Business Notes PROMOTIONS

Forget the days when the only extra services your telephone provided were the time and the weather. Thanks to New York City-based Phone Programs, a pioneer in prerecorded hot lines, everything from fresh sports scores to stale Henny Youngman jokes are now no farther away than the buttons on your Touch-Tone phone. The latest offering: daily messages from Samantha Fox, Bobby Brown and other recording stars. Initially dismissed by the music industry as an offbeat stunt, the gambit may become rock 'n' roll's hottest promotional device since the video.

It all began nine months ago, when RCA Records executive Michael Omansky approached Phone Programs about publicizing D.J. Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, a new rap duo. AT&T provided the necessary 900 area-code number. The result was an immediate hit. Spurred on by a TV ad campaign, some 2.5 million rapsters have rung up Jazzy Jeff and friend since the debut of their two- minute talkfest last June. The cost: $2 for the first minute, 45 cents a minute thereafter. Other hot lines soon followed. Now word of Phone Programs' success has got around. "People from every walk of music are coming to us," says V.P. Cory Eisner.