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.
 

If you are just moving into commercial radio for the first time (and all you've done so far is non-commercial radio,) then you need to start off with the specialty/mixshow charts first. Then if successful, you can proceed to the regular rotation charts (at a much higher cost.) You do not need to subscribe to these chart magazines, since your promoter will give you the pertinent information you need each week. You WILL need a promoter, however, since charting in these charts (regular rotation) is beyond the scope of the do-it-yourself artist/label.

FMQB: The name stands for Friday Morning Quarter Back, and it is available by subscription only. FMQB is a nice starting point for commercial radio for, since the specialty/mixshow charts and regular rotation charts use stations which, on the average, are smaller than those the other charts use (but by smaller, don't think they'll be easy.) Advertising in FMQB is reasonably priced and not over crowded. If all you do is chart in FMQB, then you have accomplished more than 99.9 percent of all artists out there. FMQB has an AC, a AAA, and a pop-mixshow chart in the printed magazine; an alternative-specialty chart available by email; and a metal-specialty chart available on their site.

HITS: It's available on many newsstands and by subscription, and since it sometimes includes specialty charts for alt, rock and urban, it is kind of a good all-in-one. Hits includes some of the larger stations that R&R includes (which makes it more difficult), along with some of the smaller stations that FMQB include (which makes it easier.) But make no mistake: It is difficult and very expensive to chart regular rotation in Hits.

RADIO & RECORDS: This is the biggie for commercial radio. This magazine does not include small stations in their charts; Therefore, you will have charted in all the other charts before you get into R&R. (This makes R&R almost as difficult and expensive to work as Billboard.) R&R is available at bigger newsstands in NY and LA, and of course by subscription. While it is possible to chart in R&R's specialty/mixshow charts, an indie band has very little chance of charting regular rotation in R&R without spending enough to buy an new house; competition is too fierce, and you are battling all the major labels. The only exception to this would be the Christian and Spanish charts.

Non-Commercial (consists of college, community, and NPR stations):

Stations that are not listed here are either news/talk, oldies, foreign language (besides Spanish), traffic info, or some other non-new-music format.

THE CHARTS
Regardless of what you were thinking were the "charts", you should familiarize yourself with radio-only publications that "track" airplay (as opposed to tracking retail or ticket sales.) Also, you need to be careful of the word "chart", because confusion will inevitably occur if you do not specify what chart you mean: "Charting" in the "trades" or magazines is what most people mean when they use the word "chart", but it is constantly mistaken as meaning charting on an individual-station's chart, or "playlist". The first chart is an average of many stations, while the second chart is from just one station.

A long-standing entry-level publication for this purpose is CMJ (College Media Journal). With the variety of genres that it covers, and with its acceptance of up-and-coming projects, you can get a good feel for what you are competing against in the radio airplay world. If you are hiring an airplay promoter, then you do not need to subscribe to CMJ or other charts, but you do need to know how the charts work. Note: Your music MUST fit what college stations play, in order for CMJ to be of use to you.

CMJ is the starting point for non-commercial (mostly college) stations. It comes in two versions...the consumer's monthly version (found on some newsstands) which is called the New Music Monthly, and the professional weekly version (available by subscription only) called the New Music Weekly. The professional version is the one that is of interest here.

With its seven different weekly-airplay charts, the weekly version covers the seven basic areas of music heard on college radio. They are Alternative (called the TOP 200 chart,) Metal (called the LOUD ROCK chart,) Electronic (the RPM chart,) New Age/World (NEW WORLD chart,) Hip Hop, Latin Alternative, Jazz, and Singer-Songwriter (AAA chart).

Forget Billboard...For an indie act with a limited budget, its airplay charts are impossible, since they incorporate sales. Other charts such as R&R and FMQB are possible, however, and we will get to them later.
 

You may not know it, but you can "hire" your own record deal (and by "deal" I mean marketing (not making) your music) if you know what level of people to look for. After all, if you were to be "signed" to a real label (with real backing), the first thing they would do is hire the needed marketing people to get the record going.

Yes, labels have some staff people to do some things, but the larger the label, the MORE external field-staff people they hire to get the job done. You can hire some of these same field-staff too. Since I'm writing a radio airplay article, I'll emphasize radio, and then touch on the rest. I'll also show four different levels: Major label deals, major-indie deals, indie deals, and grassroots deals.

RADIO: Most all labels have staff people to call stations, but the responsibility of these people is also to hire-out for indie promoters. Indeed, it is the indie promoter's sole job to talk to the stations, and then report back the results to the label.

Grassroots Deals: These radio campaigns hire college, mixshow, specialty, and/or small market regular rotation indies, and are under $10,000 for the radio budget for one song/album. This amount would cover manufacturing and postage too. You can hire all the same people for your project that the grassroots label does, and thus not depend on what the label might or might not do. Besides, some of these grassroots label deals are offered by people who don't know anything more about marketing than you do.

