are being offered free weekly consumer feedback on current airplay tracks in a bid to encourage labels to make a greater use of music research.

The online service Call Out-UK has been devised by SongPeople.com founder Peter Ruppert and former Capital Radio Group head of programmes Clive Dickens, who have linked with digital music distribution company Fastrax to offer the facility to radio stations as well.

Each Tuesday evening Call Out-UK will contact 500 email addresses on the 10,000-strong SongPeople.com database of 13- to 34-year-olds and ask for their views on 20 tracks receiving radio play that week. They will rate how much they like or dislike a song and whether they would like to hear it more or less often on the radio.

When 200 replies have been received the results for the top 15 songs will be processed and sent to 270 radio stations with Fastrax terminals and posted on the SongPeople.com website's news pages on Friday morning.

The first songs to be tested last week included the official airplay number one Dido's Here With Me and new releases Dane Bower's Shut Up ... And Forget About It and Samantha Mumba's Always Come Back To Your Love.

Dickens, who is acting as a consultant on the project, says record companies need to look at the advantages of music research and buy into the concept of analysing how their consumers view tracks. "The radio industry has been carrying out this type of research offline for years using the ...