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The Musician's Corner: Radio & Records
By Tom Leu, MusicDish.com
I recently attended a music conference in
Nashville where I gained some interesting insights about
the radio and record business relationship. How do radio
stations decide what artists and singles to play? Unless
you're getting regular airplay on stations across the country,
you might want to read on.
Record companies have to lobby to get their
artists played on radio stations from every format. There
are radio and promotions personnel at record companies
whose job is to visit radio stations in their territories
and push their latest releases to the program and music
directors. Radio trackers are usually independents that
do essentially the same thing. Airplay usually equals record
sales, and enough record sales equal profits for the labels.
The labels literally take out want ads in the radio trade
magazines to create interest for their artists. These ads
are basically snapshot resumes for the latest singles the
labels are pushing to radio. The ads contain what chart
the song is targeting, Soundscan sales numbers,
last week's charting position, movement, number of plays,
and the stations the song is being played on.
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And what do the radio stations get for their "generosity" by
playing these songs? They attract large quantities of listeners
tuning in to hear the latest and greatest artists and songs.
These listeners are of course, consumers for the radio station's
advertisers. These advertisers will continue to pay the radio
station premiums for airtime as long as the station continues
to pull a large listening audience. This is the way of the
business world and the music business is no exception.
This process is more complex than it first
appears however. There is more music out there than there
are radio stations and airtime to play the music. This
scarcity of programming slots creates intense competition
and high stakes for record companies, artists, and radio
stations. Which single and whose single to play becomes
a science of history lessons. What is working and what
has been working recently becomes the modus operandi of
the day.
The twelve main radio chart categories are:
CHR/Pop (contemporary hit radio), CHR/Rhythmic, AC (adult
contemporary), Hot AC, Rock, Active Rock, Alternative,
Urban, Urban AC, Country, Triple A, and Smooth Jazz. Recent
revenue increases and growth in the Christian music genre
may find this chart added to the "mainstream" yet.
If you happen to be one of those artists
who claim to care less about radio airplay or fitting into
a certain format, disregard this entire column and please
send a copy of this to someone interested in learning something
about this often misunderstood industry. Whether we like
it or not, radio does affect consumer buying decisions.
This should matter to all artists regardless of our genre
or aspirations for airplay.
The Bottom Line: Research how the radio business
operates and understand the different formats that are
charted. Many musicians and artists are in the dark about
how radio works and it shows in their approach. Understand
the charts to figure out where your music may fit. Study
what's getting played and where it's getting played. Look
at how many spins per week the various charts are reporting
from their reporting stations. Check out www.rronline.com to
get an inside look at this medium that helps make and break
upstart as well as veteran artists. Do this before you
call up your local Program Director griping because they're
not playing your CD.
 Provided
by the MusicDish
Network. Copyright © Tag
It 2003 - Republished with Permission
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