How to Get Radio Airplay (Indie Music Chronicles) – Part 1

Radio has been connected to many of my personal childhood music memories.  Most, if not all, of the artists who I admire I discovered via radio.

Any artist, whether they admit it or not, has wanted to hear their music play on the radio at one time or another.  So, once my first album was completed back in 2008, I did like any other artist with a dream would do:  went on a quest to get my music played on the radio.  I looked up stations whose formats matched the style of the album and I called, emailed and sent packages.  My publicist did the same.  The only terrestrial (non-internet) stations that responded were WHUR (my alma mater’s station), WELS (near my hometown in NC) and WPFW.  I was excited to get played, yet discouraged that only 3 of tons of stations responded.

After tons of meetings with program directors and radio on-air personalities I realized something:  many of them liked my music, but none were agreeing to play it.  So, I re-grouped and sent packages exclusively to internet radio stations and voila… the response was overwhelmingly positive.   At least 80 different stations picked up my tunes.  I was overjoyed.   Later that year, I took time to reflect on our radio campaign and I was still frustrated that both groups (terrestrial and internet) liked the music, but overall only one played it.   And I noticed that whenever I turned on terrestrial radio, I heard seemingly the same eight songs playing over and over and OVER.  Read between the lines good people… $$$ (oops, did I say that?).

My new project has a bit more of a pop/funk feel to it, so we wanted to visit those types of terrestrial stations and see if the response would be any different than what we’d experienced in the past with the urban stations.   Take a look at the video here and see for yourself… 

In Part Two, I will explain what our radio strategy is for the new album and what yours should probably be if you’re an indie artist (without a lot of money).

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