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March 04, 2005
Two Tips for Commercial Radio Airplay
The January 31, 2005, issue of Music Connection magazine featured a good article by Bernard Baur called "The Future of Radio." Here are a couple of nuggets I took away of particular interest to indie acts:
1. Secondary commercial markets. Even though you may think the major labels have all commercial radio stations wrapped around their dollar-laden pinkies, that's not quite true. Remember, big labels are struggling to be profitable. They've got smaller staffs and thinner marketing budgets these days.Visit this page to order a back issue of the magazine.
When it comes to commercial radio promotion, the big boys focus on the major markets -- New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and other big cities. That leaves a small crack in the door for acts that focus on commercial stations in smaller cities (called secondary markets).
2. A high-quality, radio-ready recording. While airplay opportunities may exist for indies in secondary markets, the quality of the recording submitted still needs to be top-notch before a commercial station will consider it.
One radio promoter quoted in the article recommends that indie artists pursuing a radio marketing strategy should spend their money recording, producing and mastering just one or two songs. With radio, you don't need a full album. You just need at least one killer radio single.
posted by Bob Baker @ 1:22 PM 1 comments
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So I guess it would be a safe bet that even if you have an indie album, it would be worth the money to pick one super strong song and have it mixed by a top pro using the original tracks and mastered by another top pro. This would give you a strong radio friendly song you could send to all the stations, which you duplicate yourself on and put in a basic package.