Chapter 8: Promoting to Radio
You’re in your car, driving down some lonesome highway at 2 AM. Maybe, like Tom
Petty, you’re singing Runaway, along with Del Shannon. Suddenly, your tune comes on
the radio. You pretty much go nuts. Hold on Sparky. Don’t hit the brake, or worse, the
gas. Sure, your songs being played but it’s just a start. Getting on the radio isn’t an easy
task, but there are steps you can take to put your best foot, or song, forward.
You might be hearing that radio is a diminishing influence on music buyers. But that’s
a myth. At least it’s a still a myth at this point in time. Radio is still the in the forefront of
record sales and will likely be so for a while. It’s a main gun in a label’s arsenal.
Radio and the labels have a symbiotic relationship. They need each other. Labels need
an outlet for audiences to hear their artists and, subsequently, buy records. Radio stations
need a constant flow of new music to appease and entertain their audiences so they can
sell ads. So, it follows that if the label can supply great music that listeners love, the radio
station builds its audience and can sell more ads, often for more money. There sometimes
are a few shady deals, but often the two work together toward a mutually beneficial end.
Labels and radio stations, for example, might work together to host or promote a concert.
Other times the label will fly an artist or band in for an interview or an in-store signing
event. When it works, everybody wins and gets a piece of the artist’s income. The artist
wins too because of the promotional value. That can easily turn into ticket and merchan-
dise sales.
In chapters 5 and 6, I discussed podcasts, Spotify and Pandora. They’re arguably the
easiest ways to get on the radio, albeit Internet radio, and there are still those dang hoops