Someone’s gonna find a fan club president under the bumper of an SUV…

Lots of buzz about the Chely Wright situation. We’re shocked, shocked to hear that someone in the fan club encouraged folks to pose as military family members to encourage jocks to play the single. Of course, this has been going on for years, this is just an interesting new flavor. But look at the public backlash against it.

Program directors for years have been filtering listener line suggestions. Anything more than a blip of unusual activity on a song without independent confirmation that it’s "happening" (sales, blog-buzz, message board chatter) gets pegged as street team ballot stuffing. In fact, at one of my old jobs, one of my tasks was to devise algorithms that would actually predict and eliminate fan interference from polls, surveys and research.

Using street teamers or fans to call listener lines and request songs does not pay off for you in the same way that it may have done in the 70s or 80s. Don’t do it. And if you feel you still need to do it, certainly don’t do something as lame as this…

[ Thanks to Chris and everybody else for the prodding… ]