Indie Deals: These folks know what they are doing, but are limited in budget. They have maybe one full-time radio person, and this person hires one to four separate indies to do the radio work. The radio budget might be $10,000 to $50,000 for one song/album. This is about as high as a newcomer like yourself would want to attempt on your own; you would hire the same indie(s) that the indie label would have hired (and in general, these indies will take your project.)

Major Indie Deals: These have several in-house radio people, and they hire out from two to five indies, from $50,000 to $300,000 total. You cannot easily hire these indies; they will only consider your project once it is successful in the smaller markets, and once it has at least indie distribution.

Major Deals: These are the big five; their radio budgets are $300,000 to $1 Million, and they hire from 3 to 15 separate indies. You cannot hire these indies; they take major label accounts only. The only exception might be a record that has worked its way up to R&R or Billboard charting, and has major distro, press, touring, etc.

PRESS: Like radio, grassroots labels hire PR people/firms to obtain publicity. You can hire the very same PR firms for yourself for about $1,500 a month, and you'll want to do it for at least 6 months. You can expect a total of about 10 articles in small magazines/newspapers/zines/sites. These smaller PR folks generally don't ask for distribution first.

Indie labels would hire a full campaign at about $3,000 a month, and you could do the same. These PR folks, however, may start wanting indie distribution first, however, and radio too.

Major indie labels would be spending $3,000 to $5,000 a month on one or two separate PR firms. You can't really hire these folks until you've got good indie (or major) distribution, and at least small-market radio.

Majors labels will spend $10,000+ a month each on 2 to 5 separate PR firms; You cannot hire these PR firms yourself.

RETAIL: After your radio and press are going, you can hire a grassroots-level person for retail promotion for $1000 a month for 6 months, plus commission. Indie-level would be one firm for $3,000/mo plus commission. Major-indie would be $5,000/mo, and major $10,000/mo, but you cannot hire these last two.
 

How is web radio (and downloading and file sharing) going to impact your efforts in reaching mass numbers of people with your songs? Fortunately, for those who have studied media (yes, "media" is a topic in and of itself,) there is an answer that we can use. But you need to separate "radio" from "web" in order to understand it.

"Radio" (web or broadcast) is the "cause" step; it causes the awareness and desirability of a song to be built. "Downloading" (and file sharing) is the "result" step; it is the result of what happens after radio causes the song to be desired. And this is true whether the radio and downloading are free or not.

Web radio will soon be just another box that we tune-in to. The biggest web stations (meaning the ones that have the most listeners) will be run by those that know how to run big stations: Traditional radio operators. There will always be tons of small stations (web and broadcast)... just as there are already tons of small AM and FM stations (there are 12,000 stations in the U.S. alone.) But most listeners, since the beginning of radio, have always been concentrated on just a few stations on the dial. Why? Because those stations can afford to promote themselves. Adding a few more thousand small web stations is not going to affect the balance that much... most listeners are still going to be packed into a few (200 or 300, worldwide) big stations, just as most web users today are packed into just a few search engines, even though there are thousands of search engines to choose from (bet you didn't know that!)

So, just like today, the future of radio will consist of key stations (web or broadcast) that you will want to get your songs onto, in order to reach the most people. 50 big stations (web or broadcast) that reach 50,000 people each will always be preferable to 5000 stations that reach 5 people each... because of the amount of work it takes to get on EACH station. (Note: As of the year 2003, the average number of listeners to a web station is less than 1. Yes, that's less than one listener per web station, on average.)

Thus, what happens in the future is that the difficulty in getting your songs on the big web stations becomes the same as getting your songs on the big broadcast stations. It's just like if you were opening a new restaurant: It's more difficult getting your new restaurant into a crowded mall than it is getting it into an area that is deserted. It's always more competitive when there are a lot of people.

Next, add to this the fact that within a few years you will not have to manufacture CDs anymore (all stations will play music files directly... mp3 or otherwise), and what you end up with are artists and labels with a lot of money saved that they are going to use for promotion (phone calls, email labor, visits.) This will make it imperative that big stations get the most push to play your songs, because they will (and are) getting the most push from everyone else. This is nothing new... it's the way music and radio have worked for 80 years. And even before radio, when the best you could do was have your songs sung in theaters and music halls, the biggest places always got the most push to use certain songs, because those places had the most people.

As for "downloading" a song, it will always be the end result of hearing that song. Nothing changes here. And no matter which "result" you want... charging for a download or giving it away for free... the "cause" is going to be the same: Hearing it on a web or broadcast station (or, of course, live.)

Thus, the amount of work it takes to get your songs heard will always be directly proportional to how many listeners you are trying to reach, just the way the bigger clubs that you want to play in are always going to require more work in order to book, compared to the small ones. Amazing!