Back in November TVOne CEO Cathy Hughes sued Mathew Knowles for infringing on her exclusive rights to air The Essence Music Fest [click here if you missed that]. Now Cathy is twisting the knife on Mathew by banning his music from her Radio One stations...
From EUR
Radio One, has pulled all of Mathew Knowles’ Music World songs and artists from their radio stations nationwide.
“All Radio One personnel were told to pull all Music World artists out of rotation immediately and indefinitely! We were told that the mandate came straight from Ms. Hughes and that there would be ramifications for anyone playing or mentioning a Music World artist or song on air,” a Radio One employee, who spoke under the condition of anonymity, told us.
Removing all of Music World’s songs and artists potentially creates a financial loss for Knowles, whose company primarily focuses on gospel music currently.
“Radio One owns at least 12 gospel stations across the country – that’s the majority. It’s hard for artists to sell CD’s without radio airplay! Right now Music World definitely isn’t getting any from Radio One,” the source explained.
Currently, Music World Gospel boasts a roster that includes Juanita Bynum, Trin-I-Tee 5:7, Brian Courtney Wilson, Vanessa Bell Armstrong, Micah Stampley and BET’s “Sunday Best” winners Le’Andria Johnson and Amber Bullock. All of them have been removed from the Radio One programming system Selector, according to our source.
Even though EUR was told that Radio One has pulled music by Destiny’s Child and other previous songs released in conjunction with Music World; it has not directly impacted newer solo releases by Beyonce Knowles, Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams – all of whom had terminated their management and recording agreements with Music World prior to the lawsuit being filed.
