Artists, You Can't Get Radio Play?? Find out why.

[The Empire]

Are you an artist that wants to be on the radio? Have you tried and not been able to get on? Want to know why you don't get played? You can find out here:

1. Radio is just like TV. TV companies search for great shows so that they can put them on, keep their ratings high and sell advertisements to keep the lights on and pay executives. Radio stations, especially during the day are only interested in playing the hottest songs, it helps them to attract listeners who are channel surfing or the mindless music fan who is usually interested in hearing their favorite hit.



2. The radio stations, TV stations and record labels are often under the same umbrella. If you check the credits, you will usually find that most companies work for the same giantic parent company. Record labels usually are apart of the same company that owns the major radio stations. It is in their best interest to keep their product flooding the record stores and radio stations at the same time.



3. Radio Programmers have ratings to reach and quotas to fill. Radio programmers pick the songs that are played on a weekly basis. Most radio programmers are music junkies but at the end of the day, they have a company breathing down their neck saying "You must play hits XYZ"



4. Calling up your station and requesting your song doesn't necessarily translate to song plays. When you turn on your local "Kiss", "Hot" or "Power" station you usually hear members of your community calling up requesting their favorite song and having it played. All calls to stations are recorded and when some one requests a song that was already going to be played, they play a recording of some one requesting it. This is done to make them sound like they are serving the core listener.



5. Payola is still in full effect! Labels pay to have their songs in the daily "Hot 8 at 8", labels pay programmers to put their songs in rotation. I hear from DJs all of the time that tell me about random songs that end up in the top 10s or in the weekly rotation. Programmers even tell the DJs what songs they want them to start playing on their mix shows.



Labels don't out right hand people money but they do suggestive things like, buy DJs the hottest DJ equipment as a gift or pay for club flyers, invite them to be in videos or give them shoutouts in album credits.


your thoughts???

[LeVar Thomas]

Sad!

LeVar Thomas
Singer-Songwriter
[e-mail]
http://twitter.com/levarthomas
http://myspace.com/lthomasmusic

[ak7]

Between mobile internet, adaptable hardware, and college radio and independent music stations around the country...We might be alright. The hand of God touched us in this generation because with will power we have all the tools to survive the new music business.
asialakay.com| soul music. design technology. global trends.

[The Blue Method]

Sounds plausible to me. I'm on the outside, so I wouldn't be able to vouch for your info, but it definitely sounds like things I've heard before. So I guess it may be important to continue to hound a programmer or all the ones in your city since although they may have a quota to fill, most are music junkies and may take a chance at playing you at some point during the day? Its also good to hound the DJs in hopes that they don't have any programmers pressuring them about what they can play in there mix shows? Or just find evidence of payola and then blackmail a station into playing my music!

[Foul Al]

This is nothing new it's so sad but hey you gotta pay to play. Everybody get your payola up then get your money right until then try this site for radio play www.radiodirectx.com Great topic!


WWW.RENNYENT.COM

[ATL'S OWN GREG-W]

Sounds about right... but if you have a hot song.. and you shop it around enough to as many stations as you can and do follow up, they will play it.

Aleast that's hows it works in the south anyway.