RADIO AIRPLAY 101 - The Stations

The Stations
No conversation about music marketing would be complete without the word RADIO rearing its ugly head time and time again. Few songs sell well at retail without it. None sell millions without it. You've got your CDs manufactured...now what can YOU do about it?

Radio is one of the MASS MEDIA that record companies use to promote CDs to a wide-spread audience. It is the only medium that gets songs to an audience on a REPEATED basis (meaning, a person can hear a song on a particular station 20 or 50 or 100 times...just compare that to TV, film, print...or even touring.) So the question stands: How do you get your songs on the radio? With this and following installments of Airplay 101, we will look at what radio avenues are realistically available to indie bands and indie labels, whether or not you use an independent promoter.

The Total Number of Available Stations

Radio is broken down into two main categories: Commercial and Non-Commercial. If your favorite station promotes itself on billboards and TV, and if its commercials are "in your face", then it is a commercial station. But if it never seems to have blatant ads for itself, and if its "commercials" are very "soft sell", then it is a non-commercial station. The two types of stations are treated very differently as far as airplay is concerned.

There are approximately 10,000 commercial stations, and 2,500 non-commerical stations, in the United States. Here is a rough breakdown of the ones that have new-music formats:

Commercial:

Adult Contemporary	692
Hot Adult Contemporary	335
Modern Adult Contemporary	59
Soft Adult Contemporary	376
Adult Album Alternative	75
Urban	176
Urban Adult Contemporary	103
Rhythmic Top 40	61
Top 40	292
Spanish	495
Rock and Modern Rock	306
Alternative	103
Country (all forms)	1,990
Jazz	85
Smooth (contemporary) Jazz	80
Classical	32
Kids	36
Religious	1,067

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.

Next topic: Which Stations to Choose

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Contact
For a complete description of our airplay campaigns, including pricing, send an email to airplay@radio-media.com