mathematics Radio Spins: The Million Dollar Advice by Wendy Day of the Rap Coalition www.wendyday.com
It’s no secret that I am a fan of artists putting out their own CDs. It’s also no secret that it doesn’t matter if the artist is trying to start his or her own label or selling CDs to get picked up by a bigger record label. When putting out a CD, all aspects must come together to promote that release (and the timing must be on point. All aspects must hit at the same time to be truly effective). It’s important that you plan succinctly, way ahead, and have budgets for: Marketing, Street and club promotions, Touring, Publicity, Advertising, Events (attendance at conventions and consumer events), Video promotions (if you shoot a video), Tools (posters, flyers, flats, postcards, t-shirts, etc), Radio play, Pressing (of the singles, mixed CD, and/or actual full length CD), etc. Anytime you start a business, there are costs involved. The music industry is no different. If you plan to put out your own music, you must be able to properly afford it or you are just wasting what little money you have. It’s also important to have someone reputable on your team if you aren’t going to hire a consultant to guide you. While I set up a free website years ago to help people put out their own CDs (www.rapcointelpro.com), no website can tell you whom to hire, which service companies are best, or who is genuinely good at what they do. Experience, connections, and being inside the inner circle in this shark-infested business are the only ways to know who’s who. Truth is, even the folks who are at the top of their game today may slack off (or be too busy to help you properly), or be replaced by a newer, more hungry and aggressive person, and become the worst at what they do in a matter of months. In addition, there are a slew of folks in this business who make gobs of money from taking advantage of people who don’t know, aren’t experienced, and who can’t smell a con man a mile away. Most people lose money in this business. Independent radio promotions is one of those treacherous areas where an artist or label can lose tens of thousands of dollars with nothing to show for it. Hell, experienced people can lose a shitload of money here, too, not just new people. It’s important to have a goal when going to secure radio spins. That goal must be more significant that just wanting to hear your song on the radio. Radio spins are not for artists trying to secure a record deal, nor are they for people without a healthy promotional budget. If radio spins led to a good deal that secured an artist’s career successfully, everyone with $50,000 to spend would have a successful career in the music business. And they don’t. If you look at the top selling artists with careers (NOT the one-hit wonders), not one of them got a deal from having radio spins. There’s a good reason for that. Having radio spins does NOT guarantee CD sales. However, spins do often equal ringtone sales ($2.99 each) and single download sales for 99 cents each, which make the record labels salivate at the thought of quick one-off money, but it has yet to build the career of a serious recording artist. Would you rather be The Shop Boyz or Jay-Z? Would you rather have one hit song like “Laffy Taffy” or be putting out your 9th CD like Snoop with multimillion dollar touring opportunities, film and TV deals, endorsements, and other income producing opportunities? So there is really only one reason to go after radio play: to sell CDs. Any other reason, and you are just taking away a potential slot from an artist who has his or her shit together and came with a plan. There are two kinds of radio promotion people: 1) The kind who promise you 300 spins a week (no one can promise you an exact number because it depends on what other songs are out, how hot your song is, and how well it researches at radio), take your money ($15,000 to $40,000), and then deliver whatever spins they can get you (usually 45 a week to 230 a week) at any radio station where they have a key relationship. 2) The kind who understand what your plan and goals entail, and deliver the stations within your marketing territory with which they have relationships, in a time frame that meets with when your other promotional efforts are hitting. These promo people are few and far between. If you are releasing a CD independently, and the South is the market you are targeting, radio spins in the Bay Area, St. Louis, Milwaukee, or Detroit are not helpful to your goal. No radio promoter should deliver spins solely where they have relationships unless you are a major label targeting the entire US. And even then, the majors work region by region so as to impact their limited budgets. So should you, on a smaller scale!
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Most radio promoters will take your money if you don’t know what you are doing. They have families to feed. If you are stupid enough to try this route without the proper knowledge or a plan, they have every right to deliver to you what you are seeking: radio spins! When it doesn’t work, you will complain that the radio guy took your money. You will neglect to mention that you were also at fault for not doing the proper research! Radio is expensive. There is no way around that. I work the region on the streets and club level getting the record hot long before going for radio. I build it from the ground up so that it has legs. Then, I take it to radio in smaller markets first. For example, I would hit the smaller markets surrounding Atlanta like Macon, Albany, Greenville, Columbia, SC before I ever went into Atlanta. Atlanta is an expensive market to work on the streets and at radio, so I prefer to get my record bubbling in smaller, more affordable places. If the market favors club hits that people can dance to, that’s what I work. If the market favors more calm ride-to-it type songs, then that is what I work. I match my singles to the markets and bring what the market wants. I never try to force records on people because I’ll lose unless I have Def Jam or P Diddy sized budgets. Kanye’s “Jesus Walks” was a huge hit for Def Jam. It most likely would have been an expensive failure for an indie label. It’s much easier to get the attention of a major program director once I have spins in smaller markets, than to show up to a music day and say “Play my shit, it’s hot!” Very few records are really hot and there is no rhyme or reason to what catches on. So it’s important to test your record before you go full out on the budget. Better to lose $10,000 or $20,000 to find out you didn’t have anything than to spend $80,000 out the box to find the same thing out. Once your song begins to spin, it’s important to keep supporting it in the marketplace. I offer the artist for free to the station for a show, or back up the spins through promotional tours or by doing give-aways with the station (tenth caller receives a free t-shirt, gift card from a store, a free CD, etc). There are also times when you have to believe in your record even if it isn’t catching on quickly. Songs that took a long time to catch on were Webbie’s “Gimme Dat” and “Bad Bitch,” Soulja Boy’s “Crank Dat,” Nelly’s “Country Grammar,” etc. The key is being experienced enough to know when it’s a good record or when to stop throwing good money after bad. There’s a term in radio called “researching.” Research is when a radio station does a telephone poll amongst listeners. They play a portion of numerous songs and ask people if they can identify the song or the artist. If listeners don’t respond to your song, the station takes it out of rotation. If the research comes back positive, the program director will often bump up the spins because it means listeners like the song. It’s important for radio stations to play what the mass of listeners want to hear. Radio is based on ad sales (commercials) and those prices are set quarterly by how many people in the market are listening. That’s called “share.” Share is all that matters to the radio station because that sets their pricing or income. If Gangsta Grillz Radio in Atlanta has a 10 share, and their biggest competitor in urban music has a 40 share at the station across town, the radio station that airs Gangsta Grillz will make moves to replace the show, no matter how much you or I enjoy listening to it. Everything in radio comes down to numbers and money. Everything! Lastly, I want to remind you that as you go for radio spins, you must have a competitive song. The sound quality must be as good, or better, than everything else at radio. This means it must be made in a professional quality studio, not your basement. It needs to be professionally mixed and mastered. I use Tony Rey at Dirty South in Atlanta for mixing (I manage him) and Big Bass Brian and Bernie Grundman in L.A. (I wish I managed him) for mastering. They are the best at what they do, in my opinion. If everything currently at radio is at 92 BPMs, don’t bring in a song at 80 BPMs. It won’t mix with the other songs properly. On the flip side, if everything currently at radio is slow, don’t come in with a super crunk dance record trying to get it spun. Learn how radio works and you are that much more likely not to lose your entire life savings going after the all-important radio spins. And for heaven sakes, don’t ever offer anyone at radio money to play your damn record! That’s illegal! //
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