Radio Airplay 101 - Which Stations to Choose

We now look at which stations you should choose to promote your music to. Your airplay promoter will help you, but in general, your choice of radio stations should be based upon:

o Long-term (1 to 2 year) goals: Do you want to sell CDs, or generate attention and sign with a larger company (so they can sell CDs for you)?
o Genre.
o CDs: Do you have manufactured CDs, or CDRs? How many?
o Web presence: Do you have an in-depth site with articles, photos, individual bio's, mailing lists, and tour info, or a simple site or no site at all?
o Previous promotions/experience.
o Distribution, Touring, and Press. Note that SERVICING your music to a radio station, and PROMOTING your music to a radio station, are not the same thing. "Servicing" is simply getting your CD to the station. "Promoting" it is getting the station to find it, listen to it, play it, and report it.

LONG TERM GOALS: If you are (or if you have) only one act, and if your intentions are to build a buzz to the point where you can "sign" with someone, then non-commercial radio is probably for you (note: your genre MUST fit.) Non-commercial radio is very accepting of new acts, and these stations "report" their airplay to the trade magazines readily. They will also interview you, play station-identifications made by you, and (in general,) work with you. This all adds up to a good buzz. But...these stations will reach only about one percent as many people as commercial radio will.

If, on the other hand, you are running a small label and you intend to build the number of artists on it...and you intend to sell CDs, tickets and other merchandise through it, then commercial radio would be a good choice for you (again, genre permitting.) Only commercial radio can get your song to enough people, enough times, to sell large quantities of CDs (meaning, more than a few thousand.) But commercial radio is also the most expensive.

GENRE: Non-commercial radio is very accepting of Alternative, Metal, Rap, Hip Hop, Jazz (non smooth), New Age, World, and Electronic.<br>

Commercial radio is accepting of Alternative, Modern Rock, Rap, R&B, Smooth Jazz, Pop, Adult Contemporary, Country, Americana, and AAA (Adult Album Alternative.)

CD'S: If the CDs that you have were burned on a computer (i.e., "CDRs", "write-once CDs", "burned CDs" or "one-offs",) then you must choose non-commercial radio. Commercial radio will just laugh at these.

WEB PRESENCE: A strong web presence can be a great reason to choose non-commercial (and in this case, mostly college) radio. College kids (age 18-24) have the highest percentage of access to the web (100%), most of which is high speed.

PAST PROMOTIONS: Have you promoted a previous release to radio? Have you just completed a college tour? Have you done a retail promotion with a chain store that advertises on radio? If so, make the most of the momentum.

DISTRIBUTION, TOURING, PRESS: If you lack having your CD in many stores (on the shelf...not to be confused with "in the system"), and if you have no performances in cities other than your own, and if you have no articles written about you, then non-commercial radio should be a strong consideration for you (or possibly, a non-charting attempt at commercial radio, using specialty shows, smaller stations, and outer-lying areas.) These stations do not have strong concerns about distribution, touring, or press...

Most commercial stations, however (especially larger ones in larger cities)...do. It works like this: Radio stations are paid based upon their ratings (the number of listeners they have.) If a record label exposes an artist to many potential fans by way of performances, posters, TV, articles, or film, and these fans then want to hear that artist's song, they will have to tune in to the radio station that plays it. This means that this radio station is going to get all these new listeners, and thus is going to have higher ratings. But new acts can't do any of this for a station, and the station knows this.