Ever wonder how many thousands of times a song gets played on the radio across the country?

Steve Lubin can tell you the exact number.

Lubin, who graduated from MSU in 1987, was named chief executive officer of Mediaguide Inc., a business that monitors songs played on the radio, television and Internet in real time for the producers of the material and advertisements. The Pennsylvania-based company monitors more than 200 million songs a year or almost 550,000 songs each day and is the first company to monitor college, noncommercial and commercial radio stations.

When he graduated from MSU with a bachelor's degree in journalism, he had no idea he'd wind up leading a growing music airplay monitoring business.

Now living in Philadelphia with his wife Deborah and their two children, Lubin said his job path started after he answered a newspaper advertisement for law school graduates. He earned his law degree from Brooklyn Law School in New York. The ad was for the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, or ASCAP, the largest association of composers, songwriters, lyricists and music publishers in the world. Lubin learned the details of music copyright laws.

After becoming the association's vice president in 2001, the company collaborated with the media firm Yes Networks and formed Mediaguide to monitor music.

Upcoming goals for Mediaguide include expanding its capabilities to monitor legal peer-to-peer file sharing Web sites.

State News: What is Mediaguide?

Steve Lubin: It allows end-users — like record labels, radio, performance rights organizations, advertisers — to know where (their) work is being performed. You can know in real time which stations are using your work.

SN: How did you find yourself at Mediaguide?

SL: It's a long road. After (MSU), I went to law school in New York. After that I worked for the city of New York for seven years. I decided I wanted to get out of government and found myself at the ASCAP, which is a performing rights organization … I've always been a music fan or a music nut; I got into ASCAP completely by luck.

SN: Why does Mediaguide want to monitor legal peer-to-peer file sharing?

SL: We're licensing our technology to P2P (peer-to-peer) to make sure only licensed works are being traded and available.

SN: What are your hobbies outside of work?

SL: Well, my principle hobbies are my children who are 5 and 8: My little boy is 5 and my little girl is 8.

SN: Where did you work in college?

SL: I worked for a fledgling cable outlet news program. It was just starting at the time, and everyone there was volunteering, helping out work with the production. I can't even remember the name of it. That was a long time ago.

SN: Are you still a Spartans fan?

SL: Yes, I watch the games whenever I can, particularly all the basketball games when they're on ESPN.