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Radio Airplay 101:
Commercial Stations, Part 1
by Bryan Farrish - November 2000
Back to Radio Promotion 101
In the last issue we covered airplay on non-commercial radio stations. In this issue (Part 1), we describe
commercial station operations.
Station Employees
DISC JOCKEY: He/she is also known as a DJ, talent, airstaff, or jock.
SPECIALTY SHOW HOST: Does a one or two-hour show, usually on the weekend or late at night, using music that may
not be suitable for regular airplay (rotation).
MUSIC DIRECTOR: Handles most of the telephone calls from
record companies and indie promoters; opens most of the mail from record companies.
PROGRAM DIRECTOR: Decides who and what goes on-air.
PUBLICITY DIRECTOR: Decides what free-mentions will be given, sometimes within special show-segments designed to
highlight local
activities.
SALESPERSON: Also known as an AE (account executive) or rep (representative); works with local and national companies,
attempting
to get them to advertise on the station.
GENERAL MANAGER: Oversees programming, talent, sales, news and engineering. Very often, the GM comes from a sales
background.
WHO DECIDES ON AIRPLAY. On commercial stations, the program director (PD) is the person who decides which artists
gets played and how much (i.e., the amount of "rotation" or number of "spins".) If someone
other than the PD tells you your CD is playing, then you may not be getting accurate information. The music director
(MD) does provide input to the PD, but the DJs generally do not. Thus, calling and talking to a DJ on-the-air is
of no use. As for specialty shows, the individual hosts pick their own music, but just
for their one or two-hour show that airs usually late at night. (These shows are also called "mixshows"
or "new music shows".)
P1, P2, P3. These are the sizes of the audiences of a station. For example, a "P1" station might be a
top rated station in Austin,
while a "P3" station might be the bottom rated station in Austin. However, a middle-rated station in
New York would still be a P1,
since it has so many listeners, while the top-rated station in a very small town would be a P3, since it has very
few listeners.
CHARTING VS. SALES. "Charting" a record on the airplay charts, and "sales" of that record,
are not the same thing. They require
two separate promotion approaches, and usually only larger labels are able to do both at the same time. Beginners,
almost every
time, become infatuated with "charting" their record, and then they wonder why it does not sell. If sales
are critical to you, then
a lot of emphasis will need to be placed on the indie promoter.
MULTIPLE-STATION OFFICES. One of the first things your promoter will have to adjust to when calling commercial
stations is that
several differently-formated stations have the same office, phone/fax, and employees. When you are calling a Country
station and
you hear Alternative music on hold, this is why.
STATION REVENUE. Stations make money with one thing...advertising. Advertising is when a company pays the station
to create and air a commercial which advertises the company's product. This is why the station was built, why it
operates, and why the station employees get up and go to work each day. A commercial station is in the advertising
business...it is NOT in the music business. Its job is to accumulate listeners, and then sell these listeners to
advertisers. It makes no money when you sell your CD, and it makes no money when they play your CD. As a matter
of fact, they actually PAY money to play your CD, through BMI etc. (albeit, very little.) So it all boils down
to advertising...the more listeners (ratings) a station has, the more each advertiser pays to
advertise. Note: 80% of a station's advertisers are in the same city that the station is in.
THE WEB. Still a novelty to stations, the web is certainly gaining in importance. But no matter how many "web
listeners" a station
has scattered throughout the world, it can still, for the most part, only sell advertising to the local businesses
that it currently
sells too.
Next issue (Part 2): How to promote to these commercial stations.
Bryan Farrish
is an independent radio airplay promoter. He can be reached at 818-905-8038 or airplay@radio-media.com |
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